A Tangent Regarding Intent and Result with OLPC and Pornhub

        As we close in on the end of the course and prepare to vote, I'd like to make a change of pace with my post this week: Revisiting a topic we discussed earlier in the semester: The importance, or lack of importance, of intent.

        One of the first videos we discussed in class was a segment from The Daily Show where Samantha Bee shed light upon the hypocrisy of an oil company painting fracking drill-bits pink and donating 100 thousand dollars to the Susan G. Komen foundation. At the conclusion of our debates, we had never reached a unifying consensus on the issue. A large number of us argued that money is money and the company's ulterior motives weigh little into the fact that a donation was being made. The rest held that philanthropy is more than just giving out handouts, a donors intention is just as if not more important.

        3 years ago, the pornographic video site, Pornhub, underwent a several philanthropic campaigns. The company intended to raise breast cancer awareness by offering free breast exams and donating money for every view on specific categories of films. At the end of their month of campaigning, their videos had ammassed over 74 million views. However, when the organization offered their donation to the Susan G. Komen Foundation, it was rejected. In response, the website tripled the donation and split the money amongst several other charities. Did the Susan G. Komen Foundation make the right decision? If the foundation's mission was to raise awareness for breast cancer and work towards a cure, how does millions of views and thousands of dollars not work towards that goal? Does Pornhub's subjectively moral questionability matter at all? Does it matter that Pornhub gained a lot of positive press and attention as well as visits to their website?

        In a past tweet, I mentioned how the One Laptop per Child Foundation worked to bring technology to impoverished children to empower self education and learning augmented by the power of connectivity, and computing. Their most famous initiative was dubbed "Give One Get One". G1G1 allowed people to obtain one of their laptops by buying two machines: One for the purchaser, and one that would be sent to a child in a developing nation. The program was widely lauded and successful, or so it seemed at first. After years of the program, investigators uncovered an uncomfortable truth. A large portion of the computers sent abroad were popping up on grey markets like ebay. The recipients of the laptops, or their parents, held their monetary value over their educational one and were selling them online. OLPC had a mission of improving education in third world countries by utilizing the power of technology, but instead, their efforts fell through: The G1G1 program ended soon after.

        These contrasting examples of philanthropy are intended to make you question the importance of intent again. Would you rather give to an organization with good motives and lackluster results, or would you give to one with questionable or more ambiguous motives but concrete numbers to show their effectiveness? Are donors to G1G1 at fault for failing to foresee the program's side effects? Do your current thoughts regarding the "Pink Fracking" video match with your original impressions?

        I hope that this tangent from the normal blog posts is a nice departure to what may sometimes feel like more of a fight for one's opinions as opposed to being about philanthropy itself. No matter what our final decision is, I don't think anyone can say they haven't left with a new understanding of the entire concept of giving and we should remember that more than our vote.

Expectations vs Reality: What have we really learned?

As this process is coming to a close, I'm am left wondering what I truly learned from this process and the class as a whole. Did we learn to become generous, caring people? Did we learn to focus that generosity to make effective change? How did we learn this?

When deciding if a class or lesson was meaningful, I try to deduce whether the class taught me facts and information or if it changed my perspective. Obviously, this class was able to do both very effectively. We all know a bit better how to filter through unworthy organizations to find those that deserve our philanthropy. In addition, the first half of the class was able to change our mindset(s) on the very definition of philanthropy and everything it entails. My issue is about how to merge those very important lessons into this current process; has the group aspect of the process whitewashed all the personal changes we've experienced?

For the first half of this class, I had started to question many of my values and their respective importances. "Why do I stand by this value?" "How does this value align with my core self?" "Why does this value even matter?" I also kept asking myself what the point of all of this was. Why did any of it even matter to my life? There were so many personal dilemmas that I couldn't solve at that time. By now, I had expected to find myself closer to some resolutions of those introspective questions. I must say that I had completely forgot about those vital questions until I started writing this very blog post. I question what the presupposed goals of this process were and what actually will come of them.

I anticipated that the point of the process was to become more firm in our values in order to defend our choices. We were taught how to better communicate our values, but I don't feel that has been needed. In theory, it seems that it should have been necessary, and maybe it was for some, but I feel it has not been an important factor. After all, values are completely personal and subjective, and there's no way to logically deduce that your values are better than all others. Then I ask: Why emphasize the importance of personal values if this entire process is about compromising and forfeiting values? At this point there seems to be a dichotomy between group giving and personal giving.

With group giving, values become arbitrary by the very nature of collective decision making. There are two scenarios: 1) Everyone has the same exact values, which leads to the ability to make a decision based solely logistical choices or 2) People disagree on values and make compromises to find a middle ground. It still seems like personal values in choice 2 are still important, but I'd argue that core values are heavily tied to one another, which are then tied to the individual's mindset as a whole. The collective "mindset" becomes unique from the mindsets of each individual. At that point I'd say that everyone's values are compromised in some way, which leads to no one feeling attached to the filtered choices. The best course of action should then become to just find the most logical decision. In either case of 1 or 2, the decision becomes based on logic, but with choice 2, the emotional aspect becomes moot.

To bring it back to this process, I don't think there's a single person who is entirely satisfied with the outcome so far. No one's personal values dictate that these were the best choices, so no person feels emotionally attached to whatever decision will be made. Well then I'll ask: Why didn't we just choose from the start the organizations that have the objectively biggest impact using facts and data? What was the point of using values and emotions to filter out organizations when none of us are emotionally satisfied with the outcome? Can you say that this process has made you more confident in your values, or would you say that this process has taught you to become detached from your values?

A Reflection

Hello everyone!

So I'm going to be honest; I'm really not sure what to write about this week. Sure, I could spew a bunch of facts about Family Planning to you guys but, truthfully, I'm tired. I've come to the realization that fighting for what you believe in can be quite draining sometimes; I don't feel defeated but I do feel a bit deflated, if that makes any sense. To clarify, I do have a strong connection with Family Planning: through my research I see a need in the Broome County community for what they are trying to accomplish and I believe both in women's rights and the importance of access to certain reproductive health care services for everyone, regardless of income. However, I do believe there is a difference between a connection to a charity's mission and an emotional connection to the charity itself. I don't believe that I have super strong emotional ties to Family Planning, and if it seems that way, I feel the need to apologize for that. I would hope that we could all separate our emotions from our task at hand, which is to provide up to 3 of 5, all equally deserving, non-profits with a reasonably sized grant. I'm normally very quiet in class, but I decided to out-rightly support Family Planning because I believe in its mission and what it is doing for the community, but that does absolutely not mean that I don't support other charities and want them to "lose".

I feel a little bit confined to what group I was placed in and it honestly sucks that I couldn't go do site visits for each charity, but that was just not feasible with the time-frame we were given, transportation issues, and with scheduling, as I'm sure everyone else would agree. Last Thursday we were asked to discuss what we feel we can all do to learn more about the finalists and do so in a way that isn't super combative or too personal. One of my suggestions was that everyone should strive to do their own research, outside of class, on each of the finalists instead of expecting or waiting for all of the information to come from the representative group. Yes, each group supports a specific charity and is in charge of relaying their site visit experience, but for this week, as we narrow down our 5 to a 1, 2, and/or 3, we should also try to answer our own questions and share that information with each other; we should help one another be as informed as we all can possibly be so that our final decision is effective and ultimately a joint decision. I know it is completely impossible for everyone to be totally satisfied with the outcome, but maybe if we all put in the effort together, we'll at least make wise choices. I know that I'm still continuing to do as much research as I can, not just on Family Planning, but on all of the charities so that I can definitively support who should be our final non-profits; I hope everyone in class will join me.

After reflecting on my own experience so far, my questions to all of you are: how is everybody feeling with this process? What do you find to be the hardest part of making such a big decision in a very specific time-frame?And finally, what are some questions you still have about a certain charity? Maybe we can all help each other clarify and learn in the comments or at least see what our classmates are thinking about and hopefully address them in class.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you all have a great week!

Public Relations and its connection to philanthropy

For my blog post this week, I am choosing to discuss a topic I find of great importance for both our class and for my future career. I have talked quite a bit in class about how excited I am to be pursuing a career in Public Relations. Therefore, I thought I would try to find some connections between philanthropy and Public Relations and how they interconnect, both in positive and negative ways.

Let's start with the positive aspect of how these two important ideas feed off of one another. Good Public Relations strategies help a non-profit/philanthropic cause shine. Think for a moment about our top 5 contenders that we as a class selected. How did each organization convince us that their causes are the most worthy out of the 50+ options we were allowed to choose from? One might argue that we had our individual biases about which organizations we wanted to choose, however, I am going to argue that the groups we chose all had a convincing story to tell. This is esentially what PR is there for: telling a story, making people believe that your cause, event, candidate, etc. should be on your radar of importance. 

The other side of this interconnection that is not so wonderful is this idea of "corporate philanthropy." A simple way to describe corporate philanthropy is when companies get involved in some sort of act of philanthropy to be in the media/public eye's good graces. This to me is a bit concerning. We have been discussing a lot in class, particularly towards the beginning of the semester, about the power of intent. I have been battling this question in my head as we have continued the semester, and even writing this blog post entry. As someone who is about to have two years of specific training in PR tactics such as understanding audience and social media analytics, I can't help but wonder if this corporate philanthropy is causing more harm than good.

The undeniable truth is the in order for companies to continue making profits, they need to uphold their reputation and the best strategy is by implementing acts of kindness and philanthropy. For one of my tweets of the week, I shared this link that gives a much more vivid breakdown of how Public Relations employees look at the value of added philanthropy. According to this site, philanthropic giving by companies does make an actual difference. It was also interesting to see that certain types of philanthropic causes generate more heightened media attention such as education, community development/housing, healthcare and children.

Here's my personal take, a resolution (or compromise) on how to make philanthropy come from the heart while benefitting companies and their repuations. What if companies actually went out into the community more instead of just writing a check? What if employees were required as part of their training/initial orientation to learn about the value of philanthropy or at least have a better understanding of the philanthropy their company supports and why that organization is essential to the greater good of the community? This article gives some excellent suggestions instead of just taking the easy way out with a signature on a check.

I would love to hear your thoughts!

Clarification on Mom's House

Hello everyone! This is just an additional post to amend the error about fundraising that was made in my group's Mom’s House presentation.
So Charity Navigator uses two calculations that focus on fundraising (described here in detail).

            The first is “Fundraising Expenses.” This is the percentage spent on fundraising compared to the total expenses of the organization. In 2012, the total expenses were $269,898 and the fundraising expenses were $31,278. This would mean that 11.6% of expenses went towards fundraising. This is considered to be very good by Charity Navigator’s standards (if you would like to see more detailed scores for different types of nonprofits, check it out here).

            The second measure is “Fundraising Efficiency,” which is the amount of money an organization spends to generate a $1 of donation. Here’s where it gets a little confusing on the Form 990, but after talking to Prof. Campbell today during his office hours this is what I found.

           “Gross income from fundraising events” = $84,304

           “All other contributions, gifts, grants, and similar amounts” = $137,379

            Therefore, total fundraising earnings before expenses = $221,683

            “Total fundraising expenses” = $31,278

This doesn’t include government contributions. It does include fundraising “events” like candy or flower orders. So, the fundraising efficiency comes out to be $0.141, which means that Mom’s House spends 14.1¢ to raise $1.00, making a 85.9¢ profit. This is considered somewhere between average to very good by Charity Navigator’s standards, which you can see in the link above.

Clarification on Rescue Mission

(Note: this is meant to be a blog 'comment' but I have posted it as a 'post' to increase visibility) 

Dr. Campbell and some other students in the class expressed confusion as to the religious nature of the Rescue Mission. I would like to clarify on that:

Yes, the Rescue Mission is a Christian organization.

No, the Rescue Mission does not force residents of their shelters to attend Christian religious services. The only thing that the Rescue Mission does encourage is that residents volunteer in various events in order to give back to the community, just as the community is giving to them.

Many people in the class have also expressed concern over the need for donation bins when the Thrifty Shopper is capable of receiving donations itself. The simple answer behind that is what Kyle pointed out multiple times during our presentation yesterday: the Rescue Mission knows how to run a business. When trying to grow and expand a business, it is important to capitalize on new markets. I believe someone (I apologize for not remembering whom) yesterday made the comment that if people really wanted to donate clothes, they could just drive to the Thrifty Shopper instead of going to a bin. While that may be true, the purpose of the bins is to attack people in new markets who do not really want to donate clothes. They are searching for the market of people who have clothes to donate, but have not yet donated because of a lack of convenience.

Though the argument can be made that I am comparing apples to oranges, the Rescue Mission's need for donation bins is for the same reason that there are 367 McDonald's in NYC: to capitalize on new markets. Capitalizing on new markets in the Southern Tier will help the Rescue Mission to generate more revenue, allowing them to build a women's shelter and expand their services in the future.

As this topic seemed quite controversial in class, please reply with any arguments/concerns/comments that you have below. I think that it is great that so many people in our class can have differing opinions on our organizations, and I think that it really contributes to the process of learning how to work together as a group and decide on our final grantees. 

What I Am Looking Forward To

A lot of the posts recently have voiced how disappointed they are with the process we went through thus far. Although I feel the same way that the process could be improved, I want to look to the future and the last few weeks of class.

I am looking forward to group presentations this week the most. Like everyone else, I have my concerns about all of our finalists. I feel like we rushed the process and may have chosen prematurely before we had all of the facts like Jason said in his post. I hate to admit it, but I did have some questions and reservations about the Rescue Mission even though I volunteered to be their liaison. But all of my questions were answered when I went on the site visit. I feel like as a class, we only learned so much from the presentations from the organizations in class. Many of us may have left class with unanswered questions and unaddressed concerns. I think the site visit went so well because we were not limited to 20 minutes like we were in class and we could be immersed in the organization itself. It is obviously much different to be somewhere physically as opposed to pictures in a presentation. At our site visit, I got to learn how the Thrifty Shopper worked and most importantly, how our grant could make a difference.

I still have questions and concerns about our other four finalists, but I hope that they will be answered in this weeks finalist presentations. I think that we will all get a better idea about how our grant could make a difference. I know that many of us have also been questioning how successful these organizations are and if they are truly making a difference. I am hoping that these questions will be addressed as well this week, as we should not give to an organization that we feel isn’t worthy of a donation regardless of what their request is. We must be confident in their mission and how they are achieving it before anything. I just wish we had more time to determine if our finalists were worthy of a grant before we had to pick them.

I just want us to make the biggest difference that we are capable of with the $10,000 we were given. I am looking forward to the award ceremony where we give the money away during finals week. I am sure it will be so fulfilling to see the joy on the faces of the organization representatives. I think after all of the arguing is over, it will all be well worth it. I may be an optimist, but I believe we will all be happy in the end knowing that the money went to a worthy cause to help people who are in much greater need than we are. It will also be fulfilling knowing that we made a difference in our community, which I am sure is a core value for many of you, including myself.

What are you looking forward to?