By Lexy Bishop, BBA 2017
Our time on Thursday was spent clarifying our collective goal as a class, which we will later form into a mission statement. As the biblical proverb goes, “where there is no vision, the people perish.” Clearly, a sharp vision for what we are doing is important as we embark on our philanthropic journey. With such a complex undertaking, it is necessary for us to nail down our unified goal for the semester before we begin any work so that we are able to be as effective as possible. Focusing on the big picture on the front end and establishing guidelines for how we as a team will carry out the task at hand will be beneficial to us as the semester progresses. Our duty is simple in theory: to philanthropically invest the money responsibly. However, this assignment will become more complex than we initially imagined. So, when the small details for our decision begin to drag us down, our team can always return to our mission statement, sewn together with the things we as a group value and consider important, and be reminded of what we have set out to accomplish.
To help better understand what philanthropy is and the complexity of our project, our group has been reading through three books: We Make a Life by What We Give by Richard B. Gunderman, Understanding Philanthropy by Robert L. Payton and Michael P. Moody, and Giving Well, Doing Good by Amy A. Kass. Our time on Thursday was spent dissecting various readings from these texts and collecting important ideas that influence our view of philanthropy. Some concepts from the readings that stood out to us include the following:
- While our monetary gift is important and an honor to give away, we want to see ourselves give more than just money. We have a financial gift to bring, but more than that we have the opportunity to share the intangible gifts of time, attention, and knowledge.
- Our goal is not to decrease want but to create sustainable opportunity and generously share. There is mutuality in sharing.
- We want to follow after the Baylor principle of stewardship as we give of our selves with humility, gratitude, active cooperation, and self-reflecting knowledge.
- As a group, we want to be open minded to our peers’ ideas and backgrounds, as well as share our views to contribute and grow as a whole.
It is evident from these statements that our team’s view of philanthropy has already expanded in just a short week of studies. I personally have come to understand that philanthropy is more complex in nature than I had initially perceived. It is more than just donating money to a worthy cause, or sporadically volunteering your time for service. Philanthropy is a way of life, and through this semester I am looking forward to developing convictions and motives that implement the ideology of philanthropy into a life long call to action. It is exciting to look ahead at what is to come because I know that the rest of our time is sure to be a growing experience.
Lexy Bishop is a Junior Business Fellow from the DFW area studying mathematics and economics. Freshly returning from a semester abroad in Spain, her passion to be a part of what God is doing in the nations of the earth and her belief that the Church is the hope of the world has only intensified.