Dor

Roman’s mention of the money-splitting idea in his blog post from last week makes for a great segue to this week’s hot topic. It is true that we had initially agreed to make one large sum donation of 10,000—but that was without seeing the details and features of the actual organizations we’d be funding. About a third of us (including myself) saw some positives in splitting the money and decided we’d at least be open to doing so. The idea was that although a larger sum could go farther with one organization, in this case some of us felt as though splitting it into, for example 1)half for actually funding a full organization, but for 6 months instead of a full year and 2)hiring a staff member in a another organization would bring about greater impact.

This brings about a few issues that we had to debate over. First, does it really make us look bad, as if we chickened out of a making the tough, yet clear-cut decision and relented to splitting the money? In my opinion, no—if we look at the details and believe that it makes greater impact to split the money then that’s the opposite of being lazy, because we were all just about ready to vote for one of the organizations anyways. Does it set an iffy precedent, seeing as we are the first group to do this? Once again, we need to worry less about our image, because we are trying to help the kids here, not our image. The notion failed, which I don’t mind at all seeing as the organization we did choose (hurray, fireworks) is an amazing program that I fully support.

However, I must express my disappointment in the fact that we did not fully think through the splitting notion—we could have done much more to ensure that our money does 100% of what it can. We could have called the places and seen what they could do with the money for example, which we ruled out. Overall, though, the amount of enthusiasm the class has shown throughout the whole process has been fantastic, and I’m proud to have been a part of it.

Corey

After months of hard work in sending out applications, conducting interviews and going on site visits we finally came to the time-constrained decision that Mentoring to Manhood deserved our full grant. Their work with children in need of father figures clearly stood above and beyond to many of us. While most of the class had Mentoring to Manhood as their first or second selection, it still was not as easy a decision as we’d expect. The issue of if we should possibly split the money between them, Ancestral Knowledge and the Latin American Youth Center came up, but in the end the class decided that our money could be best used if all of it went towards just one of these groups. I personally thought that the money divided two – or even three- ways could have potentially done a lot to help each organization, but this did not go over as well with the rest of the class. Many people thought that it would make us look flakey and unreliable in the future, but to me non-profit groups that are probably used to requests that go unanswered would welcome a gift of any amount. After deciding on the winning organization, we started the process of writing up the letters to notify the other applicants that they had not been chosen. I may just be speaking for myself, but the fact that this needed to be done was something that I had not considered. While I was thinking about how happy M2M would be to get our money, I did not think how disappointed people like Bill from Ancestral would be to hear that they had not gotten it. But this is the way it goes sometimes when dealing with philanthropy, and it is important to go about a sensitive issue in a courteous way. In preparing for the final week of the class, I think we’re all looking forward to putting together the final presentation and getting to officially present M2M their grant money and having Bruce & Karen Levenson and the rest of the PL staff on hand to hear us present what we have learned from our semester working in philanthropy.

Speaking for myself, its been a rewarding experience and I know with the genuine care and dedication this class has we will finish strong!

Kevin

This week we finally made our decision on which group that we will give our $10,000 grant. And the winner is (drum roll please) Mentoring to Manhood! Mentoring to Manhood was a personal favorite of mine since reading their application, so I am really happy with the results. Mentoring to Manhood is an after school program whose goal is to help young men develop academic skills, character, positive communication skills, and to provide them with the resources and tools to maximize their potential. Throughout all of deliberation, Mentoring to Manhood was the strongest on all fronts. Its mission statement was very similar to our own and they met all of our selection criteria. Most people in the class would argue against one organization because of certain flaws or problems within the organization that caused concern. There weren’t any such problems with Mentoring to Manhood. I believe that just about everyone in the class had Mentoring to Manhood in their top three favorite organizations. As we eliminated and deliberated on the various organizations, Mentoring to Manhood always prevailed. From the application to the phone interview to the site-visit to the reference, Mentoring to Manhood had the strongest credentials out of all of the groups. The organization has very admirable goals and they hope to effect a positive change in the community. With our $10,000 grant, Mentoring to Manhood will fund a full time staff member and help fund a tutoring program. Currently, Mentoring to Manhood works primarily on the weekends because most of the workers are volunteers. By hiring a full time member, their goal is to have programs during the weekdays too. Overall, I am very happy with the decision the class has made and I found the work that I did in this class to be very rewarding.

Roman

This week our class had one of the most heated discussions thus far this year. Now we're in the nitty gritty, and we're really trying to figure how to come to terms as a class and figure out where we really want our money to go.

We came into class on Thursday with 5 organizations, which we quickly reduced to four. As a class we felt the eliminated organization did not put much emphasis on education, which is a focus of our mission statement.

As far as the other nonprofits go, we had some clear favorites, and a few organizations where only a handful of us believe should receive the grant money. However that does not mean we are done by a long shot. We still haven’t figured out how we will finally decide, and if we do decide to do a full unanimous decision, next week could really turn ugly. I just don’t want any of us to get too locked into our one set organization and ignore all other options. We can all agree that each organization that we thus far narrowed it down to has a lot of positives and we should all be pleased with however the money is divvied up.

Speaking of diving it up, Corey had an interesting idea in that we split the money and do multiple grants. This was an idea we had talked about earlier in the semester, and we ultimately decided to do one single grant. Originally I liked the single grant idea, but if we somehow can’t decide how to choose, multiple grants might not be such a bad idea, I think its something we should consider next week on Thursday if we haven’t chosen a recipient on Tuesday.

Arielle

This week in class we had a lot of heated discussion. On Tuesday, we were able to discuss as a large group what we felt from each site visit as well as what the references to our organization said about them. I felt that it was very helpful to discuss all of this because no one went on every single site visit and it was good to hear the feedback from our fellow classmates. On Thursday, we were asked to pick a single organization to donate our $10,000 to as individuals (we have previously decided that we don’t want to split up the money). This led to some very heated discussion about which organization we felt deserved the money the most, as well as a lot of “bad-mouthing” from people about which organizations we should not fund. Up to this point we have narrowed it down from an original ten organizations to four.

I think it was really helpful for everyone to see where the other people in the class would like to donate the money and why. Some people had gut feelings or used past experiences to choose the organization they wanted to fund. Others used their passions in certain social justice areas to pick the organization that best matched with their ideals and goals. Others used very logical methods to come to their final conclusion. It was fascinating to hear why people chose what they did, even more than it was to hear what they had actually chosen.

I’ve learned a lot from this week, but I feel that the most important thing that I took away was how important this entire process is. There is no single piece (the application, phone interview and site visits) that is more important than the others. Every single piece helped the class to form their opinions about who we should fund. For example, my original number one choice after the applications didn’t change after the phone interview. In fact, I liked them even more. However, hearing what everyone said that went on the site visit, I realized that this is not an organization I would like to fund. Without having that piece, I don’t know that I would have come to the same conclusion. I’m very excited to see what we end up choosing in the end!

Brendan

This week in lieu of class we attended a site visit for at least one of the five finalists for our grant. I was only able to attend the Campfire USA site visit but I did get the chance to speak with my roommates about their site visits to Mentoring to Manhood, Prince George's Tennis and the Latin American Youth Center. From what I saw at Campfire and from what I heard about the other organizations it seems like we are going to have a very interesting week next week with some heated debate.

After the first stage of the application process Campfire USA was one of my top organizations. Now after conducting the interview and going on the site visit Campfire has solidified itself as the top applicant in my opinion. On the site visit I saw a lot of things that I liked. The kids all seemed to be really engaged in the activities while having fun at the same time.

It was especially interesting to see how each activity had so much more going on than appeared on the surface. One of the activities that was going on during our site visit was an ice cream making session. The kids were all really interested in this because of the promise of ice cream at the end of the activity. However there was a lot more to the activity than just making ice cream. The activity leader was teaching the kids about what went into ice cream and giving them an idea about where those ingredients come from. The activity also gave kids a little insight into chemistry without them even realizing. When they saw the salt out with the rest of the ingredients they thought that it went into the ice cream. However they later learned that the salt went in with the ice to make the ice water colder and prevent it from freezing at the normal temperatures.

These kinds of activities are what really set Campfire apart in my mind. In my experiences working with kids it can be really difficult to sit them down and get them to sit down and focus on academics. Campfire provides such an innovative way to integrate fun activities with an educational component.

If this week has done anything I think it has created a set of students who are going to die hard for the organization they support. I live with 3 other PL students (Jason, Eran and Dor) and we have all ready gotten in to small arguments about which organization is most deserving of the grant. I realized that none of the organizations are more deserving than the other organizations. All of the organizations do amazing work and have huge impacts on the young people that come to their organization. As a class we need to figure out what organization fits us best and where do we think that we can get the biggest “bang for our buck.” Looking back on it deciding to make only one large grant rather than 3 small ones might not have been the best idea. There is not a lot certainty when it comes to philanthropy, but one this is certain, next week is definitely going to be interesting.

Claire

Ah, what an interesting week! It’s getting closer and closer to decision-making time, and from what I hear there’s only one consensus: it’s going to be difficult to select the recipient of our funds. With this in mind, I asked Professor Grimm on the site visit to the Latin American Youth Center if we would be discussing how we were going to decide, as a class, on the final organization before we started discussing reactions to site visits and references. I’m concerned that somehow that we’ll all be strongly set on which organization we personally think deserves the $10,000, and if we haven’t previously established how we’re going to finally decide as a group, we’ll all try to suggest systems that favor one organization (our preferred) over another. And what’s more, it just occurred to me today that we may have trouble narrowing down past three non-profits! Scary thought. Exciting, too, I suppose.

I’ve only been on one site visit thus far, but from what I understand, most people’s experiences with leaders from these organizations have one thing in common: a clear demonstration of commitment to their work. It’s reassuring to see how invested these leaders are in their causes. One would hope, of course, that the person using such blood, sweat and time to better their organization would be dedicated to its worthy mission, but I still found my site visit this week refreshing and heart-warming. I was reminded on the trip that most of the adults that we’re meeting much like Andre Benepe, go above and beyond their official job descriptions each day. And generally, it’s because they care so deeply about what they do. It’s not for money or prestige.

These are role models. These are people who are encouraging us to get involved with their organizations, to be active parts of what they do for a living. Most of these organizations have opened their doors to us, whether for a day or for a year of involvement. But what about even longer periods, like making work in non-profit our careers? This class has opened a window into the lives of these strong, dynamic people who we respect and may some day want to emulate. I didn’t anticipate such an outcome from this class, but it’s certainly a benefit.

So. Do I have strong opinions about where I think our funds should go? Yes. But despite anticipating some difficult decisions in the near future, I am calmed by the growing knowledge that the organizations that we’re considering do wonderful, valuable work, and no matter what we will be investing in leaders who will carry out tasks and programs in which we all see the good.

Avinash

The past week has been very interesting for our class. As a whole, we gained valuable insight as to which organizations are preferred. Phone interviews were conducted with eight organizations, three of which were done in class. Students listened to the other five outside of class. The interview gave us a deeper look at each organization and allowed us the chance to seek answers to any pressing questions we may have had. The general consensus of the class seems to be that no organization gave a particularly bad interview. That being said, there was a relatively clear distinction in regard to which interviews were better than the rest.

The most interesting part of class this week was on Thursday, when we decided the number of site visits we would go on and which organizations we would be visiting. As a class, we agreed that in order for a decision to be made, twenty-one out of the twenty-five students must be in agreement. After eight phone interviews, we could only agree as a class on two organizations to visit. This was surprising- there didn't seem to be any overwhelming dissatisfaction with any organization, yet we still could not agree on who to visit. To a certain degree, part of the problem was that students backed the organizations they interviewed. Ultimately, a decision was reached, but it was definitely not as clear cut and easily done as most of us had hoped. I can't help thinking that if deciding on site visits was this difficult, making a final decision for funding will be even more so. Hopefully, the site visits next week will make our decision a little easier.

Chris

From Tuesday on, this week gave new insight to the students in deciding which organizations to chose. In class, we started off the week with three phone interviews. Unfortunately due to time constraints, the other interviews were done outside of class, recorded, then posted online for the rest of the class to hear. While listening, I thought that this seemed to be one of the most valuable processes of the selection process because it gave us insight into the organization beyond just an application. It was more personal and easier to find the answers to tough questions that really show the type of organization we are in contact with. Asking questions like “What is your biggest failure and how did you cope with it?” seemed to me almost invaluable. However, in the end, my favorite part of the interview was just getting to know the story behind what these organizations are all about, and not just numbers on a page.

With the interview process, however, came a few problems. The main concern beforehand was that students would have a bias towards the organization that they talked to. While this happened to some degree, it did not impede the ability for the class to come together and make decisions. In a medium sized class with ten applicants, I thought it would be harder for students to remain unbiased, but with a well rounded and compromising class, we managed to decide on which organizations to visit this coming week.

I look forward to the coming weeks of class. Not only has the interview process proven my pessimism wrong, but it also looks like the site visits will be just as revealing. After interviewing, and reading applications, this may be the most important deciding factor. Personally, I can’t wait.

James

The past few weeks have been a great exercise of the many things we have learned throughout the semester in our class. We were fortunate enough to get a range of applications in from a pretty good selection of organizations throughout PG county. I think that many of us were relieved when Saturday came around and we saw the bounty of applications that we had feared might not come. Having a broad range of applicants has been great because we can really use the knowledge and viewpoints we have developed over the course of this class to debate and whittle down the list of applicants until we decide on who we want to interview and visit.

I think that having the panel speak has been a great asset for us. Several panel members cautioned us to not place too much weight on the application because some great organizations might not have the best writing while conversely terrible organizations could have really great writers. I think that advice has been instrumental in our decision to interview by phone a broad range of applicants to give everyone a chance to make their case. We received several applications that people weren't too crazy about due to poor writing or budget presentation but myself and many others feel we have nothing to lose by giving them a chance in a phone interview.

Site visits are another story as we have very limited time left in the course and many people have very busy schedules. I think that we need to be very careful in where we decide to visit as we should only explore the best options to be able to better decide amongst them. I don't think we should copy our plan with the phone interviews and give the underdogs a chance because I think that by that time they will have had ample opportunities to make their cases. I think that the site visits are too valuable as opportunities to distinguish between organizations doing really good, efficient work and those who aren't as invested in their work.

Andrew

This week in class has been an interesting one. We finally received and reviewed applications from ten organizations in our community, which is what we eagerly anticipated after weeks of deliberation, dissenting opinions, constructive criticism, compromise and informative readings and hearing from experienced philanthropists. As a class, we agreed that we wanted to help an organization that works with children in grades K-8 in Prince Georges County, but it was interesting to see the diversity of programs just within that field represented with just ten applications. During the week, were able to narrow down the applications to our top choices and are currently working to develop questions for our interview, and plan our site visits. I personally look forward to putting a face to the applications so to speak, and get a first-hand look at the potential organizations we will fund. Personally, this is the first time I’ve been in a position where I’ve received applications and must decide which ones to deny and ones to approve. This made me aware of things that attracted my attention in an application; ranging from the amount of specific details included, the overall presentation and appearance of the application, and the technical aspects such as diction, syntax and grammar errors. By recognizing what features make me favor a certain application over another, I will be able to incorporate these things as I myself continue to apply for scholarships and eventually a career.

Our next step in the process is to eventually make site visits in the upcoming weeks, as well as conduct interviews. The site visits will give us an excellent chance to get up close and personal with the remaining organizations and gain better insight to how our donation will impact that organization. Two weeks ago Mr. and Mrs. Levenson, the two individuals who gave our class the money to donate, mentioned the importance of the site visit among other things. Many applications may be very appealing and are well-written, but visiting the organization’s site may tell a different story and vice versa. The interviews are the final step, and will allow us to ask questions that the organization didn’t answer, or were unclear about. After these two steps, we will have all the information we need, and the deliberation and debate process will start once again in order to make our final decision. I wish the best of luck to all of the organizations that applied in their future endeavors.

Talia

The main focus of Tuesday’s class was the assigned case studies, specifically the Change in Management case. This case was primarily about Lawrence Frymire, the Executive Director of New Jersey Public Television, who was essentially forced to resign from this position, which he had held for nine years, after the station had recently been faced with a change in leadership. The purpose of our class discussion was to try and identify who was to blame for the change in management at NJPTV while considering the multitude of different factors. Was it the whole Commission’s fault? Was it the head person of the Commission, Meade? Was it the new Governor Bryne, who came into his position as governor already showing dissatisfaction with NJPTV? Going into class, I believed the change in management was due to a fundamental discrepancy between the old and new leadership in regards to the nature and direction of the NJPTV. I believed that with more communication regarding the new leaderships concerns over the old management, the change in management could have likely been avoided. However, upon completing our class discussion, my opinion on who was to blame changed. Our class’s analysis of the case study and Frymire made me realize the person to blame for the change in management was Frymire himself. While Frymire was a man of integrity and could be considered successful at his job in many regards, as a leader he failed to remain adaptable to change. Even after a new leadership was implemented, Frymire adamantly stuck to his old ways of running the station, disregarding Governor Bryne’s and the Commissions suggestions for improvement. Reading this case made me realize a critical quality of any successful leader is adaptability and openness to change.

I believe our class’s intelligent discussion on and thorough analysis of this case was a reflection of the progress we have made as new philanthropists and as public leaders in general. By gaining more insight into and knowledge of what it means to be a successful philanthropists and leader, we in turn are becoming successful philanthropists and leaders.

Jason

There was not much news this week in terms of applications coming in. As of class on Thursday, there were no applications in. This worried me a little, but was assured that some organizations were going to submit an application on the due date, Friday, April 2. Because we were still waiting for applications to come in, the class read up on a couple leaders and an all-women giving circle.

The leaders we read about were Lawrence Frymire of New Jersey Public TV (NJPTV) and Adrian Benepe of New York City Parks Commissioner. The contrasts between the two were amazing. Frymire was more of an anonymous leader, while Benepe was more known. I thought that Frymire was a great leader for NJPTV, and even though he was forced to resign, I think he could have kept doing good things for NJPTV. Benepe I also think was a good leader. I was amazed at how committed Benepe was to the parks. He personally looked out for vandals, and he went to events to promote donating to the parks, which he hated doing. I think both leaders were good for the job they had. I feel that Frymire did not need to promote NJPTV as much as Benepe had to promote the parks, so Frymire not going to events was did not harm NJPTV.

The all-women giving circle, the Hestia Fund (HF), was also a very interesting reading. I really enjoyed how hands-on HF was towards the organizations they funded. Also, making sure that not only organizations get money, but also the women in HF learn about philanthropy. This is an amazing concept, and it helped everyone want to be a part of HF. The impact that 40 women made with just $5,000 each was extraordinary. The read was very interesting and seemed to parallel what we are doing in class. We are a bunch of people that are trying to give away money, and we seem to run into a few of the same situations.

Overall, this week’s readings were very interesting and exposed me to a couple ways to lead and how those leaders ended up. Also, learning about HF was interesting as well because of how successful the fund was, and how much it paralleled our class. I am also hoping that we get some applications back for next week.

Maggie

This week we really focused on how we make informed decisions about how we will give away our money. The readings, practice interviews and the guest speakers helped us focus on our priorities and how we determine potential organizations.

The practice interviews compelled me to reevaluate what I thought the class as a whole was looking for in an organization and specifically what we wanted to learn from them. How could we ask questions that allow us to establish a connection with the interviewee and obtain sufficient information about their work to ensure we are able to find a proper fit? I believe it was apparent that as a class we wanted the interview to transpire more like a conversation than an interrogation. Watching the three groups interview “Jane Addams” really helped to expose some of the flaws in different techniques, as well as, some great questions that can potentially reveal a lot about the organizations.

The guest speakers provided us with a lot of input on the process of determining the right organization to receive the grant. One important point that was made, emphasized the fact that we don’t know everything, and we can potentially learn a lot from the different organizations we consider as long as we keep an open mind. Another point broached the idea that giving a grant is establishing a partnership, which consequently means that we are not greater or more important than those applying for the grant. There are a lot of worthy organizations doing good work, we are simply trying to find one that coincides with our goals and will partner successfully with us. One approach to finding the right partnership that was discussed asserted that determining the right organization required a combination of gut instincts and hard data. I think this is an important point to remember when doing the interviews and site visits, that there are crucial aspects beyond the facts we are given that need to be taken into consideration.

I am excited about moving forward to interacting with the different organizations. To discover how exactly we will determine the best fit for us, as well as how we will manage to overcome differences in opinion.

Reeta

After learning about famous philanthropists and various approaches to philanthropy for many weeks, we have now begun to look at philanthropy from the grant maker’s prospective. Our readings, class discussions, as well as our panel on Thursday all focused on the role that grant maker’s play in philanthropic endeavors.

Many of the points made in our readings were asserted by the panel members, one being the importance of humility. Lee Draper states in his article “The Seven Principles of Firmly Centered Grantmakers” that “Without the creativity, knowledge and programming of nonprofits, grantmakers would not be able to pursue their missions”. Panelist John Foster-Bey reiterated the point of humility when he said that “Having all the money didn’t matter because I wasn’t going to do anything with it.” While drafting our RFP’s last week, our goal was to try and create an application that would best help us discern the organizations that met all of OUR qualifications. This process of approval can easily lead to the mentality of “Why do you deserve OUR gift over someone else?” Our readings and panel discussion this week stressed the importance of looking beyond the application and realizing the influential rather than pivotal role we play as grantmakers.

This week we also learned more about the importance of site visits. Giving Well, Doing Good made the point when stating “This visit is critical, for sometimes even the most effective agents of change can only explain what they are up to by saying ‘Come and See.’” Panelist Karen Levenson also sided on the less scientific approach to philanthropy when she stated the some of the best places could have deficient RFP’s.

As we move forward, we will try to incorporate all that we can about the importance of both RFP’s and site visits, in order that we don’t prematurely deny a good opportunity some additional funding.

Request for Proposals

After much debate and hard work, our finalized RFP can be found here.

Applications are due by April 2nd, and questions can be sent to cpphils@gmail.com.

Jennifer

This week was one of the most exciting weeks that we have had so far! As a class, we were able to come together and formulate our RFP. I cannot believe that after all of the hard work we have done so far that things are really starting to move along as we come closer each day to giving away the $10,000!

As we are such a large class, every single student has their own opinion, which makes it kind of difficult to fully agree on things. This week especially, there was more disagreement than usual. I think that the RFP and making sure that whatever we send out to the public is something that is extremely important to everyone in the class. As we completed the RFP this week, much discussion and debate went into creating it.

When we first began writing our mission statement and values, the class was split into two groups. Even then I had a feeling that writing the RFP was going to be a difficult task if we could hardly agree on our mission statement and values, a very small piece of the RFP. Observing my classmates fight for what they thought should be included in the RFP and as we constructed the final draft as a class, it was truly amazing to see how passionate everyone is about this class and even more so about making a difference in someone’s life. Each word of the RFP was ripped apart and carefully analyzed to make sure that it was perfect. I was nervous about how the RFP was going to turn out since we wrote it in groups. I was not sure whether or not it would flow properly, if things would fall through the cracks or if it would be cohesive. However, looking back now, I think that the end result could not have come out more perfect than it did. I think that writing this document further proved how dedicated we are as a class and what giving away $10,000 means to us.

This week’s classes really made me think about the organizations that we may potentially fund. As hard as it was to complete the RFP, it will be even harder to make the ultimate decision of who this money will go to. I don’t know how we will ever make this decision in such a short period of time! Although a ton of work and much discussion will go into it, I think that this may be one of the most worthwhile things I will ever do in my life. I look forward to coming back after vacation and getting started on reading all of the applications that we will receive. Even though it may be more work for us, hopefully there will be many, many applications! I can’t wait to get my hands on them!

Eran

This week was a great week for us! We accomplished a lot and it seems that we are finally ready to send out the RFP! It has been exciting splitting into groups and seeing what everyone did on their own, and then trying to regroup as a class and come to a consensus on most of the topics.

Unfortunately, that rarely happened. However, I think that is the beauty of our class. All the disagreements have created an amazingly interactive class that exceeded what I expected from this course. I am learning so much about everyone in the class. Certain people have tendencies that became extremely evident during the discussions we held this week.

There were several topics we discussed and debated over in class that I really found interesting. First, I was really amazed at how passionate people were regarding the simple formatting of the proposal. Some things that I thought were so trivial seemed to be such a big deal to others. I don’t think this is a problem, but rather a good thing, because it brought up certain things that were being overlooked. I also thought it was interesting how it was such a struggle to consolidate the two groups into one. I loved the enthusiasm people brought to the discussions and how defensive each group was when their team’s mission statement was under attack.

This past week was extremely productive and I can’t wait to get back and start reading the applications. I can already predict it will be difficult to decide as a class which application to seriously consider, but I am also excited for that process.

Keep it up!

Arley

To me this week was all about questions. Some that come to mind are, when are we going to have the application ready by? How are we going to know it gets to the people/organizations we want it too? What size organization, budget wise, should we give too? How can we tell if they have made a lasting impact? How do we evaluate good leadership? Should we split up the money? Should we require that the organization we choose match our donation? Should we go on site visits and conduct interviews with all of our grant applicants? It was partially overwhelming, but at the same time important because it shows us what a complicated process this is.

To tackle all of these questions we continued working in our two groups to work on the hard task of developing a united philanthropic mission statement and description of our values. On Tuesday we finalized our respective groups mission statement, value statement, and funding focus, and we discussed them both as a whole group. Even though our groups had decided on very similar areas to give our money too there was still a large amount of disagreement on exactly how to word the mission statement. This discussion really exemplified how people can get really passionate about something that they put work into even if someone else only wants to change it by a small amount.

Our group had a list of potential areas of childhood development in which we would like the organization to work with, and the other group thought that it was confusing to have that list as part of the mission statement because organizations might think that they needed to incorporate all of them in their programs and end up not applying for our grant for that reason. A problem that our group had with the other groups mission statement and value statement was that it had “too much fluff”. That an organization looking at that values statement would not understand what the values meant because they were so vague and hard to qualitatively measure. At the end of class on Tuesday we choose four members of each group to have a “battle royale” on the two controversial mission statements on Thursday.

On Thursday we divided further into groups to discuss pieces of the RFP that we are going to put together as a “Frankenstein” mold for our final draft. The first group, the negotiators, worked on our final group mission statement. A second group focused on the specifics of the grant(s) we want to give and who will be eligible, etc. A third group looked at our selection criteria, and our application narrative, and a final group created a flyer to advertise our grant opportunity to potential organizations. I worked with the group creating the flyer, and we found it hard to make without knowing what the other groups were doing. The whole process seemed a little disjointed, but I guess it was necessary considering we couldn’t get all of those tasks done as one group, and this is only our first draft of the whole RFP.
Even though this weekend did provide a lot of new questions I think that it is beginning to become much clearer the direction in which we are headed and what exactly we are trying to accomplish. With our finalized mission statement and drafted RFP we will feel more and more confident about getting our application out there and hearing back from potential organizations. I look forward to this week and sending out a strong RFP we are proud of to the Community Foundation for the National Capital Region.

Brett

This week our class has really taken off from reading about philanthropists into actively engaging in the philanthropic process with our Fund. On Tuesday, March 2nd, we started immediately with the huge tasks of developing a mission statement and value statements in two separate groups. While our readings for the week helped us look at successful grants and strategies, it looked as if the moment to succeed was far, far away. While within our separate groups, both agreed on the topic of youth as our target area. But what ended up splitting us into a heated debate was nothing but the format of the mission statement. Looking back, the day was argumentative, but could have been much worse had the two groups decided on different target areas. Our discussion about the format and wording of mission and value statements really illuminated how many different ways our Fund could illustrate our goals, but also how essential that initial step is in this process. At the end of class, we decided on a negotiation to take place on Thursday to finalize a single mission statement and one list of value statements.

Class resumed on Thursday, March 4th, with the beginning of our negotiation about mission and value statements, but also began the development stage of our RFP! On Tuesday, we had been given a few different RFP examples from the Community Fund, Youth PoWR, and some others. From the RFP’s, I found a lot of good ideas on how to accurately assess a nonprofit through a brief and concise RFP. Our class is looking requesting short proposals considering our time constraints and our sometimes short attention spans. During the negotiations, however, our class made concrete decisions to target nonprofit organizations that help the youth in Prince George’s County with budgets under $250,000, and hope to find many such organizations to apply for our Fund! Since our class only has until the end of the semester to draft a request, receive proposals, evaluate proposals, interview candidates, do site visits with candidates, and finally choose and draw up a contract for funds, I have a feeling the next few weeks are going to be a blur. But I cannot wait!

Megan

Over the past week, our class has been dealing with the challenging task of determining a mission statement for our fund and determining the way in which we want to spend the $10,000. On Tuesday we were given some sample mission statements of other funds, ranging from large, billion dollar organizations to ones that were giving much smaller thousand dollar donations. This provided us with a good framework to base our own statements off of. We were then divided into two teams in order to make the process easier and each developed a team mission statement.

After coming up with our statements, we then met as a whole class to discuss what each team had developed. Despite having completely separate discussions from one another, the two mission statements were actually similar. The main similarity was that both teams wanted to focus the funds we have on a youth organization. One of my team’s reasons for this was that we felt giving to a youth organization would have the most lasting impact. One of the main differences between the two mission statements was that one team wanted to limit the focus of their funds by only giving to an organization in Prince George’s County. The other team was open to giving to an organization in either Prince George’s County or Montgomery County, but they wanted to limit the funds focus by only giving to an organization with a budget of less than $100,000. At the end of class we discussed how to resolve these differences, possibly by compromising and including both limitations in our final statements.

Next week we will be discussing whether or not to combine our mission statements and donate the $10,000 as a whole, or to keep the statements separate and each give $5,000 to separate organizations. I personally feel that we should give try to resolve the statements, since they are not all that different from one another and giving $10,000 will have a much greater impact than $5,000. This seemed to be the general consensus of the class as well, so hopefully we’ll be able to develop a statement that will encompass both groups’ main goals.

The readings we did this week discussed what things should be considered when giving money as well as the various forms of grants that can be given. From the readings I was able to see how very important the work we did this past week truly is, as the values we have established in our statements will need to be referred to throughout this entire process. We will most likely get many applications seeking grants for many worthy causes, and without having the guideline of these mission statements, it would be next to impossible to decide who to give to. This makes establishing a concise mission statement all the more important, and I look forward to seeing what our teams come up with in the upcoming weeks.

Heather

This week in class we started the crucial process of drafting missions statements. We were first asked to consider and write about our own personal philanthropic philosophies. After completing our personal statements we were split up into two groups to create missions and values statements that will help guide where we will eventually spend our funds. We also discussed the proposition of trying to find someone to match the $10,000 we already have to work with or fundraising to add to it.

The readings for this week focused on the types of grants that can be made as well as things that should be considered when deciding whom to give money to. By the end of class on Thursday each of the two class groups decided they would like to focus their efforts on youth in the local area. One group’s mission statement focused mainly on education, however, while the other wanted to support youth involvement in the community. In addition, the first group wanted to focus on smaller organizations in either Prince George’s County or Montgomery County, while the second group limited their scope to Prince George’s County without specifying how large or small the organization should be.

I think the work we did this week was extremely important. Not only did it get us thinking about the specifics of where we want the money to be spent, it also forced us to start considering many of the logistical aspects of the philanthropic process. One of the readings highlighted the importance of a mission statement by offering an example of an organization that was forced to refer back to their core values and purpose when they were unable to fund all of their desired projects. This reading had a particular impact on how I viewed our assignment. It made me realize that the work we started this week will be pivotal in setting limits on our spending and helping us choose a worthy organization to give to. In terms of logistics, the class was forced to compromise and prioritize values and goals in order to complete the mission statements. Personally, I would like to see the two groups eventually merge and form one mission statement. I think our goals are similar enough that we could come to an agreement as a class and use all of the funds to promote one cause. By remaining in separate groups the class will be forced to split our already small sum of money into two smaller portions that ultimately may not make as great of an impact.

Connie

In the beginning of this week, after all the chaos of the blizzard subsided, we held our long-awaited debate on America's Top Philanthropists. Each of the five groups represented one philanthropist; on the panel were Jane Addams, Andrew Carnegie, John Rockefeller, Julius Rosenwald and Black Elk. We developed opening statements for our respective philanthropists and created "hard-hitting" questions directed at our opponents.

Jane Addams was a favorable philanthropist because she immersed herself in the poor neighborhoods and allowed herself to truly understand the root of the problem (of poverty). Some people viewed Rosenwald as a man before his time because he strove to help African Americans. Some people also liked Rosenwald’s and Carnegie’s philosophies of giving and making a difference when alive. I think The Kaplan Fund was a good example of good intentions gone wrong when money and expectations were put in the hands of younger generations. Also, some argued that Carnegie’s “ladders upon which the aspiring can rise” was placed a little too high off the ground by only building libraries in communities where they could afford to maintain them. Others argued that Carnegie’s method made the communities more connected with the libraries because they had to invest their own money and efforts into them. Rockefeller, another popular philanthropist, was favored because he hired experts to take care of his organizations in efforts to ensure that they were successful. Black Elk, though the least popular in class, valued giving as a way to express one’s humanity and membership in the community.

We also had the pleasure of receiving advice from Terri Freeman and Angela Hackley from the Community Foundation National Capital Region. One of the obstacles our class is going to face is deciding who to help, and who to turn down. Most likely, all the organizations will have honorable causes and missions, making our decision difficult. Terri and Angela stressed the importance of finding a group with strength. Not necessarily strength in its application, but strength in its organization. Do people in the organization talk to each other? How is the power distributed among colleagues? Are its goals and missions lucid and understandable? Can we make an impact this way? Dr. Grimm added that it is a balance between the head and the heart that we must find.

Carlos

This week was quite interesting in terms of learning various aspects and different approaches to philanthropy. We first examined 5 very different philanthropists in American history (Jane Addams, Andrew Carnegie, Julius Rosenwald, John D. Rockefeller, and the Lakota Tribe). Addams approach was very hands on and she delved right into a problem area and got on the level of those who needed aid. Carnegie was very adamant about giving away almost all of a person’s fortune while being alive and refrain from leaving to heirs or giving away money after passing. Rosenwald was against perpetual endowments and again was similar to Carnegie in believing one should be philanthropic before they pass. Rockefeller’s philosophy on philanthropy was based on the idea of “scientific giving.” He wanted to know as much information as possible and know that he was giving to a worthy cause before donating to a particular organization. The Lakota Tribe considered philanthropy giving to their immediate community and instead of giving what they had left over they gave everything they had. The philosophy I found to be the most effective was Rockefeller’s idea on “scientific giving.” It seems that by knowing as much information about a cause and organization as possible, you and the organization can get the most out of a donation.

On Thursday, February 18 we welcomed Ms. Terri Freeman and Ms. Angela Jones Hackley, president and vice president of the Community Foundation National Capital Region. They informed us a little on their organization and how a community/public foundation works. They stressed some points about the surrounding regions of Montgomery County and Prince George’s County and how their philanthropic and community needs can be addressed. They also made a very good point that “philanthropy alone will not fix a public problem, but it can be catalytic and leverage more money.” We as a class must realize that once this process of giving a grant away is completed, we are still indebted to the community and the receiving organization to remain active in trying to better whatever aspect of the community we target to fund. A great idea was also brought up during class about possibly being able to have another organization or various people and businesses to match our $10,000 grant and increase the impact we have on our community. This is an interesting opportunity that we as a class can discuss and decide on whether this is an attainable goal to pursue (Ms. Freeman said it was!). Keep brainstorming on ideas for what problems we want to address with our grant and I’ll see you Tuesday.

Nicole

CPSP318P has really hit the ground running in the first two weeks of class. With only four meetings under our belt, we’ve already jumped head first into our discussion of philanthropy. Through a series of readings and case studies, our conception of philanthropy has widened. The readings that stand out most in my mind are those that address the potential obstacles we may face throughout the course of the semester. For example, the reading The Snow Image describes the possibility of attempting to help someone, without fully understanding the circumstances of their need. In that situation, the potential of making the situation worse for the people you are trying to help is great. It brought to our attention the need to fully understand the needs of those we want to help, before rushing in, head first, and attempting to solve the problem any way we think we should.

The other reading that stands out most in my mind was the Kaplan Fund’s case study. This reading showed the importance of strong leadership, and organization in a fund. Being that we are all in the Public Leadership program, this particular lesson seemed to resonate throughout the class. It also inspired a nice discussion about how we would like to come to an agreement on where we think the money should be going. In this discussion we debated the pros and cons of splitting up the money among several organizations versus giving a larger sum of money to one organization.

Beyond the readings, I have been most struck by the quality of discussion among our classmates. With every topic at hand, there has been at least one comment made by one of my classmates that would not have occurred to me on a normal basis. These first few classes have made me very excited for the semester, and everything our class will be doing. We have a great group of students who are all very excited about our project, and I have already learned so much, just within our first four classes.

Loretta

Our first full week of classes has just ended, and I have begun to get a better grip on the concept of philanthropy. We know that we will receive $10,000, we know that we will be giving it away, and we know will be involved in the philanthropic process. But what is philanthropy? What does it really means? As a class, this week we began to delve into these topics.

We analyzed a reading called, “True and False Philanthropy.” We discussed if there is such a thing as true philanthropy versus false philanthropy. Is it better to give to the world or just to your own community? There were many different opinions on this issue. Some felt that giving to your own community was better because you would be more involved in the process. Sometimes that is very hard to do on a large scale because it is much easier to lose track of where your money goes. At the same time, we must not forget the people in the world who are in need. The tragedy in Haiti was mentioned. Haiti would not be considered as part of our community, but they are dependent on U.S help. We talked about what it would it be happen if the US just focused helping those within its borders.

We read two case studies. We learned that it is important for an organization to have a concrete plan with measurable results. Just because we agree in helping a cause does not mean we should jump to donate money. It is best for our money to be used most efficiently, and the best way to do that is with a plan we accept and approve. We also discussed whether it is better to give money as one gift or if the money should be split into smaller gifts. As a class we decided it would be more effective to give one large gift because in that we would be able to make a greater difference.

Later in the week, we looked at history and philanthropy. We read about some of the first philanthropists such as Benjamin Franklin, Cotton Mather, and John Winthrop. There was criticism of Franklin in the way he left money for apprentices after his death. Some argued it was better to give while you are alive because you would be able to see results and be involved in the process. Some believe that some issues are long term and one cannot simple give all one’s money when they are alive because it is better to give in a way that is sustainable.