Monthly Archives: April 2017

The Difference between Tony Stark and My Classmates

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By: Julia Stricklin, BBA 2018

If you’ve been following our class blog, you know that we have finally made it to the most exciting part of our semester! Final decisions have been made, organizations have been notified, and invitations to the check presentation day have been sent. This is also the point in the semester when I look back to the beginning and see how much I’ve learned, grown, and changed. This looking back is what brings me to the title of my post today: The Difference Between Tony Stark and My Classmates.

I will be very honest: before taking this class, the first thing that came to mind when I heard the word ‘philanthropy’ was the scene in The Avengers where Tony Stark declares himself a “genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.” This scene, and an admitted lack of prior knowledge about the field, gave me the idea that philanthropists were people like Tony Stark – wealthy elites that threw huge sums of money at innovative projects. I didn’t see this as a bad thing by any means; it is of course a good thing to give money to worthy causes. But after this class, I see that philanthropy and philanthropists are so much more than what we see in Tony Stark. Our class has taught us to be truly engaged in our work as philanthropists, to put forth every effort to ensure that our money is given well. In that pursuit, we have investigated the particular needs of our community, and taken input from organization directors on how our funds would be best put to use. We have not simply taken an elitist view that we know best how to fix wicked problems because we have college educations, or something of the like. Another striking difference between our class and the Tony Stark philanthropist character is how much money we gave. Sitting next to a sum such as $1 million, our $50,000 may look small. But I’ve learned that doing tremendous amounts of good does not necessarily take a tremendous amount of monetary input. Our class’s largest grant was for $14,000, the rest were under $10,000 each, and a notable number of grants required less than $5,000. My final and favorite difference between Tony Stark and my class is our ability to come together. Ironically, just before Tony Stark labels himself a philanthropist, he says, “I don’t play well with others.” Well, that could not be less true of our class. To achieve the best work possible, we found that we had to collaborate. I can surely say that I could not have been as effective in the grant making process if I had gone it alone as an individual, so I am thankful for my small group I was able to work with. Not only that, but our class could not have granted as effectively if our small groups had not worked together as one larger group. After all, a sharing attitude is the best attitude to have in the pursuit of philanthropy.

As we finish our class, I am pleased to realize that Philanthropy and the Public Good has not produced a graduating group of Tony Stark philanthropists, but rather genuine, engaged, and collaborative doers of good work.

Most Insignificant Places

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By Ana O’Quin, BSW, 2020

Although we have spent the past semester diving into literature and insightful conversations, it wasn’t until the past two weeks that I feel that I finally understand the true meaning of philanthropy. I have experienced both the difficulty of the consideration that it takes and the great joy in the rewarding feeling of due diligence work. I have seen the ways that philanthropy works to combine individual passion with community work. I have seen the power of collaboration within philanthropy. I have seen that, ultimately, philanthropy is concerned with the greater good.

After hours of research, deliberation, and difficult choices, we have finally decided what organizations to give to! Not only was it a joy to make phone calls to tearful and grateful recipients, but it has been a blessing to see our other classmates and the incredible decisions they have made as well. When sharing news, it was clear that the organizations and people we have partnered with have become not only business partners, but dear friends. We are all personally invested in the people we have met, the nonprofits we are invested in, and the ideas that our money will hopefully make into realities.

When making the decisions to both say no or yes, it was easy to feel unqualified and overwhelmed. Now, on the other side, we see that our diligence in research, deliberation, and site visits were worthwhile. Although sad to say no to some incredible nonprofits, we are assured in our decisions and know that we will be making significant and sustainable contributions to fight against social justice issues. Most our groups decided to give money to organizations centered in Waco; this speaks to our hearts for our own community. We feel proud to center our philanthropic efforts towards our own town, and towards needs that we understand and have seen in our daily lives.

The highlights of the semester, by far, has been seeing the collaborative spirit that our class has developed. Instead of deciding to cling onto our own allotted 10,000 dollars, three groups joined money together to create a much more effective pool of 30,000. We then wrote out all the organizations we had chosen as priorities and their needs and grant amounts. Sitting in the basement of Moody library, we brainstormed, collaborated, and deliberated. With the selfless attitude of every group member, we were able to meet the grant needs of all the organizations we had identified, a feat that would have been impossible if we had not met together. It is in this, the pursuit of greater good, that true philanthropy exists. I laughed to myself as we sat with whiteboard markers in hand around a small table, making decisions that involved thousands of dollars. Sometimes, the most significant decisions can be made in the most seemingly insignificant places.

 

Collaboration

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Katie Yarbro, BSW 2017

Over the past few weeks, each group has worked diligently to find a balance in understanding the mission and vision of several organizations along with their desires as grant makers. This has required pages and pages of quantitative and qualitative research on the national, state, and local levels, as well as in-depth logic models of the impact our grant money would make in the short and long-run.

Each group then met with Dr. Hogue to further process their findings and seek guidance on the decision-making process from this point on. While this conversation was insightful, many groups were overwhelmed with the weight of the hard decisions to be made. Many of us felt that giving to one organization meant not giving to another. Dr. Hogue constructively encouraged each group to consider pitching one or two organizations to the entire class with the potential of rallying funds together to grant one or two additional organizations. On one hand, this was a refreshing reminder that sparked hope among the class, but on the other hand, we felt the need to gear up to defend the organizations we had so meticulously studied.

As we entered class last Thursday, we prepared to fiercely advocate for our particular organizations. Each felt certain we would achieve our mapped out desires only to learn that we kind of missed the point–or at least I did any way.

I so strongly believed that the organization I was representing was worth the time and money that I felt defeated when my classmates did not join in as quickly. On the flip side of this coin, this revealed the log in my eye. I have subconsciously deemed other organizations less deserving simply because I did not study them as intently. But when I removed myself from the competitive academic setting, I remembered that each organization is just as worthy as the next; that it’s not about who is right or wrong, winning or losing, it’s about people in need of help and organizations meeting those needs.

So rather than pushing against class unanimity, I chose to set aside my admittedly prideful desires of “winning” because ultimately, any money given to a local non-profit is beneficial to the community as a whole, which is the end goal. As a class, our hopes are that our funds would assist those doing the good, hard work and eventually that the Waco community would experience holistic transformation.

After compromises were made on behalf of many, our class has finally made decisions on the Spring 2017 grant recipients and we are excited to share the news with the community, so stay tuned!

 

 

Final Decisions

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Jacq Kasemsri, BBA 2018.

This course has not only shown me how much of an impact I can have on the greater good, but also how much greater of an impact a community of people can have. Working with my group members has taught me so much about philanthropy and the art of giving. We have met for many hours to discuss the change we want to see and what is the best way to achieve that goal. Throwing around options and having discussion with my group helped us to lay out an efficient plan on how to distribute our portion of the class money. Although we thought that we come to a conclusion on the grants we would make, a meeting we had with other classmates changed our plans.

The night before our second Board Meeting, three groups from our class met up to discuss how we could come together to help each other’s organizations. What ended up happening was something I could never have predicted: rather than discussing the leftover money a group had, we decided to think outside of the box. We pushed aside all our original plans on how to distribute our  group’s $10,000 and evaluated all the grant requests with the mindset of having $30,000 together. The result of this approach was more beneficial to every group’s organizations than our original separate plans. We completed multiple grant requests that we would not have completed as individual groups. After this, we even had leftover money to distribute between organizations that didn’t have set grant requests. This meeting really showed me how much of an impact this course has had on everyone in the class. By the time we had our second Board Meeting, we all were satisfied with the organizations we had chosen. Although it was difficult to choose not to contribute to some organizations, the support of our classmates reaffirmed our decisions.

My group specifically was troubled by that fact that we could not fulfill a wonderful organization’s grant request. However, with the help of our classmates and their faith in the organization’s work, we were able to fulfill their full $8,000 request. My fellow classmates have not only taught me that working together can be more efficient, but also have reaffirmed my faith in our generation’s generosity. One excerpt from Amy Kass’ anthology, Giving Well, Doing Good, that I felt really highlighted the other night’s success was from Marin Luther King Jr’s speech “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”. In his speech, Martin Luther King Jr. emphasizes the importance of unity. MLK insists, “either we go up together, or we go down together” (446). Our class has proven that we are working hard so that everyone in our community can go up together.

Decision Time

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By: Abby Callison, BA 2017

Tomorrow we have our second board meeting with the entire class. The purpose of tomorrow’s meeting is for each group to present to the other groups which organization(s) they have chosen to give their grants to. I am looking forward to seeing not only which organizations the other groups have chosen, but also seeing why the groups have chosen to give to a particular cause, and how they believe their grants will make a broader impact in the Waco community.

I can’t believe how quickly the semester has flown by! In reflecting on the semester thus far, I am amazed at how thoughtful every part of this course has been in preparing us to make this difficult decision. I am so grateful that as a class we were equipped to make this decision with the readings and exercises we completed at the beginning of the course. Studying the purpose of philanthropy, generative giving, and strategic giving really caused my group and I to think through the effects of our money in a much different way than we would have before. I think before this class, I would have been much more driven by emotion in my giving. While emotions are not necessarily a bad thing in choosing to give a grant, one should be very thoughtful in considering the potential impact your money can make. The work we have done this semester taught me to look much more logically and strategically at how grants can help an organization to serve its community well.

After site visits, I had no idea how my group and I would make our decision. Visiting each organization and physically seeing the work they are doing made me wish our class had a lot more money so that we could help every organization. However, since we are limited in our resources, we really narrowed it down to what grant could make a lasting, generative impact on the organization and therefore the community, and what organization could not complete its goal without our help. I am so excited for how each organization will hopefully benefit from the grants our class has the privilege to make.

The Logic Behind Grant Making

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By Diana Castillo, BBA 2017

We are so close! The end of the semester is approaching soon and our class is in the process of finalizing our grant decisions f. It is not only exciting, but also overwhelming. There are so many great partnerships with the different organizations and so many great options, yet the money is limited and the time is running out. This past week our class has been working on logic models for possible outcomes and on the class collaboration grant. Both things are important because understanding what a logic model is and how it can help in our process, then impacts how we choose to collaborate as a class and have the greatest impact with our grant.

According to The Essence of Strategic Giving, a “logic model [is] a formal explication of how a philanthropic intervention proposes to achieve its ends” (Frumkin 51). Within a logic model there are three theories: change, leverage, and scale. The theory of change is focused on the activities that are in play, outputs of what we would give, and outcomes of our decisions. Here, “the theory of change. . . commits the donor to a set or class of giving targets. The theory of leverage focuses on inputs, or the process for how we will decide to give all our grant to an organization or part of it. This part is key because here “leverage. . . increases the effectiveness of [our] giving” (Frumkin 53). Lastly, the theory of scale is focused on the broad public impact that each of our grants would have on the community of Waco. This theory “increases the impact of [the] giving” process (Frumkin 53).

When understanding what a logic model is, then we can go back to the planning boards and get working on some theories for how things could work out for each of the class’s groups. Our class has recently met up and made some big decisions about our collaborative grant. Having made those decisions helped our individual groups have a better perspective as to how we will be working within our immediate set of organizations that we are partnering with. With my group we interviewed about 8 organization at pitch day, we then went on site visits with 4 organizations, and now things get hard. There is definitely an organization that has won all our hearts and that makes it hard when you have monetary limitations and as a team of 4 students,we are only able to help a few of the organizations that we all so passionately want to help and fund. Although there is one in our hearts that we are willing to advocate for, the other three are also in our hearts and we are fighting hard to work out some logic models and make some other connections that would also benefit them. Overall, there is so much to do, so much to decide, and so much to give out, yet so little time. These last few weeks are crucial and I am hopeful for what is to come.

How Do We Do This?

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Haley Haskew, MAcc 2018

As the semester is quickly drawing to a close, we have now arrived at the long anticipated stretch where decisions are made and grants are given. At the beginning of this semester I assumed this would be a difficult decision to make, but after hours of research and site visits I am more eerily aware of what is to come. Although I am predominantly excited and eager to give to the community that has blessed me with a wonderful central Texas home, I cannot help but feel the weight of the countless other problems saturating our area that I will not address. The monetary limit of our grants makes strategizing and thoughtful decision-making all the more critical, so I have narrowed down the factors I believe should most greatly be considered in this process.

I believe that philanthropic action is best performed when focused on the people whom it is serving; thus, the most important implication to sift through is how your passions align with the potential grant recipient’s work. The most effective decisions are made when the grant maker is passionate about the people receiving help from the organization because the incentive to give well and strategically is magnified. Yes, philanthropy is most importantly aimed to benefit others, but it is also intended to create value for both parties partaking in the action. Grant-making is most impactful when it is stemmed from an organic desire to do good for a certain group of people or to address a particular concern, rather than just for the sake of distributing money to people in need.

Secondly, the efficiency of the nonprofit’s work should be carefully assessed. If the organization is unable to deliver satisfactory services to its clients then there is a risk the grant money will not be properly used and allocated. The grant maker’s passion and organization’s desires are irrelevant if operations are not meeting objectives and people’s needs. As a result, grant makers should diligently inspect the ins and outs of the organization to ensure processes are being properly performed. This is does not mean, however, that the grant maker should correct every little component of the organization’s work he or she disagree with. Instead, they should offer their thoughts and opinions while maintaining an attitude of respect and trust in the nonprofit organization.

Next, the effectiveness of the organization’s leadership must be adequately evaluated. Any group, whether it be a club, for profit company, or nonprofit organization is only as capable as its leadership. It is essential for management to not only be intelligent, committed, and talented, but also for management to promote unity, servant leadership, and employee/volunteer satisfaction. Grant makers should be unafraid to ask leader’s questions, especially regarding their awareness of the issues they are addressing as well as the impact of their operations.

Although these are not the only important factors to analyze when making a decision, I believe these considerations will drastically help as we decide where to allocate our grant money. We have some tremendously difficult decisions to make in the next few weeks that are going to quite literally impact a countless number of people. The answers to these questions will guide us to better understand where our resources can have the most profound impact on the Waco area as we strive to use philanthropic courses to better our community.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

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By: Shannon Foy, BBA 2018

Although the majority of the semester seems to be a distant memory in our rear view mirrors, it in no way downplays the amount of work our class has put into this great endeavor. Months of research, a pitch day, more research, and numerous site visits are all leading to the daunting but exciting inevitable destination ahead: giving the grants. I call it daunting because the impact of the decisions that we will make as groups and as a class is not lost on anyone. Through our research we have found the issues that we are passionate about and want to see change in. In pitch day, we heard and connected with so many amazing people and organizations that truly piqued our interest to explore more. The more research we did drove our passion about the issues further still. And finally, the site visits exposed us to the amazing work that each and every one of these organizations are doing on a daily basis. There was a sense of excitement but also apprehension, as we desired to not get too attached to these organizations knowing that we could still possibly walk away and not be able to give a grant.

But no matter what, there’s no looking back now. All of the work Dr. Hogue has prepared for and set before us to accomplish has fully equipped us for the decisions and hard choices that lie ahead. Knowing that full well, we must remind ourselves not to doubt our instincts, knowledge, wisdom, or passion that has driven us and shaped our incremental decisions all along. By keeping our vision and goal in focus, there can be no wrong decision. All of these organizations have gotten this far because of our confidence that we have in their mission and their work. Our group and class have also realized the amount of interconnectivity that the Waco social sector maintains between organizations; we know by even helping one, we are impacting numerous other organizations as well. Some look to the next decisions we have with fear and apprehension, as we know we will have to say goodbye to organizations we have grown to love and people we have developed such admiration for. So we must view our connections and attachment to the organizations, the people, and their work as a good indicator of our investment into this project and philanthropy in general. Looking around at my fellow passengers on this ride, I have seen how much we have grown in our knowledge and drive for not only these issues but also philanthropy as a whole since where we started our journey in January. As a class we have united with a common purpose: helping to serve and impact our community. Although hard decisions may lie on the road ahead, with them will bring great joy and impact that we can’t even imagine.

This is where the rubber meets the road. So ready or not, here we go!