By: Rachel Shriver, BBA 2016
This past week, we came together as a class and began to focus on preparation for board meeting two.
We took time to meet as focus area groups and critically examine our site visits to narrow in on the organizations that we want to move forward with. This process is more complex than it seems on the surface. While there are core characteristics that anyone would want to see in an organization such as passion of staff and volunteers, vision for where the organization is going, and efficiency and impact of the organization, there are also more specific characteristics that relate to our mission that we must consider. On top of all these considerations, we know that there is only a fixed amount of resources to distribute to these organizations, which is where the true difficultly comes in. Even though we may want and believe strongly in many organizations, only a few can be given grants. Determining the best way to distribute these funds brings together so many factors that making decisions is complicated.
We met as mixed focus area groups in which all different areas of philanthropic organizations were represented. We used this time to begin to learn more about the organizations that different groups have decided to move forward with and, more specifically, the grant ideas that they want us to fund. Learning about these organizations and their grants will cause us to be more prepared as we approach the board meeting this coming week.
While we have already shared about each organization’s purpose and their grant ideas, the board meeting next week will allow us to drive deeper into the details. This will be our opportunity to share with fellow class members the research we have gathered about each organization’s current effectiveness and the expected effectiveness of proposed grant ideas while further explaining each organization’s mission, structure, background, and anything we found striking from our site visits.
Personally, this class has really opened my eyes to all the good being done in Waco and has proved to me that all our efforts can make a big difference. We have gotten to learn about such a wide range of organizations in various stages of development. Honestly, some of the more newly formed organizations have impacted me more. In these cases, we were usually able to talk with the person that created the organization. I was struck by their boldness – their strong desire to help, passion for the people that they are serving, and realization that the effectiveness of their nonprofit will impact people’s lives and could change the path that those they serve are on. The stories I heard from both newly formed nonprofits and long standing nonprofits really showed me the transformational impact that their work is having on people’s lives. It is incredible and moving.
About the Author: Rachel Shriver is a senior Business Fellow, Economics, and Mathematics major from Austin, TX. She hopes to use all that she learns about philanthropy to continue to search for causes she is passionate about and make a difference.