By: Idowu Disu B.S. 2019
Sometimes it’s the journey that teaches you a lot about your destination. – Drake
We are nearing the final stretch of our philanthropic journey! The days and weeks following Pitch Day flowed into one another rather quickly. Shortly after Pitch Day, we had an in-class meeting with a group of private benefactors who were interested in gaining more knowledge about the organizations that we had interviewed with the intent of potentially bestowing a grant to at least one of them. At the close of the meeting, each group was instructed to compose a collection of detailed organizational summaries as a means of facilitating future dialogues with the benefactors. A few class sessions after being introduced to the benefactors we were given the opportunity to view a presentation from Todd Phillips, the founder and president of The Last Well, a Christian non-profit organization whose mission is to bring potable drinking water to Liberia through filtration and building wells while spreading the gospel of Jesus. The presentation was very moving and inspirational. In it, he spoke of the humble beginnings of his organization as a youth Christian group, and how it was from the passion and dedication of a gathering of young adults to change the world that it was able to overcome its initial obstacles and grow into what it has become today. He not only spoke about sustainability and successes, but of the unintended residues that have come from the existence of the organization. Before The Last Well came to Liberia there were settled regions of the country that the world had no idea existed. After the presentation ended Mr. Phillips extended an internship offer to anyone in the audience who was interested regardless if they had the ability to pay or not.
Several days after The Last Well presentation the second chapter of our briefing books was due. The completion of the second chapter of our briefing books meant that we were now faced with the unenviable task of writing rejection letters to the organizations that did not make it to final-cut in the granting process. But on the upside, it also marked the time for preparation for site visits. In order to prepare for site visits, under the guidance of Dr McDaniel we broke up into our teams and had targeted discussions about what questions should be presented to each of our organizations, as well as any red-flags that we should be vigilant of. I cannot speak for other teams on this subject, but after that meeting my group conducted a financial analysis of every organization that we were considering for sustainability and fund allocation purposes. Site visits took place the week before we went on break for Easter. There really isn’t much to say about the site visits other than as we toured their facilities we asked them questions, took pictures, and took with us additional material to help us better understand the impact of their work. The Tuesday that we returned from break each team met individually with Dr McDaniel to discuss how our site visits went and to give him follow-up information about where we currently were in our decision-making process. On Thursday we listened to presentations from three of our classmates, then we had a discussion about when final decisions should be made. This upcoming week seems as though it will be very hectic for us. We have a lot of things happening really close together. On Tuesday each team has another individual meeting with Dr McDaniel afterwards we have to come together as a class to deliberate on where the remaining $10,000 in grant money would be put to best use. Then sometime later we have another meeting with the benefactors to help them make their potential donation. Then it will be time for us to present our final decisions.
I am so excited that we are only a couple of weeks away from bearing witness to the culmination of our semester’s work! This experience has been so surreal. I cannot believe that as an undergraduate student I took part in an initiative that has the potential to change peoples lives now and hopefully well into the future. For me personally, this has been an eye-opening experience. Before this class, I had no idea it took this much thought and effort to bestow a grant to a non-profit organization. Now I am left wondering what it would be like to work on the non-profit organization side.