It's The Final Countdown...(3, To Be Exact)

After a great deal of time reading, re-reading, and re-reading some more, I have been able to whittle this large list of applicants down to my “Final Five.” However, over some more deliberation this past weekend, I am proud to present my “Triple Threat” (My final three organizations). Here they are:

A. Boys and Girls Clubs of Binghamton

I think a lot has already been said with regard to this organization. I don’t think that any of us would refute its success and ability to keep individuals entertained, educated, and in a place that will maximize their individual productivity. What really drew me to this organization is two-fold. The first was that it is planting the seeds of success in these children, by giving them a place to both further their education, as well as let out all of the energy and exuberance that comes with being a kid. The second thing that really impressed me about the Boys and Girls Club is that for such a large organization, they are extremely organized, and are very in touch with what their needs are, down to the nitty-gritty. The fact that they knew they needed art supplies, and that local kids need a baseball field constructed really impressed me. The fact that this organization can pay attention to both detail, as well as the larger picture, and maintain this level of success, earned them high marks in my book.

B. Discovery Center

Before reading this application, I thought it was going to be like every other museum I went to as a child, and I didn’t really expect it to stand out. Boy, was I wrong. The Discovery Center, to me, seems to have it’s finger on the pulse of the community, and I think their application clearly reflected that. Two main reasons I believe that funding this organization would be beneficial are their connections with Binghamton University already, and their vision for the money, and the future in general. The Discovery Center already has a partnership with a number of fraternities, sororities, and other groups and clubs on campus. This presence on campus lends to the work it does, as well as its good reputation in the community. Furthermore, I believe that their vision for the money is extremely well thought out, and will go to serve a much higher purpose. I found it impressive that they only asked for $2,500 as opposed to all of the money, with plans as grand and impressive as the one we read about in this application.

C. Soup and Sandwich Lunch Program

While the Discovery Center has its fingers on the pulse of the community, and the Boys and Girls Club seemed to cater to the community’s future, the Soup and Sandwich Lunch Program, at least to me, seemed to be something that grew out of a communal need. It addresses an issue that is so fundamental, it is hard to ignore. At the same time, this program is providing people with a meal, with company in which to eat the meal, as well as a financial relief, by not charging for the meal. Compared to the budgets of the first two organizations, the $3,150.86 that this program is operating on is literally pocket change. The fact that the program is running shows that not only is it successful as a “band-aid” program, but there is a deeper community need. I am wholeheartedly in favor of supporting this program, but not in place of contributing money to alleviating hunger in the area, in some respect. 

So, what do you guys think? Can we give with just our hearts? Our heads? Or Both? Does it matter?

Result Focused Giving

In going over the applications I felt that the most influential answers were to the question regarding what the organizations would do with $10,000. This is the result that we will have on the community if we choose to give to that organization. Many organizations had great mission statements, but when they said what they would use the money for I often moved on to the next application. One such organization that had this effect on me was the Discovery Center. The Discovery Center is an organization that has a mission of enhancing a child’s development through interacting learning, which really appealed to me. However, when I found out that they would use the money for an exhibit on the “pedagogy of honeybees” I decided to move on. Some people may think that this is useful for developing a child’s culture, but for me it does not. This was the main criterion that I used in deciding which organizations to further investigate, but I also put an emphasis on their mission and in some cases information on their website.

The first organization that caught my eye was the Family Enrichment Network (FEN). FEN is centered on providing support services for low-income families in an effort for them to grow to their fullest potential. It primarily does this by empowering parents and providing many services and programs for children of all ages that you can find on their website at http://www.familyenrichment.cc/programs.aspx. What I really enjoyed was that they said they would use the money for outdoor equipment that would further classroom learning. I feel that this would be a great use of the money and they even provided some research linking their efforts to “improved information recall, increased creativity, improved problem-solving skills, and increased self-esteem and confidence”. These factors provide great justification for a site visit and making them a potential recipient of our money. The only drawback that some people may have is that their expense budget for the past 3 years has been around $9,000,000 each year. Even though our comparatively small amount may not make or break this organization, they are still a seemingly great organization that will use it effectively.

An organization that has an interesting reason for needing our money is the Family and Children’s Society. The goal of this organization is to provide care for people through all stages of life by having family oriented programs such as marriage counseling, sexual abuse treatment, domestic violence counseling and others. They wrote that the usage of our money would go to ensuring office space. Maybe not the most glamorous use of the money, but they need office space because a month ago their building had smoke and water damage due to a fire in the apartment next door. The Family and Children’s Society claims to need a lot of funds to reopen their doors, and our money would definitely help them out. Due to these reasons, I feel that we should further see how much help they actually need and if their programs are effective.

The last organization that I may like to see our money go to is the Campus Pre-School that is associated with Binghamton University. An on campus non-profit would provide the added benefit of improving our University’s focus on giving as well as providing the service to the preschoolers. There is not a tremendous amount of information about the Campus Pre-School from the application or the website, but a site visit would allow us to see how their pre-school enriches student’s lives in comparison to students elsewhere in the Binghamton community. The educational aspect of their program is in line with the majority of our class’s issue areas so I feel it would be worth our time to find our more information. Their operating budget is around $900,000 so I would be interested to see how they would use any money we would give. If it were for something that their program is in need of I would be further inclined to give our money to the Campus Pre-School.

Many organizations that I have looked through seem promising, but the best information will definitely come through interactions with the programs through site visits and if they come to our class as opposed to the applications. With this process, there are many questions that we still need to ask. When two different organizations have similar mission statements, how do we choose which one to give our money to? Is it justifiable to rule a great organization out if they are using the money for something we aren’t as passionate about? These are questions I have tried to answer in picking my organizations, but there is a lot of grey area in deciding.  Feel free to question my decisions and make cases for organizations you feel are better than the ones I chose.

Narrowing Down Our Options

Hey guys, hope everyone’s break is going well so far.

Sifting through all of these applications was quite a task. However, I believe I’ve been able to narrow it down to a few organizations that have a very similar mission to ours and would really benefit from our donation. There were many that caught my eye during my first run-through, but in an effort to make as big an impact as possible, I was really adamant on focusing on only three organizations for this blog post. I am not going to suggest quantities of money for any of the three organizations because I believe that right now our most important goal is narrowing our view as much as possible. From there we can assess how our money can be distributed most effectively.

The first organization I would like to discuss further in class is the Liberty Partnerships Program. This organization directly targets at-risk middle and senior high school students and focuses on academic achievement and pursuit of higher education. Their budget is relatively small, averaging around $300,000, but their breadth of impact is very wide, encompassing four high-need school districts. They are also affiliated with BU, which I think is very good because we will be able to keep track of how our money is being spent. While their application was not written very clearly and at some points seemed too vague to justify a large-scale donation, maybe further research and a visit to see the program in action would give us all the information we need. It seems to me that this is an organization that is growing very fast and would use our donation to reach out to even more at-risk youth in the greater Binghamton area.

The second organization I would like to highlight is WSKG. Their application impressed me the most because of its specificity. They really made an effort to elaborate on every question as much as possible and I would encourage everyone to go back and read it in detail. Their application reminded me very much of the Saving Philanthropy video because their target audience was very focused and they included data to support many of their claims. Further their annual expenditure devoted to the education program is quite small ($200,000) and has not been stable in the past few years so their events would really benefit from the additional money. Also, they have clearly explained how our donation would be used, and I think it would be very nice to see our money at work.

The last organization that I found deserving of further discussion is the Boys and Girls Club. Their values (academic success, healthy living, and good character) align almost exactly with those that we have been discussing in the past few months. Their application is very detailed in how they would use our donation. This organization does a lot to supplement the public education system and the areas they seek to improve are the same areas that public school districts are unable to fund. Technology, art education, athletics, and extracurricular activities have been on the decline in many low income school districts and it is clear that the Boys and Girls Club is making an effort to provide these important elements to students through the nonprofit sector. As such, I believe that we should definitely support them in this since a majority of us have expressed interest in encouraging technology, art, and athletic education. Lastly, the Boys and Girls Club of Binghamton seems like as much an aspect of the community as a tool to supplement education, with many of their local staff spending several decades devoted to the organization. Since it has proven to be a successful long-term part of the local civil society, I strongly encourage helping the Boys and Girls Club meet its goals and expand its services to the community.

These are the three organizations I believe are most deserving of our money based solely on their applications. I know there are many alternatives available, but does anyone disagree specifically with any of these organizations? Are there any fundamental reasons why you would be reluctant to donate money to any of the three? I think it is important that we start challenging each other so that we can begin narrowing down the applicant pool. I look forward to actually visiting these organizations to see how they work and gain better perspective on the changes they make to the Binghamton community.

My Spring Break

Hope everyone's spring break is going well!
I have yet to do something exciting.....

As a student who had no plans made for spring break, I found myself reading through the grant applications early in the week.  I had the hardest time narrowing them down.  I first went through and read the mission for each organization and took note of whether or not they were available to visit us in class and eliminated about half that did not align with our class mission of empowerment of youth and quality of education.  Then I read what each organization would do with money from our class and decided on five final organizations that I believe we could have an impact on!  Let me say, this was NOT easy.  I hate saying no : (

In no particular order:
1. The Discovery Center (this is one of my favorites!!)
-I like the mission of this organization, although it does not exactly align with our class' mission they do wish to give children a hands-on educational experience.  The Discovery Center has asked for $2500 which would allow them to install a bee hive for a new exhibit and I think that is pretty cool (but I'm a little biased - my grandpa is a bee keeper!!!).

2. The Boys and Girls Club
-The mission of BGC pretty closely matches our desired mission.  They hope for their members to be productive both in an out of school and pursue a successful future.  They have asked for our money because they need to update the computers and art supplies and they would like to construct a baseball field outside. All of these updates would enhance the experience of their members and better enable the BGC to achieve their mission.

3. Kopernik Society of Broome County
-This is a very educational organization that encourages students to discover the wonders of our world.  Currently, they have a serious problem with one of their main telescopes - a repair that only costs $1500.  I would really like to help them out with this - I want to keep them up and running!

4. WSKG Public Broadcasting (this one is my other favorite!!)
-WSKG wishes to inspire students with high quality educational programming, art exploration and more - a mission that I resonate with.  A small percentage of Broome County residents have achieved a higher educational degree and this organization encourages youth to do so.  They explain in the application that they are partnering with an alternative high school on a program to get students thinking about their future.  They will write narratives about what their education means to them and they will record their stories for a chance to be aired on the radio.  One sentence in their application really stuck out to me: "WSKG is excited to empower these at-risk students to share their voice with our community and provide a platform to inspire all local students to achieve graduation."  They have asked for $2500 to go through with this program and I would really like to contribute!

5. The Broome County Urban League
-The Urban League focuses on youth ages 5-18 offering them after-school and summer programming, tutoring/mentoring, technology classes and workforce development.  They have asked for money to help support their new broadcast company and radio station which will work with at-risk youth to teach them new media and social entrepreneurship.  These youth will also have the chance to earn college credits through BCC.  I would like to be able to contribute to this organization!

The Math:
$2500 to The Discovery Center**
$1500 to the Boys and Girls Club
$1500 to Kopernik Society
$2500 to WSKG**
$2000 to Urban League

What do ya'll think?!?!?!?

ALSO - I found this website through the grape-vine that sells bracelets to provide jobs for Costa Rican Artisans.  It is called Pura Vida (which translates to Pure Life), found at: http://puravidabracelets.com.  They are beautiful, fairly priced bracelets that are made for a good cause.  I know a lot of friends who buy these in bulk and load their wrists with color!  I will most likely be ordering a few of these!  I have been to Costa Rica and met some of the locals, they live in awful conditions, yet never fail to smile!

Recommendations and Notes

After first ruling out incomplete applications, non-501(c)3 charities, and non-local charities, I had my hands full. I basically used the criteria of best impact to narrow it down… some charities I would love to have an impact with, but if the impact was vague, or included funds that would simply have to be raised again next year, I cut them. This helped me immensely in such a tough decision.  However, there was still some vagueness, for instance – is a 3-year impact long or short-term? The next criteria I used was if the organization seemed to have a specific idea in mind about how to use our money. Lastly, I picked organizations in education since that was our class issue area. That may not be exactly fair, but there were so many good ones I had to do something. We can tell organizations that we identified education as the greatest need and their organization didn’t fall into it. I do have emotions and some of the organizations below may not fit perfectly into what I have just said, in those cases it means that I saw that the need was great in our area.

My last comment would be that there seems to be several instances where $2500 or less can FULLY meet the need. I would love to FULLY meet the need of 4 places (because I realize that arbitrarily dividing up the money just so we don’t feel bad isn’t a good idea). This just seems to be a year where there are some smaller needs, and I would love to impact those, rather than the bigger, “defraying” grants.

EPAC

--good expense budget

--EPAC has assisted many local school and community theater groups by providing costumes, props, and scenery for their shows at little or no charge for their productions

--currently collaborating with BU students

IMPACT: replacing computers may be put off because the volunteers see the kids as a greater need, they can “deal” with the slow computers, however a staff member should not have a computer that is crashing in the middle of their hard work, should not have a lag or wait for start-up. Exact amount for an iMac desktop = about $1500

Family Enrichment Network

--from Vision Statement on webpage: When advocating for the implementation of services, we are supportive of existing or potential providers while avoiding duplication of services.

--huge variety of programs

IMPACT: clear difference between without our money (indoor learning) and with our money (outdoor learning), cuts due to financial crisis, other programs have been maintained

Boys and Girls Club

--address multiple issues areas – POVERTY and COMPLIMENTARY EDUCATION

--holistic approach (nutrition, exercise, college assistance, hw helps, etc.)

Some staff members have been at the Club for decades and still regularly stay after hours and come in on weekends for no extra pay. They pay out of their own pocket for program supplies.

IMPACT: computers – inability to efficiently provide service if computers are running slow (I know I personally struggled with my own HW ‘til I got a new laptop in October)

Baseball field – offer a new service

Art and Fun Club supplies – will run out

SOS Shelter

--actively changing and adapting program, seeking out grants

IMPACT: cover areas not covered, provide women with safety, URGENT need (6 months), fully cover cost, lasts a while

YWCA

IMPACT: --WOMENS ISSUES and EDUCATION and POVERTY

--finish a playground that was supposed to be finished upon completion, but not enough funds were received

Catholic Charities

The Teen Transitional Living Program (TTLP) is the only supportive housing program for homeless youth in Broome County.

IMPACT: jumpstart a program that will become self-sufficient through profits

Discovery Center

In a time when educational practice is heavily focused on preparing children for standardized testing, play-based learning expands a child’s educational experience to include visual, tactile and kinesthetic learning opportunities.  Experiential play encourages the promotion of abstract thinking and creativity with a deep conceptual understanding that can be translated into life skills that prepare a child for future academic success.

IMPACT: new exhibit for 3 years, exact cost: 2500

Kopernik Observatory

IMPACT: prevent a $25,000 piece of equipment from being damaged for $1500, allow summer activities to go on

Support for YWCA, FEN, and BGC

Going into the process of evaluating nonprofits, I felt confident that I knew exactly which organizations would appeal to me. However, upon reading through the applications, I found that almost all of the programs seemed like great causes that I would like to support. Because I was being drawn in so many different directions, I decided to narrow down my choices by focusing primarily on the nonprofits that involved youth programs, as that is my issue area. It is my hope that although I will be making the case for organizations in this area, others in the class will bring attention to the many worthy causes I had to decide against. Thus, after considering the grants with respect to my issue area, I would like to support the Boys & Girls Clubs of Binghamton, the Family Enrichment Network, and the YWCA.

            In my research on the Broome County area, I discovered that many economically disadvantaged students fall behind their peers academically at an early age, and consequently are less successful. In order to combat this inequality, it is necessary to support organizations that cater to the early education of underprivileged youth. I selected each of the organizations listed above on the basis that they provide such opportunities to children in the area. Specifically, the Boys and Girls Clubs offers services including homework help and tutoring, which could assist children that are struggling with schoolwork in catching up to their peers academically. The Family Enrichment Network offers Head Start and various other programs, such as those that encourage literacy. Such programs strive to encourage children’s early development in various areas, while simultaneously promoting parental involvement, which is crucial to academic success. Finally, the YWCA offers universal Pre-school, which is a great way to make early education accessible to all children, thus giving them a better chance to succeed in school.

            Although many other organizations that applied provide various services to children, I was most impressed by the ones that had a relatively specific plan for the grant money. Granted, each of the nonprofits that I selected has relatively large expense budgets, but despite this they still have a precise idea of how our money could help. For example, both the Family Enrichment Network and the YWCA would use the funds to enhance the outdoor play experience for children, through the purchase of new equipment and other improvements. I believe that supporting such causes is essential, because as the Family Enrichment Network application states, there is a strong correlation between outdoor play and improved overall development for children. Similarly, the Boys and Girls Clubs presented a very specific breakdown of fund utilization. Although several plans were outlined, I was drawn to the notion of improving the computers. Not only would these computers be used to further education by assisting with homework, but they would also help to give children the technological knowledge that is so imperative in modern society. Thus, I believe that each of these organizations presented efficient ideas for improving their youth programs, and consequently they deserve our consideration.