Category Archives: Philanthropic spirit

Things Learned “Out There”

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By: Kendall Wood, BBA, Psychology 2020

We wrapped up our last class meeting Thursday at 1:45 pm.  This doesn’t mean our interaction as a class is over, though. The best day of Spring 2017 is yet to come!

This coming Tuesday we will hold a reception celebrating the grant decisions that each team made and awarding those grants to members from the organizations!  To me, this feels like Christmas Day and I get to be Santa Claus for the first time in my life. We’ve been anticipating this day all year, and it’s hard to believe it’s here.

Knowing that celebration was soon to come, Thursday’s class was dedicated to much reflection. Before class, Andy asked us to write down 3 things that we learned “out there,” in the field, with real people amidst real life. The discussion that followed was very unstructured, and we each got to share a few of the many life lessons that we gained over the semester.  Some of them are simple and don’t strictly pertain to philanthropy, and some of them are perspective-shifting and have influenced how we plan to give for the rest of our lives. I wrote down my 3 and jotted down more as my classmates shared their own.  This definitely does not encompass all the lessons learned for the entire class, but I connected and agreed with the following 8 lessons learned “out there”:

  1. How to run a meeting with an actual adult. — This one was serious for me. Being in a position of leadership over an older adult was a challenge at first, but the more we did it, the more comfortable I became, and now I’ve gained confidence in my ability speak maturely and act professionally.
  2. No amount of e-mailing or phone-calling will have the same effect as a face-to-face conversation. — Our generation is often inclined to limit our interactions in person, but this kind of work cannot be done without meaningful, face-to-face conversations. I found this to be true with my team meetings as well as meetings with nonprofit executives.
  3. How to ask good questions — Preparation is key to doing this.  Maggie McBride made a good point on this topic today, indicating that we owe it to our classmates to ask good questions because they depend on that information to make important decisions regarding our grant money.
  4. How much work the Waco nonprofits are doing. — I think we were all blown away by the amount of effort that is being exerted over seeing Waco prosper. It is exciting and humbling.
  5. Success comes from giving more than receiving. — Receiving will never be inherently bad, but there is a special joy that comes from giving, and only from that.
  6. Collaboration is the best way to see real impact. — My classmates’ blogs previously explained the incredible results that came from our decision to collaborate.  The impact of our grant money increased beyond what any of us had initially imagined.
  7. We choose our perspective of scarcity vs. abundance. — Viewing the world with the perspective of scarcity results in a lonely and cold life, always believing there’s never enough and that people are only trying to take from you.  However, viewing the world with the perspective of abundance results in a joyful life full of gratitude and warmth because you know that there is fulfillment in pouring yourself out for the sake of others.
  8. How to broaden your horizons in giving. — Many classmates mentioned that they ended up giving to areas of society that they never believed they would.  This just shows the passion of these students to step outside of themselves to see great work done.

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.

 

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.

The Plurality of Opportunities

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By Diana Castillo, BA 2017

We have made it! Finishing the first chapter of our briefing book was a roller coaster, yet it was an enriching experience. There were nights of struggles and nights of success, yet through researching our topic and learning more about what philanthropy is aimed to do, we feel more prepared for what is to come.

At this point, we have started learning about individual organizations assigned to us because they work, approximately, in the issues we’ve been researching. We have gone from learning theory to now diving into the more practical things. Pitch day is right around the corner and now we begin the journey of exploring the plurality of opportunities. There are so many great organizations, and each of them has something great to offer. And even though there is a variety of opportunities for what can be done with the resources we have, with time I know that we will be prepared to make wise decisions and truly make an impact in our community.

Pitch day, the day we meet face to face with some of our potential partners, is exciting and nerve-racking at the same time. There is so much knowledge to share and so many things to ask, yet our time is limited. With only 15 minutes for our meetings, it is essential that we manage our time well! In preparing ourselves for this step, we started reading more about how to ask questions and how to build good Grantmaker-Grantee relationships. Some of the articles we have read include: Kierra Johnson’s “Four Dating Tips to Sustain Strong Grantmaker-Grantee Relationships,” Sean Thomas-Breitfield’s “Ask Questions, First to Listen, but Then to Act,” and Elizabeth Cushing’s “Walking a Different Kind of Grantmaker Walk.” All of these articles have great tips and insights about partnering with organizations, yet when reading the Breitfield’s work, the purpose and process of what could happen through pitch day became clear. When meeting with each organization, it is important to go through “the process of asking questions, learning from the answers, and then changing the funding strategy to fit what grantees were saying actually,” instead of basing the funding strategy on what one thinks is necessary (Breitfield). Through research you get to know the opportunities available, yet in asking questions you get the chance of better understanding each organization and its needs. Through the responses to these questions, we will then learn and feel more prepared to be good stewards of the resources we have.

In the quest of understanding philanthropy’s purpose, I have gained so much experience and knowledge. Graduation is in May and, just like in this class, I have a plurality of opportunities available. After four years in Waco, I have fallen in love with the community and have decided to stay for the next few years. I am excited to use what I have learned here and take that wherever God takes me. I am thankful for this class and for the chance of working with a great team. This semester is not over yet, and the plurality of opportunities continue.

What should today’s philanthropy aim to do?

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By: Haley Haskew, BBA/MACC 2018

The bulk of our discussions so far this semester have been centered around defining what philanthropy means, its purposes, and its functions as it relates to the public good. Questions we have asked include but are not limited to: What is philanthropy? Who is philanthropy for? Who can participate in philanthropy? How can we do the most good with the resources we have? What does it mean to be philanthropic? What is the purpose behind philanthropic actions?

Ever since our first meeting of the semester I have felt my mind constantly racing as I try to search for and pursue the answers to these difficult questions, and my chase continues. One of the most important yet simultaneously most difficult aspects of philanthropy is that it is focused on people. Behind every decision and answer made there is a real human face experiencing real dilemma and feeling real pain. This is the great complexity behind philanthropy: it is not centered around crunching numbers or meeting deadlines, but rather is is centered around changing human lives for the better.

My group is specifically researching concerns relating to health care accessibility and mental health, but before we began our research we attempted to answer the question of what should today’s philanthropy aim to do? In reflection of several different readings, we decided that today’s philanthropy should aim to take action for the public good by focusing on people in need, engaging them to partake in decision-making, and enabling them to live a more satisfactory life. Rather than concentrating on a problem or a solution, philanthropy should concentrate on the specific people whom it is trying to serve. In order to do this, people participating in philanthropic actions should first ask the people they are engaging with what their needs are. Our group noticed an existing gap between the giver and receiver in philanthropy where the giver assumes it knows what the receivers needs and chooses the solution they think is best. Instead, givers should empower those whom they are helping by allowing them to participate in decision-making and decide for themselves the best answer to their problem. Finally, philanthropy should aim to enable the person whom it is helping to live a continuously better life. Philanthropy is not a bandaid or quick solution to a problem, but rather it is aimed to create a permanent change leaving the receiver in an everlastingly better position than they were in before. 

In our class discussion, Andy said that today’s philanthropy should aim to promote human flourishing. This is rooted in the fact that people are not identified by their problems or lack of resources. The things a person does or does not possess do not fundamentally impact who they are and the greater purpose they have in the world. Philanthropy pursues the enrichment of the lives of both giver and receiver, and results in a tangible and intangible impact for both parties, leaving each person more fulfilled than they were previously.

Philanthropy should not aim to give everyone in the world health care. It should not aim to feed every starving person. It should not aim to bring everyone out of poverty. Rather, philanthropy should focus all of its endeavors, efforts, and resources into one thing: people.

Transformational Giving

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By: Shannon Foy, BBA 2018

This week in class we are knee deep in research on our issues while also doing a lot of inward group analysis of what we are looking to accomplish in this class. This inward research was encouraged and developed through various readings and podcasts, but the two that stuck out to me were “Four Gifts” in We Make A Life By What We Give and the podcast by Malcolm Gladwell called “My Little Hundred Million.” These were essential in changing my thinking about what philanthropy should really be looking to achieve: a transformational impact. In the Gunderman reading, he discusses that liberal giving is the only type of giving that will truly “[liberate] the human aspiration to give.” Giving and ultimately philanthropy should not be about solving wicked problems or resolving issues, but rather to transform humanity into eternal givers. By using philanthropy to liberate people from the temporary things that are restraining them, they are given the freedom, opportunity, and desire to then give themselves. This endless cycle will prove transformational for society, if philanthropies approach the idea of liberal giving as their end goal.
This goal of “transformational giving” might be easy to discuss and establish in theory, but implementing it seems to be the real task. The podcast by Gladwell was able to give us a tangible example of how this is put into practice. His theme was the idea that we should push to “secure the floor” instead of “raising the ceiling.” He tells the story of a philanthropist who decided to give to a local college that served primarily low-income students, instead of prestigious MIT, which he attended. He described this type of giving through the analogy of a soccer team, how studies have been shown that increasing the success and skill of the worst player on the team will help the team more than simply training or gaining a new star of the team. This analogy runs parallel with the trend Gladwell observed of the massive amounts of funds that are given to firmly established and prestigious universities instead of those colleges or schools which hold the majority of the student population. If those least privileged are never shared with, then the best will only keep getting better. This idea coincides with Gunderman’s idea of liberal giving as freeing not just one section of society, but all of humankind with the freedom and desire to give. We must all rise together, from the ground up, or we will not be able to rise at all.

At the conclusion of this week, I realized that the goal of philanthropy is not something that is necessarily quantifiable. I really identified with what Andy said in class this week, “People are far more complex than the sum of their needs.” Therefore, the needs of humanity cannot be solved by any means of quantifiable dollars, programs, or service hours. Our goal as philanthropists should be the pursuit of impacting and transforming humanity into a society focusing on sharing and giving.

Giving to Create Givers

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By: Mark Richards, BBA 2019

This week we returned to the classroom, fresh off a few weeks of meeting as groups to research and discuss our issue areas of interest. We are continuing to craft our philosophy of philanthropy, and we have also begun considering some of the logistical processes that grantmaking entails.

In our discussion on Tuesday, we referred to Richard Gunderman’s book We Make a Life by What We Give, in which he describes four models of giving. The first, egoistic giving, is giving that is based in self-interest. This could involve, for example, a person who donates money to demonstrate his or her success. Despite causing change, this method is the least desirable of the four because of its selfish motive. The second model is compassionate giving, which seeks simply to meet immediate needs. This method, though quite accessible for many people because it does not require great wealth or expertise, carries risks. One risk is that a consistent flow of gifts will cause the recipient to become dependent on those gifts and apathetic toward his or her own progress and achievement. Gunderman’s third model is scientific giving, which was a historical response to compassionate giving that focused more on eliminating the root causes of needs rather than merely meeting the needs themselves. This model can be summarized by the maxim “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.” Scientific giving is markedly better than compassionate giving, but it unfortunately widens the gap between givers and receivers, because tackling the roots of an issue often requires much greater resources than the average individual can offer. This leaves many people to wonder if their comparatively small contributions could actually make a difference. The final model of giving is liberal giving. It aims to alleviate needs and eliminate their causes, but above all else it aims to make receivers into givers. These four models can each be effective, but Gunderman argues that this final model of liberal giving is the most ideal.

We have discussed principles similar to the ones behind liberal giving on several occasions in class, and those conversations have greatly informed my understanding of philanthropy. At the start of this class, I understood philanthropy as donating money in order to relieve needs or abate their causes. I didn’t realize that, more importantly than (and in tandem with) those goals, philanthropy should aim to create givers from receivers. A person’s joy in giving to and sharing with others ought to appear so attractive to the receiver that the receiver then strives to obtain that joy. Thus, as Gunderman puts it, philanthropy will make us into “people who concern ourselves more with what we can share with others than with what others can give to us” (29). I had never considered philanthropy in this way before. As we progress this semester, I intend to remind myself of this idea so that I regularly consider how I can inspire others to be better sharers through my philanthropy.

Gratitude Before Generosity

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By Gracie Kim, BBA 2018

The first or second day of class, Professor Hogue told our class to get out a piece of paper and think about the ways in which we have personally been the beneficiary of philanthropy and someone else’s generosity.

Words flowed out from my pen as I began to write and write and write … names of specific people, organizations, professors, scholarships, the sacrifice of my parents, people who made it possible for me to engage in rich and cultivating experiences, the church, mentorships, discipleship, prayer… just to name a few vague categories. It wasn’t until I filled my once blank un-lined piece of paper top to bottom with scribbles that I realized that who I am, what I know, and where I am is truly all because of the sacrifice, generosity, and/or kindness of someone else. Someone else that believed my life could or might “amount to something” (Gunderman, 9).

Now that is humbling. Because I truly know if it weren’t for these people, experiences, and communities, the Gracie I know today, with hopeful and ambitious dreams, would not exist. In a sense, our communities and environments shape us incomparably, as much as we want to believe that we are the only influential ones that shape ourselves and control and create our own “destinies.”

And I think this is one of the very “things” that awaken me to give as I become simultaneously more aware of my own blessings and brokenness. Giving inspires the thought that perhaps it isn’t all about us. We forget that we are all on the same team, that we are all human! We are much more interconnected than we think and we are to “recognize, accept, and celebrate the full extent of our interdependence” (Gunderman, 65). When we begin to recognize that our friends and our enemies, our neighbors and our children are each our own brothers and sisters; when we start to own that our world is in fact, our world, and our city is our city, giving and sharing seems like a more natural response, a right response, and even a logical response. The sweetness in philanthropy lies in that it “invites us to look beyond the distinctions of giver and receiver, and to see one another as sharers, parts cooperating for the benefit of a larger whole” (Gunderman, 12).

The more I am learning throughout this course, the more convinced I am that philanthropy and giving is something we both contribute to and partake in. In addition, the more I learn, the more I realize how increasingly complex it is to give well even with good intentions.

Nonetheless, I love that we started this course this way because as stated by Professor Hogue, “generosity is downstream” and “gratitude always comes before generosity.”

I am so grateful that there is much to be grateful for.

“only when we are woven into a larger tapestry that our full beauty and strength emerge” (Gunderman, 66).

Is this the end?

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Ashley Alston, BBA 2018

Our last day in Philanthropy Lab has come and gone, and I can’t help but feel nostalgic. I remember walking into this class at the beginning of the semester unsure what to expect.  Throughout this semester, we have researched various issues we are passionate about, interviewed with non-profit organizations, and lastly come to a conclusion on which organization to fund.  Now we are at the end, and next week each group is presenting their grants. 

My view of nonprofits and my knowledge of grant giving has changed dramatically. In our final class today we talked about different aspects this process has taught us.  For me, I have learned how to mindfully give in order to make the most sustainable impact, and how even a small gift can go a long way.

At the beginning of the semester, each organization we interviewed had a different kind of project they needed funding for.  One in particular we decided to fund was the World Hunger Relief.  The grant the Philanthropy Lab is giving is $4,000 to help renovate the Veggie Van.  Through this simple renovation, the Veggie Van can further combat food insecurity in other areas of Waco by allowing more food deserts to have access to fresh produce. Though $4,000 does not seem like much when compared to other grants given, this seemingly small amount is going to help bring about a bigger difference.  I am excited to see what the impact of this grant, as well as all of the others, has made in few years on the Waco community. Each group has made evaluation questions for the organization to answer in two years.  One particular question we are going to ask is to describe the effect this grant has had on the organization, and the amount of people that have been reached. This will help us be able to clearly see where change is happening.

Before taking this class, I never understood the complexities of the decision-making process. This semester I realized there is a lot more that goes into the act of giving than I originally thought.  My group’s motto during the grant giving process was to build a community up to bring it together.  We continued to remind ourselves of this statement as we set goals and were deciding which organizations to further pursue.  As I work with nonprofits in the future, I am going to remember this motto and the significance behind it.  I do not want to give just to give; when I give, whether that be money, service, or time, I am going to look for organizations whose goal is to bring the community together to make a difference.  I believe in doing this, those in poverty will be empowered and given the confidence they need to help themselves change their circumstances.

Is this the end?  No, this class is more than just a semester.  Looking back, I have been taught a tremendous amount. I hope to carry this knowledge with me as I serve in the future.