Exercise: Overview
Complete after Week 1, Video 5 - Why I Give
Take a few minutes to think about experiences, individuals or events that inspired you to
give. Try to focus on one, but consider others if you feel they are crucial. Write out your
personal story, similar to video 6, on a piece of paper or on your computer. Describe what
happened, how it impacted you and how it still inspires you today.
I don't know if I have one particular experience. My parents have certainly been influential - my mom gives a lot of money to charity, and my dad gives a lot of time. I've always been drawn to helping educate people, especially children. The basic needs charities (food, water, etc) resonate with me intellectually, but on an emotional level, I'm more drawn to inspiring people. Giving them hope and happiness, giving them opportunities. I often give small amounts of money to a lot of different organizations, almost more as moral support. I often feel like as good as financial resources are, sometimes the non-financial resources can make even more of a difference. Many projects have come into existence because a few outside people believed in it.
Exercise: Overview
Complete after Week 1, Video 9 - Charity vs.
Philanthropy
Watch videos 7-10 on the definition of philanthropy and review the handout, “Definitions
of Philanthropy,” on the course page. Think and reflect on where you grew up, where you
are now and what it means to be a philanthropist in those communities. Write what you
think philanthropy means in your community, what philanthropy means to you personally
and how, in your opinion, the concept of a philanthropist is changing.
I am happy to see that this course is distinguishing between charity and philanthropy, and emphasizing the importance of both while focusing on philanthropy. We definitely need to address the problems at hand and help those in need, but if we don't also address the causes of the problems, we will never move forward - one of the reasons that I am focused on early childhood education. In my community growing up, most of the giving was about charity - giving to those who had less than us. We did food drives for poor communities. I helped at the soup kitchen in the city. But we had to do the food drive every month, and I served breakfast every other week. While these immediate putting out of fires may have helped the poor to feel better that day and thus maybe have been able to do better at work or with their family, it was mostly just charity, and not fixing any root causes. My community of friends now is much more interested in fixing root causes, although I do think that some of them, especially in the technology sector, are a bit too removed from the charity side of things to be effective philanthropically. I try to do a bit of both - charity and philanthropy - in terms of money and time (usually more so time, my parents often think that I should give less of my time and make money more of the time). I see educational opportunity as an important part of philanthropy because when we give people the resources they need, then they can often succeed on their own. I think that more people are starting to think about philanthropy and not just charity, especially as many of the large gifts from the major foundations are going toward working on causes and not just fixing problems.
Exercise: Overview
Complete after Week 1, Video 11.3
Guest Speaker: Lucy Bernholz
Philanthropy snd Technology Part 2
The next page of the workbook has a list of 15 websites changing philanthropy. Take a
look and explore 3 of them (feel free to look at more). As you view the pages, engage with
them and write down how you think each website is changing philanthropy. Then think
about innovation and future ways technology will continue to change philanthropy. Reflect
and write your thoughts and maybe even come up with the next big philanthropy startup!
I am already familiar with a good number of these websites. Was just using Guidestar and Charity Navigator for my first paper in my Nonprofit Management course. I've given on Kiva and DonorsChoose, and ran a fundraising campaign on GlobalGiving a year ago. I'm on VolunteerMatch (which reminds me that I need to follow up with the Kohls Children's Museum about helping them with early STEM). I have friends who worked with GiveWell.
I was not familiary wth catchafire, Jolkona, or GlassPockets. I'll have to check out some of the projects on catchafire to see if I can help (while still maintaining all of my other priorities!) Unfortunately the Jolkana quizlet had technical issues, so I'm not sure which celebrity philanthropist I am. I'll have to bring up the Glass Pockets website in two Nonprofit classes.
Exercise: Overview
Complete after the previous activity
In this activity you will answer three separate questions to guide your selection process. In
the end, you will have your issue area, an area where your passion and society’s greatest
needs meet. Here are the three questions:
What is your passion, are there certain people, places or problems
you want to solve? Looking at some of your previous workbook answers can help
guide this process.
My passion is around children and education. How do we go from being one little cell to become thinking, feeling beings. Early childhood is especially important to me because if we can start kids off on the right foot, everything else is so much easier later. I am most interested in helping in the US - while there are many issues in the developing world, I feel a call to help regionally or nationally here in the United States.
What are the world’s greatest needs?
The world's greatest needs are much more about clean water, high-quality nutrition, reduced violence, and equal opportunity. But in the US, those needs are strongly felt by our youngest population. Too many children do not have the building blocks that they need to succeed once they reach elementary school.
Finally, find your sweet spot, where do these intersect; where does your greatest
passion intersect with the worlds greatest needs? Then you have your issue area.
My issue area is in early childhood care and education in the US. The US is a bit broad, but I am currently looking at moving from a local impact to a broad regional or national impact.
Exercise: Overview
Complete after the previous activity
Slowly make your issue more specific. Use your research and your passion to refine your
issue area. Use the examples on the next page as a guide. If you think your issue area is
specific enough for you to make a significant dent, make the issue one step more specific;
that is your specific issue area. Think about location, different approaches, segments
of the population, etc. to help you narrow it down. Once you have selected your issue,
embrace it by tweeting about it, make it your Facebook status, send an article about it to
your friends or use other ways to celebrate your issue and advocate for it.
I am interested in many aspects of education - early childhood, STEM, leadership, high-quality teaching, etc. And because of my personality, my value for variety, and the high needs in all of these areas, I will of course continue to give in multiple ways to multiple organizations. For the purposes of these course, I will focus in on the highest impact in early childhood care and education, building school readiness skills, for low-income kids in the US.
I already embrace my issue(s) on social media. I started @earlymath in order to spread the word and advocate for high-quality early math learning. And on my personal social media, I'm constantly posting about education and early care.
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