The Logical Model

By Ashley Alston, BBA 2018

It has been two weeks since “Pitch Day,” and the teams are finally making the difficult decision of which organizations to do site visits with.  My team, whose primary focus is on health, poverty, and nutrition education, has narrowed the search down to three organizations. During this process we took time to consider the vision of the organization and compare it to the goals we hope to accomplish by giving this grant.

In class this week, each team built a logical model for each non-profit they were considering.  We based this model off the ideas of Peter Frumkin, who described the model to be a formal explication of how a philanthropic intervention proposes to achieve its ends.  The model consists of the three theories: the theory of leverage, the theory of change, and the theory of scale.  These theories help paint a clear picture of what our goals and objectives are as donors. In class there was an emphasis placed on breaking down the theory of change. We learned that the theory of change is further broken down into three categories: activity, outputs and outcomes. The activity category breaks down what the organization plans to do if given the grant. The output category focuses on immediate results given the plan proposed during the activity category is successful. Lastly, the outcome category demonstrates the long term effects of goods and services being delivered and output being met.

After fully understanding each category, our groups went through every organization and discussed their main activity, what their immediate results would be, and the overall outcome they wish to achieve.  As we continued to narrow down organizations based off of their visions compared to our goals, we were able to use the logical model to help us decide which ones we wanted to further pursue. Each group focused on three or four organizations they wished to meet to explore further collaboration.  We are in the process of contacting the directors of each organization and setting up site visits. This will help us better understand each of our potential grant recipients vision. I am excited to continue learning about how to strategically give to others while also having the opportunity to make a significant impact on both an organization and those lives it touches.

Statistics versus the Real World by Alison Pietenpol, BBA ‘18

By: Alison Pietenpol

This past week the four groups from our class had the opportunity to meet with organizations that deal in the areas we have been researching for the past few weeks. It was a chaotic but enlightening afternoon as we met with eight groups for fifteen minutes each. My group in particular met with eight organizations based in Waco that deal mostly in food insecurity and some in healthcare. As we spoke to the groups it struck me that there is a real difference between looking at statistics about an issue versus speaking to the people that work to change an issue. You can read all about how there are forty eight million people in America going hungry every day and most research about those millions of people will give a very clear cut suggestion about how to solve the mass hunger. When you begin to talk to people who dedicate their lives to solving the hunger problem you realize that there is so much more complexity than just a simple solution. Philanthropy is about so much more than just injecting money into a problem.

 

While monetary gifts may be the backbone of a solution, what is so much more important is how that money is used in order to be truly effective. While some organizations have access to large grants, the grant may limit what can be done with that money and fail to fund a key part of the organization’s goal. The groups we talked to do not just want money to buy food to distribute in an effort to solve hunger in Waco; they need grant money to help them become or continue to be sustainable organizations. The money could help some hire interns and other staff to increase the scope of their work, others need monetary support to increase transportation for the people they assist so that they may actually be able to get to food, the healthcare organizations could use a grant to purchase equipment that will be used for a long time. All of the organizations presented mindful ideas of how to use money as a tool to create true change.

 

It was also interesting to me that even though most of the organizations worked in food insecurity, they had each found their niche. One dealt with the elderly, one with school children, and some in growing fresh produce and others in teaching proper nutrition. In looking at food insecurity, the easy solution is just give everyone food. In reality this is not a solution because of the complexities presented to us by the organizations. People with food insecurities may not know proper nutrition or how to cook with fresh produce. Some cannot even reach fresh produce because there are no groceries stores in walking distance. Others simply cannot afford the high cost of fresh food. Food insecurity is difficult to tackle because there are so many facets to the issue.

 

As we move on in this process, I am staying focused on the idea that philanthropic donation should not seek to aid a problem temporarily but to create a pathway for the future to a sustainable solution.

Digging Deeper

By: Kristen Hendrickson, BBA 2017

There has recently been a shift in our focus for this class. So far this semester, as previous blog posts have reflected, we have been discussing philanthropy, what is important to us, what it means to be a philanthropist, etc. However, lately we have begun to dig deeper into more specific issues that our society is facing today, in order to learn more about what is really going on in the world – an attempt at understanding the issues before we take action.

Something that we discussed in class, which really stuck with me, was how all too often good intentions can lead to harmful outcomes. This can occur because those who are giving do not fully understand the issue or context in which they are giving, and cannot foresee potential problems that their gift could cause. This is a scary thought, because the last thing that my classmates and I want to do is more harm than good. As an example, one of my classmates shared a story of a tractor that was stuck, abandoned in a farm field in another country. The tractor had been donated by Americans with pure intentions, hoping to make farming much more efficient and easier for those who farmed that field. However, when something went wrong and the tractor broke down, there was no one around that could fix it and the parts needed to fix it were not accessible. Thus, the tractor became an extremely heavy, unmovable fixture in the middle of the field, just taking up precious land. We desire more than anything that our gifts will not be tractors taking up land, but something that can have a lasting and proliferating impact for years to come.

It is our duty and responsibility to do our research, to figure out what the issues actually are and to try to understand as best we can what would really help those who are living through the issues. We are now grouped into teams to focus on certain areas, and my team is starting with a broad focus on children in arts and culture, education, and poverty. I have personally been mainly researching poverty – poverty in the United States, in Texas, and in Waco. We have been amazed to see the intricate ways in which all of these areas are intertwined. We believe that poverty can have direct impacts on any of those categories, and we hope to see the bigger picture of these issues.

It is really interesting to see how many different ways that poverty can be defined. Some define it by the federal poverty line, some by 200% above the federal poverty line, others by the average lifespan of a community, and others by child poverty. By any definition, it is clear that some in Waco are hurting. I am so excited to continue working with my group throughout the semester to build a strong foundation of understanding and to make as strategic, thoughtful decisions as we can about how to use the resources we have to give. This is an incredible and unique opportunity, and I have a feeling it is going to change the way I give and encourage others to give for the rest of my life.