Monthly Archives: September 2015

That’s a Wrap!

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By: Emily Foreman, BBA ’16

Well, that’s a wrap for conference calls! This week we finished up our conference calls and took time to meet with our teams to think through and process the information we received on the calls. After my group and I got the first call under our belts, we quickly realized there was no reason to be nervous because for the first time ever, we were on the other side of the call. We did not have to prove something to the organizations, but we got to take on the responsibility of a question-asker and a diligent listener.

My overall impressions of the organizations were positive. I really cannot emphasize it enough: the leaders of the organizations have, across the board, impressed me. They each hold a deep drive and vision that they represent well. Even for the executives that have been leading for ten or more years, I never saw a lack of vision, but I saw people who were dedicated to see their mission come to pass. It is not everyday that you can talk to people who live with such purpose like these leaders. It was a humbling experience because we are speaking to people who dedicate their life to serving and creating paths for people through these non-profit organizations. Throughout this experience, we are not just giving away money, but we have the privilege to walk away from this experience changed. We are being changed in the process through the relationships we form, research we do and observations we make. I am thankful to be going through this shaping season with my classmates – watching and getting close to these organizations are molding us from the inside out.

This week, I actually got to see how this class was already affecting my life and others. I have been researching “hunger and homelessness,” and while I was at Sonic with a couple of my roommates, I saw a homeless woman whom I frequently see around town. I sat down with her and just started asking her how her day was going. It ended up being a thirty minute conversation that ended with the chance for me to share with her some services and organizations that are dedicated to helping people in her position. At that moment, I realized that this class was not going to be like another class at Baylor, but this was a class I can take with me everywhere I go, even to a Sonic on a Friday afternoon. I was able to refer her to organizations and get her into the hands of people who would take her in.

Overall, this week was refreshing just to be able to sit back and listen to the passionate executives talk about their visions and dreams for their organizations.   However, now that the conference calls are over, I am beginning to experience feelings that are bittersweet about the next step. As we continue to move forward, I cannot help but be excited because that means money is going to be placed in the hands of organizations that are passionate about making a difference in the Waco community. But, as we take our next steps, that also means we have to let organizations go. As we become more knowledgeable, our hearts also start to get attached to the organizations we represent and we hold tighter to these organizations. As a class, our next step is to have our very first board meeting. I am looking forward to our very first boardroom discussion, which is coming up on Tuesday. This will be a chance to hear all about the other organizations and get to stand up for the organizations that we are passionate about.

About the author: Emily Foreman is a junior, Business Fellow majoring in Marketing with minors in Religion and Public Relations. She is passionate about people, social justice, children, and seeing the church be the hope of the world. She could see herself in the long run working for or managing a non-profit of her own.

A Changing Perspective

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By: Eugenie Schieve, BA 2017

After a week of conference calls it is safe to say that the next steps will be incredibly tough. My group, Culture Arts and the Environment, has already spoken with eight amazing organizations, and we are hoping to speak with three more next week. Each organization is deserving of a grant. The difficult moment comes when we must decide which groups we would like to continue working with. No organization is more or less worthy than any other. Each and every one has a common goal to boost the cultural sector of Waco—whether it’s through education, beautification, music, or fine arts. So how can we pick? In order to make the process a little easier, my group and I have discussed the main values we want to consider when deciding the organizations we would like to continue working with. We are looking for organizations with passionate workers, attainable goals, and a strong desire to improve the Waco community overall. Perhaps most importantly, we want the partnerships we make and the grants we give to create a sustainable impact.

 What truly makes this process difficult is that philanthropy is a business that can’t function as traditional businesses do. This isn’t simply a financial transaction. Philanthropy incorporates the elements of business along with personal partnerships. In We Make a Life by What We Give, Gunderman compares philanthropy to the detached process of vaccinating. While vaccinations make a significant impact on the community, “We simply tell patients to roll up their sleeves, make the injection, and send them away.” He asserts that, “We need instead an image of philanthropy that stresses active cooperation and partnership.” After speaking with our organizations, I understand Gunderman’s statement. You can’t examine an organization solely as a business model. Even during a short phone call, it is impossible to ignore the passion in a director’s voice.

It seemed like an easy decision when selecting an area of interest. I grew up in a family who always emphasized the importance of art and creativity, and I’m also and environmental studies major. After the first week of phone calls however, my perspective on the importance of culture, arts, and the environment have changed completely. Prior to speaking with our organizations, I felt like culture was important to a community, but somewhat secondary to the basic needs of a society. What I have learned has opened my eyes to the value of culture in a community. A community with a strong cultural arts foundation is the key to a thriving community. It is what causes people to stay in a community, and attracts creative minds from all over. Cultural arts create a strong sense of community, which families want for their children. Furthermore, a city with a strong basis in the cultural arts is also a city with a strong sense of pride. No longer do I see culture, arts, and the environment as secondary to the development of a community, but instead a priority in creating a holistic community.

 

About the Author: Eugenie Schieve is a junior from Austin, Texas. She is majoring in environmental studies and minoring in German. She is interested in international policy and environmental justice. Eugenie is an active member of the Golden Wave Marching Band and her sorority Tau Beta Sigma.

Looking Forward

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By: Cara Duniven, BBA 2017

We have finally begun making our conference calls with our organizations. My team, Culture, Arts, & the Environment talked to four different organizations yesterday, and will talk to more tomorrow. We asked questions ranging from what their organization’s most difficult decision has been in recent years to questions about financials and additionally what goals they have for their organization in the next 3-5 years. One of the most important questions we asked them was about their grant funding ideas in the event that we are able to partner together. We heard many different and exciting thoughts. Some were ideas for new programmatic grants while others had a more brick and mortar mindset.

It made quite a difference talking to the voice behind the organizations, and to hear their very heart and driving force. In about 30 minute phone calls we heard more from the directors about their organizations. In this short amount of time they were able to transform something we had researched and analyzed into a real living entity. Each has its own stories of successes and failures, through which these loyal, passionate leaders remained. It is impossible to still examine these organizations with a removed, distant attitude after hearing from their own mouths the zeal with which they serve their mission.

After these calls and looking ahead to the others we will make, it amazes me how many incredible non-profit organizations there are with a passion for the Waco community. In class we have discussed a quote from Giving Well Doing Good by Amy Kass. She asks about philanthropy, “should its energies be directed mainly toward securing the floor—removing obstacles such as poverty and disease, somatic and psychic—or toward lifting the ceiling—promoting excellences such as learning and the fine arts?” For our Culture, Arts, & the Environment organizations, the focus is not so much on fixing pressing needs, but rather on “raising the ceiling,” or improving the quality of life. These organizations seek to educate and broaden the mind of all ages from students to parents and everyone in between.

We definitely will have our work cut out for us in the weeks to come when we have to reconvene as a board of directors to narrow down our list of potential recipients. I am thankful we created a mission statement as well as guiding principles early on to help direct the process. It will be important to remember going forward our commitment to Christian compassion, service, humility, integrity, and collaboration.

About the Author: Cara Duniven is a junior from Dallas, TX. She is a Business Fellow majoring in Accounting in French. She is an active member of Pi Beta Phi sorority. Her interests include coffee, books, tennis, and travel.

Research– Paving the Way for Conference Calls

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By: Rachel Shriver, BBA 2016

This past week, we focused on continuing to research different organizations in our various program areas and scheduling conference calls with these organizations. Specifically, last class we reviewed the best practices for conference calls. These best practices focus on creating clear, effective communication with these organizations during the conference calls so that we can make the most of our time with them.

Completing the research this week has allowed us to start understanding these organizations’ missions, how they serve, their background, their financial status, and more. We are scouring news articles, TV news stories, organizations’ websites, and using Guidestar to gather every bit of information that we can so that we will already have a familiarity with the organizations before we talk with them. We are also sharing all this information with each other in our program area groups to insure that we will each be active participants during the conference call and understand enough about the organizations to go deeper with them to get more details.

This research has been very informative and enlightening, not only about individual organizations, but in the vast differences that there are in organizations, even ones with similar missions. In my research, three major differences in organizations emerged:  the way each organization serves a given need, the amount of structure within each organization, and the manner in which each organization was founded.

Even when the organizations have a common need they want to serve, they go about it in vastly different ways. Some have a heavier focus on educating while others have a heavier focus on social needs. I have seen programs involving mentorship, education (religion, work, and life skills), tutoring, counseling, and physical needs to name a few. Each organization has a different approach and yet there is no way to rank these approaches because they all meet the needs in different ways and are doing a lot of good.

Organizations also have a wide variety in the way they are structured. We see organizations ranging from those that have no or maybe one paid employee to organizations that are highly structured with a full staff. While it may be easy to focus on the organizations that have impressive websites and lots of clear processes, it is important to keep an open mind as we learn more about these organizations. Some of these organizations may simply be newer and therefore not be fully developed, yet even the highly structured organizations at some point were at a less developed stage.

The other major difference that I noticed was the different way each organization was founded. Some are part of national charities that have formed a Waco chapter.  Others are being led by people who have started programs like this in other cities and have moved and are now starting one here. Still, others are simply started by caring, loving people who have decided to start an organization to serve a need (sometimes a need they even found themselves facing in the past).

As we prepare for conference calls, we keep these differences in mind while also keeping an open mind about these organizations. We will also keep in the back of our mind our mission statement which should serve to help us evaluate these organizations.

About the Author: Rachel Shriver is a senior from Austin, TX. She is a Business Fellow majoring in Economics and Mathematics.

The Weight of Joyful Compassion

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By: Justin Downey, BBA 2016

Now that each of us in the Philanthropy Lab has discovered our program specializations, we are now initiating the relationship-building phase of the semester with our non-profit partners in the greater Waco area. What this looks like practically for our six teams in the Philanthropy Lab starts by putting in a fair amount of research about our partners and scheduling conference calls to better understand who we’re working with and all the incredible things that they do.

I have the privilege of working on the Human Services & Civil Rights team and am blown away by the work being done by each of these phenomenal organizations. Digging deep into anything we can find on these different organizations is quite an eye-opening experience because it marries the philanthropic principles and values we have been discussing as a group for the last few weeks with real people and stories that carry a tremendous value. My team will be getting to know organizations across the spectrum, from legal clinics for immigrants to sexual assault prevention/care centers. What a joy it is to learn from these pioneers in justice!  Seeing the fruit of our passionate partners is equally inspiring and challenging. These local leaders work so hard to better the Waco community and do so in truly innovative methods.

One particularly challenging thing I have encountered thus far as part of the Philanthropy Lab is being moved deeply with compassion and feeling compelled to action for the sake of my local community. Seeing how great the need is in Waco has driven those before me to take action, and now it is my privilege to join their ranks. The weighty compassion I have learned to carry in my heart has come from having a vibrant faith and opening myself to see what the heart of God is for His sons and daughters, some of whom live in extremely harsh daily realities only a few a minutes from my own house.

James 1:27 reads, “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

I fully believe that this is a perfect picture of God’s heart for His own people here in Waco, a two-fold challenge in the manner that we live both internally (remaining unstained) and externally (visiting orphans and widows). My prayer is that all 21 of us that have the privilege of serving on the Philanthropy Lab this semester will learn to joyfully carry the weight of Christian compassion deep in our bones for the people of Waco and partner with the passionate people we come to know through this process. As we begin this relationship-building phase with our local partners, I am fully confident that this joyful compassion for others will only grow deeper into our hearts and blossom into something beautiful that each of us is able to carry well into the future.

 

About the author: Justin Downey is a junior from Richardson, Texas. He is a third-year Business Fellow studying Non-Profit Marketing and Religion. Justin is at Baylor preparing for ministry and feels called to a life-long career in church-planting and leadership development around the world.

Filling the shoes

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By: Kendall Tillman, BBA 2017

Our class can now say we have truly learned about what it means to become program officers. With our mission and core values solidified, we have begun preliminary research on our assigned organizations and are in the process of scheduling conference calls for the upcoming week. We have learned the different kinds of proposals we will be receiving from organizations ranging from capital, operating, and programmatic, and discussed our thoughts on each type. One question our class struggled with was: Are capital and operating proposals less meaningful than programmatic? We discussed whether each type of grant would help raise the roof an organization, or simply secure the floor. I don’t think this question is easy to answer, or if there is even an answer. I think reviewing grants given in previous semesters allowed us to see the impact all three types of grants could have and have had on these organizations. I find it extremely encouraging to look back at grant recipients and see the amazing work they are doing with the funds.

A concept that we highlighted in class from our reading in We Make Life by What We Give was the idea that all gifts are important, regardless of their size. Gunderman writes “ A person may write a check in a minute, but the effect of that act may be much less significant than a face-to-face interaction over hours with people in need”. This statement serves as a humble reminder for our class as we act as program officers during the weeks to come. It can be too easy to professionalize what we are doing. Though we will conduct research, perform analysis, and ultimately make decisions, we cannot forget that this process is people-centric.

 

About the Author: Kendall Tillman is a junior from Houston, Texas. She is majoring in Supply Chain Management with a minor in Spanish. Kendall has a passion for social justice and is actively involved with the International Justice Mission, and SHEisfreedom, a non-profit that seeks to provide a safe house for survivors of DMST.

Upcoming Expectation

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By: Daniel Burguete, BBA 2016

As of last week, we have switched – for the time being – from our roles as directors of a philanthropic foundation to our roles as program officers building relationships with nonprofit organizations located in Waco, Texas. This transition was only possible due to the following reasons: our foundation’s mission and guiding principles were decided upon collectively, teams were assigned to specific program areas, and – most importantly – the class developed a better understanding of philanthropy’s definition through serious reflection. With that being said, our duty as program officers for the following weeks will be to research a variety of organizations’ missions, inner workings, long-term goals, and so forth – quite a daunting task if you ask me.

Now, although I do not doubt – not even for one second – that we have the capacity to do a great job, I do wish to take some time to remind ourselves of something we do not want to lose sight of, and which is perfectly illustrated by Gunderman’s We Make a Life by What We Give: “In medieval Europe, a man came upon a large construction site. He saw one workman fitting two stones together. ‘What do you do?’ he asked. ‘I am a stone mason,’ the man replied. Then he walked over to another worker, who appeared to be engaged in the same task. ‘What do you do?’ he asked. The man replied, ‘We are building a cathedral.’ The two men operated with very different images of their mission. One focused exclusively on the task of the moment, not looking beyond the limits of his own arm span. The other saw his immediate task in the context of a much larger calling.”

In hindsight, this quote resonated with me not only because it helps me put our work as program officers into perspective, but also because it is a common occurrence in medical school (where I am headed after graduation). Medical students’ empathy seems to erode through medical school all too often. For instance, physicians often fail in the aspect of humanity when they end up treating the disease, rather than the whole person whom has a name and life outside of the clinic. Perhaps physicians forget they are indeed human after being constantly tested, grinded, and disoriented during their first two years of medical school. Nonetheless, my hope in medical school is to be like the latter of the construction workers, seeing patients holistically and helping them understand that getting better is an emotional, social, and spiritual process.

In conclusion, I hope we can keep our mission – to enrich individual lives and our community at large – close in thought during the upcoming weeks so that we may avoid being myopic in our research and collaborations.

About the Author: Daniel Burguete is a senior Business Fellow and Entrepreneurship major with a minor in Biochemistry. His parents emigrated from Guadalajara, Mexico to reside in Brownsville, Texas – a city in the Rio Grande Valley. This past summer, Daniel worked as a clinical research intern at the Baylor Scott & White Health Hillcrest. As an aspiring physician, he hopes his focus in philanthropy prepares him to see patients holistically and as more than just a collection of organ systems that may require treatment.

How We View Philanthropy

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By: Jon Bonem, BBA 2016

As of yesterday, our analysis of local charitable organizations is officially underway. We received our sector assignments earlier this week on Tuesday and the six different teams have begun our initial analysis of our respective groups. I was placed in the hunger and homelessness sector. Thus far we have planned who is going to focus on each particular organization, we have coordinated our schedules and have each begun research on our organizations. It is exciting to get our process off the ground, but slightly frightening at the same time.

I think we would all say that we are still working to grasp what philanthropy means to each of us individually and collectively as group. Thankfully, as we have tried to become students of the subject of philanthropy, we have been guided by challenging texts and a broad range of thinking on the subject matter. There is no doubt that these texts cannot be handled and processed as one would read a simple novel. Each reading poses questions that leaves us no choice but to ponder and wrestle with the questions left unanswered.

One of our most recent readings challenged us on our fundamental understanding of why we give and what the primary aim of our giving is. The text led us through different models of giving including egoistic, compassionate, scientific, and liberal giving. It became clear that before we can give effectively, we must understand why we give. The answer to this question is foundational in defining the success of our giving. For example, if my sector chose to give out of compassion to meet the immediate needs of food insecure individuals in Waco our selection process would look vastly different than if we decided to give to prevent food insecurity from arising to begin with. I think as a class we have come to the conclusion that while there is a place for meeting the immediate needs of the community, we must also focus on giving in ways that entail longer timelines and are focused on fixing the underlying problems.

However the most pressing concern brought about by our most recent readings is how we as a class view the poor. Anna Faith Jones, the former president and CEO of the Boston Foundation, said these words, “Poor people in this country are too often seen as the objects of philanthropy rather than as the agents of change. The image we have of the poor makes a difference in what we do, and how well we do it. And the problem starts with seeing the poor as “them”.” While the money we give is crucial to these organizations, we cannot forget that we are working to create change in a community and that the most effective agents of such change are the community members themselves. We are tasked with giving to local charitable organizations and I think we must push ourselves to ponder the significance of the local perspective. As we begin to engage the heads of numerous organizations, we will have the opportunity to learn from members of this community that can provide us with a wealth of knowledge. Rather than viewing these individuals and the individuals they serve as simply “the poor,” we must acknowledge that they are in fact the very agents of the change we desire to fund and foster. Thus, I believe it is important that we seek out organizations with deep community ties and active community involvement. We are about to enter into a number of partnerships, and while we may have the money, it is important to know that our money cannot solve the problem on its own. The resources we have been entrusted with our simply one part of a much larger equation.

About the Author: Jon Bonem is a senior from Bellaire, Texas. He is studying Finance and Economics with a minor in Mathematics. He is a Senior Analyst in the Baylor Angel Network and active in his fraternity Kappa Omega Tau. This past summer, Jon interned with Main Street Capital Corporation in Houston, Texas and will be returning to Main Street after his graduation this coming May. Jon hopes to be pushed and challenged on his fundamental views of giving and philanthropy through his time in this course.

Uniting Strategy and Service

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By: Sarah Underwood, BBA ’16

Yesterday was a very exciting day for our group of twenty-one budding philanthropists. We took some of our first steps out of theoretical discussion on philanthropy & the public good, and began delving into the actual nitty-gritty processes of our strategic decision-making. We walked through the outline of questions used to evaluate the various organizations we will be encountering. These questions are meant to give us a sense of the organizations’ leadership, financial management, strategic planning, and the efficiency of their operations. We are supposed to ask ourselves questions such as “Can the organization show evidence of its outcomes? Does an organization spend too much on personnel at the expense of its mission? Are the financial statements of the organization audited?”

We also received our sector assignments, and met the people who we would be working with closely throughout the rest of the semester. We examined the list of nonprofits to which we will be directing our focus. We developed a plan for learning about the organizations, by researching them on their websites, social media sites, and a special nonprofit information service.

All of these things are good and necessary for what we need to accomplish, but you may have thought while reading through this description, that they seem merely procedural or are lacking the thoughtfulness and passion that has been evident in past class discussions or blog posts. I can assure you, this is the last thing that our class wants. Having spent the better part of two weeks pondering the human condition, carefully defining philanthropy, and thoughtfully crafting our mission, we understand more than ever the importance of unifying our commitment to strategy with a loving heart of service.

I have a good friend who recently started medical school. He informed me of a huge discrepancy he saw in some of the doctors he encountered; some viewed medicine as merely a challenge for their intelligence or a career to make a lot of money, while others viewed it as a profession in which they truly served the patient. Both types of doctor yield the same result, curing the illness or healing the injury, but there is a huge difference between merely providing physical healing, and doing actual good in the lives of another human being.

I think this idea carries over into our goals of philanthropy. No matter how we approach it, at the end of the semester, we will give away large sums of money to various organizations. But if philanthropy is an action, the attitudes and values behind the action are equally as important. This is where our mission statement comes in. Our hope is that in the midst of all the procedure and strategy we never lose sight of all the things we have determined to be of utmost importance to us.

Our Mission and Guiding Principles:
Through strategic stewardship of resources and thoughtful partnerships with Waco-area organizations, we seek to enrich individual lives and our community at large in lasting, sustainable ways.

We are committed to the following principles, which guide our work:

• Christian compassion
• Service
• Humility
• Integrity
• Collaboration

About the Author: Sarah Underwood is a 21-year-old Baylor senior from Brownwood, Texas. She is studying Accounting, with a minor in Spanish. In her three years at Baylor, she has devoted time to serving and leading through her sorority, studying abroad in Spain, and serving as a leader in various New Student Programs. In the spring, she will take on a public accounting audit internship with KPMG in Houston. She hopes this philanthropy course will cause her to think deeper about what it truly means to give, and to become a lifelong philanthropist.

Spirit of Philanthropy

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By: Luke Ungarino, BA 2017

We’re now entering the third week of our philanthropy course.  So far we have been doing assigned readings on the subject at large, trying to grasp an understanding of its technical parts: the terminology, the essentials of a good mission statement, etc.  This is to be expected for the first few weeks on a subject that my classmates and I have never formally been exposed to at Baylor.

However, I was surprised to find in these readings a recurring theme of things much less practically oriented than what I initially expected our “textbooks” to cover.  Even amidst the most informational-concerned readings, at the core of each writer’s works were messages I rarely come across in other class readings, emphasizing things such as moral development, the joy of giving, mutual service, etc., all with the underlying primacy of charity.  Every writer expressed this element of charity one way or another, but always in the context of a virtue rather than simply giving.  The emphasis on charity, often referred to as the spirit of charity, wholly transcended the concern of the monetary, a concern that one would expect the world of philanthropy to revolve around.

This point of charity in our readings truly surprised me.  I expected to get a foundational understanding of philanthropy in our beginning texts, explaining the ins and outs of tax exemptions and the buzzwords in organizations’ mission statements.  But of course the foundation of philanthropy is much deeper than these practicalities. The core of philanthropy, or its heart, is simple, concrete, and the essence of our humanity: it is the spirit of charity, the mutual love that people crave and find fulfillment in doing. Our philanthropy readings often touch on profound truths of the human experience, perhaps because some of these truths are much clearer seen through a lens focused on charity.

This centrality of charity can easily and understandably be perceived as lofty or obvious in the classroom setting, and could even be considered teaching virtue (something people have been wary of as far back as Socrates in his dealings with the Sophists). To tell someone about virtue holds little merit.  We must put it into practice.  Which is why I am most excited about the coming parts of the semester.  The material in our textbooks was the preparation, but now as we get our section assignments and begin to research organizations with our team members we can understand what the spirit of charity looks like in reality, pursuing what I call an experiential knowledge.  It is this experiential knowledge, as opposed to the knowledge we learn from the classroom, that cultivates our character.

A proud New Orleanian, Luke Ungarino concentrates his studies in political philosophy and ethics. He is discerning a vocation in ministry, though entrepreneurship and education are also possibilities. He lives with seven other Baylor students who host “Convivium,” a monthly lecture series in their apartment featuring academics speaking on all things relating to modern culture, religion, and sexuality.