Tweet of the Week Donation

Hi guys,

Sorry this is a bit late, but I just wanted to let everyone know where I decided to donate my Tweet of the Week money, for those who are interested. I decided to give to the Binghamton Regional Sustainability Coalition, a local non-profit organization that works in many ways to make the Binghamton area a healthy, thriving place to live. They have three major initiatives: Binghamton Rising , which is a regional Buy Local network that connects locally-owned member businesses with individual members and promotes local spending for a vibrant economy, the Many Hands Food Co-Op, which aims to to provide the community with access to affordable and nutritious food options, and Southern Tier Solar Works, which promotes energy efficiency and the rapid deployment of solar energy in our region. I worked with BRSC for about a year for Southern Tier Solar Works, and as I have come to know the leaders of the organization, I can see that it is a worthy non-profit with nothing but good intentions and aspirations for the success of Broome County. 

Dina Truncali

(PS: I don't work for BRSC anymore, in case anyone was worried about a conflict of interest)

Tweet of the Week

Good Evening Class,

I would just like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for an exciting and thought-provoking class and to also inform you all where I will be donating my tweet of the week money. I will be giving my check to CEO. As we all know I was a huge advocate for CEO overall. What made me donate to CEO is the twofold. One, I believe considering the structure of the class a local donation is most appropriate. Second, from my research and evaluation of CEO I am most informed about this organization in comparison to any other non-profit that comes to mind.

I believe in the overall mission and effectiveness of CEO in trying to achieve a greater life for their clients. As a small/new non-profit I believe the impact of my money will be greater at CEO. At the same time their commitment to successfully achieving social change is inspiring.

Thanks again for a great class I honestly developed and grew as a philanthropists 

Please read over this before tomorrow!

Hi everyone, I'm going to be talking briefly about Mom's House and Family Planning at the awards ceremony tomorrow. This is what I've prepared; please read over it if you wouldn't mind, and let me know if you think this is an accurate representation of the way the class feels. I'm happy to make changes if people think different things about the organizations should be emphasized.

          Hello, my name is Jesse Cole, and I'm a freshman at Binghamton. I'm going to tell you a little bit about two of the grantee organizations, and why our class chose to give to them.

         

          The greatest barrier to education for single parents is the lack of high-quality, affordable childcare. This leaves many single parents permanently stuck in low-paying jobs, and robs society of many of the contributions their talent could provide, given the chance. This problem resonated with our class, as we are all experiencing the benefits of a top-notch higher education. Mom's House helps to solve this problem by providing state-licensed childcare to single parents while they further or finish their education. Joan Peterson is a great example of the amazing work that Mom's House does. When she became pregnant at the age of 15, Mom's House helped her not only graduate from Broome Community College, but also obtain a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in Public Administration. Peterson remarked, "because of Mom's House, I was able to get a good education. Because of my education, I have always been able to get a job, to support my children, to own my own home, and just as importantly, to help others." For this reason, our class is awarding Mom's House $2,000 to go towards repairing damage to their facilities caused by the flood of 2011.

CALL UP LAURIE BOWEN

         

Unwanted pregnancies sometimes occur because of lack of access to or knowledge about contraception. People, often in their teens or early twenties, either don't know their options in terms of contraception, or simply can't find it or afford it. This leads to responsibilities they are not ready for, and can limit their opportunities if no one steps in to help. Family Planning of South Central New York provides free and reduced-cost contraception, as well as education programs to help people know their options. Unfortunately, they were forced to discontinue their free condom program due to the government cutting their funding. Our class believed in the great work this organization does, and will be awarding them $3,000 to re-start their free condom program.

CALL UP Mary Robinson, Director of Development

Hindsight is 20-20

Many things can be said over the debate last Tuesday. I, personally, was in one of the groups who was not backing any individual organization and were just asking questions. Watching the other groups support their own organization and attack the others,' in all honestly, made me feel ridiculous for the entire class. I think we can all agree that the debate in class was extremely non-productive, and much more emotional than intellectually based. I was going to write about the different debates that occurred, and how some of them seemed biased and incredibly unfair to specific organizations, but I felt that it would be too rude to the individual people. Instead, I would like to write about different solutions that we could have implemented to make sure that the debate does not devolve into every group bashing the others' organizations and ideas. The fact that this is hindsight is what makes it possible. It would be impossible to predict all the problems that came up or would come up if these ideas were implemented. So for next semester I give the following ideas for change. First of all, there is the question of whether or not it is okay for debate to be constrained. In other words, are there certain things, which we will not allow to be said because it is unfair or bad for the overall conversation? What would these be? Constraining debate can cause only productive debate to be said, but there are some obvious negatives to this. If certain ideas and comments cannot be said, than we as a class might lose out an a number of useful thoughts. More so, censoring ideas might stifle conversation, and stop people from saying whats on their mind, because they perceive it to be non-productive while in reality it poses a very serious question. Another option, which was said by Professor Campbell was to create group with only one person from each group in the team so that no one group is too fired up. This would have also allowed us as a whole to be able to make decisions without quite a bit of uproar. A third idea would be to have every group present a plan for the money to be split instead of for a specific organization so that there are a number of well formulated and thought of plans before we even start a discussion. Instead of getting 24ish people to a discuss a plan together. Without some changes people will only vote based on emotion of the conversation. Personally, I got confused and ended up voting for whichever group did not act too outwardly obnoxious and loud. I also heard people around me voting against organizations, because they did not want to see a specific group “winning” so to speak. If you have any other ideas for changes that would support future debates or just plain disagree with the overall idea please comment?

Second-Guessing

I was very surprised during Tuesday's class. I had thought we were all in agreement about at least Mom's House, CHOW, and Family Planning. I expected there would be debate about CEO, but I was one hundred percent not expecting people to waver on the other three. Suddenly people were arguing over whether CHOW needed our money, whether Mom's House needed any money, and whether Family Planning was a unique organization. Derek started it off, trying to play devil's advocate to sow doubt about the other organizations and give CEO a stronger platform.But I think that he was only a catalyst, exposing our uncertainties that were already there.
$10,000 is a lot of money. I'm going to guess that it's the most money most of us have been responsible for up to this point. The anxiety that so often accompanies financial decisions, times a thousand, had been lurking all semester, and we all momentarily succumbed to it. This was evidenced by the hour long debate turned yelling match-over $250. Yes, some of it can be explained by the fact the we were all put into our favorite organization's group and people had strong feelings about who was the worthiest choice. But we went back to the basics, questioning if some organizations should even get the money at all, which I at least had thought was essentially decided last week. We were second guessing a lot of the facts, measures, and decisions we had already been over, because suddenly everything was very real, and we were adults and philanthropists deciding which charity got Doris Buffett's money. Another source of anxiety seemed to be, at least for me, that while we were nervous about how much money $10,000 is, we were also realizing how little money it is in terms of charitable giving. Some people were talking about how no matter how much we give CHOW, it's only a drop in the bucket, so maybe we should turn our attention more towards the other organizations. I found a nice infographic, which is actually based on Peter Singer's six reasons people don't give from "The Life You Can Save", at the bottom of this article:

http://recharity.ca/6-reasons-why-people-dont-give-more/

The two reasons I've given here fall under the "money" and "futility" categories.
This anxiety is my theory for what was going on subconsciously/consciously for us that turned what we had thought would be a cut and dry situation into a class-long debate. I'm really interested to hear if you guys think it was money anxiety, or more peoples' passion for the organizations, or a mix of both. I'd also like to hear if you guys noticed any more of Peter Singer's six reasons sneaking their way into the final debate.

Tweet of the week donation $104

Well since I tweeted about it, and that's what you all voted for, I decided to donate the $104 to the couple I know that lost their home and three pets in a house fire.  Before donating, I had to do a little research on YouCaring.  I found this review on the fundraiser website, that was interesting.  It gives a bit of information on how it works.  Basically, people donate and who ever is set up to receive those funds gets the money.

http://crowdsunite.com/platforms/youcaring/#&panel1-1

There is a 3% transaction fee that is actually added at the checkout when you make your donation.  At first I thought that the transaction fees would be taken off at the end of the fundraiser time frame, but when I was making the donation, it actually calculated it at the checkout.  So I typed in how much I wanted to donate, and it calculated the transaction fees.  Today there has been a little over $1500 collected for them!  It is so awesome to see my community come together to help these people that have been volunteering hours of their time for their community for the past 18 years.
Thanks for the support guys!

Oh and if you want to check out the fundraiser again, here's the link!
http://www.youcaring.com/other/fire-loss/169187 

As this semester is coming to an end, I have been thinking a lot about how my philanthropy may change after taking this course. Before, I never thought so in-depth about an organization; I simply donated because I thought I was helping out a good cause. In reality, there are many different things one should think about before donating. After doing the research that we did for this class, I know how I participated in philanthropy will change.

When I donated to specific causes, it was very impulsive. It was either a bake-sale at my high school, someone knocking at my dorm room door asking if I wanted to donate a dollar to a specific cause, or, like a blog post from last week, at the supermarket. I never knew if the money was going towards the organization that they said they were donating it to, nor did I really ever think about it. In addition, when I wasn't donating impulsively, I was donating to a cause that I cared about and that I felt a personal connection with. I never once thought about if they used their funds in an effective way, or if the money I was donating was going to operating costs, or the cause in general. In retrospect, my thought process is a little naive.

Now, after learning about different organizations and researching many to determine if they are a good candidate for our grant money, my personal philanthropy will change immensely. I will no longer impulsively donate to causes when people approach me, simply because there is no way I can tell if that money is even going to the organization, or if it is going into the pocket of that person. When I donate to a cause that I am personally connected to, I will now look into how their organization is made. Using Give Well and Charity Navigator, I will be able to determine if the organization is using its money effectively as well as if they donate a majority of their profits, or if they use it for managerial costs.

This class immensely changed how I think about donating. What about you? What's going to change with your philanthropy after this class ends?

Metropolitan Council On Jewish Poverty Scandal

For my blog post this week, I would really like to discuss some current events that are occurring in philanthropy today, more specifically the actions of William E. Rapfogel. Mr. Rapfogel was charged with grand larceny as well as other offenses for admitting to the Supreme Court on Wednesday to taking part in a conspiracy to steal more than $7 million from the Metropolitan New York Council on Jewish Poverty. Mr. Rapfogel was the executive director of this organization for 21 years. He was also a prominent figure in New York City’s philanthropic and political circles. Mr. Rapfogel was hoping to acquire this colossal amount of money by overcharging the charity for insurance and pocketing the extra payments, which he would in turn use for political contributions and personal gain.

The Metropolitan New York Council on Jewish Poverty is an organization that was founded in 1972 after there were reported 300,000 Jewish New Yorkers that were living in poverty. The American Jewish Congress and the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York helped fund the organization. Even though the organization started in order to aid Jewish New Yorkers that were living in poverty, today it helps all New Yorkers no matter what age, race, sex or religion that they are.

It is absolutely shocking that Mr. Rapfogel led this organization for more than 20 years and was able to steal more than $1 million from it. This man had a lot of support and connections in New York’s political and philanthropic spheres, and now no one stands behind him. I cannot even imagine the embarrassment that his family and friends feel. A New York Times article stated that his wife, his longtime chief of staff, and his close friend and political figure Mr. Silver did not attend his case at the Supreme Court. He used the money to buy one of his sons a house and he also funneled illicit money to candidate running for office. I don’t understand how a man working for a charity and making $400,000 salary felt the need to steal huge sums of money from an organization that he leaded.  It is also interesting to note that Mr. Rapfogel did not publicly apologize; he only provided a short explanation for what he had done. It is appalling how people with a lot of influence politically can be overlooked and not evaluated.  He will be serving a lengthy prison sentence and he also has to pay $3 million in restitution to the charity.

I feel that he should have some other punishment where he must perform charitable duties in order to repay the Metropolitan New York Council on Jewish Poverty. I also wonder how this will affect the charity since there was corruption and conspiracy so deeply rooted within in it. What are your thoughts on this whole thing? How do you think this will affect the charity? Do you think something like this could have been prevented earlier on? Maybe charities need to undergo investigation when they have such large pools of money. I am interested in looking into other fraudulent cases that have occurred in charities in the past.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/nyregion/rapfogel-pleads-guilty-in-scheme-to-loot-new-york-charity.html?hpw&rref=nyregion&_r=0

Advice from Last Year's Student - Heart vs Head

This week we were told to contact students in last year’s Philanthropy class and ask for any advice they had. I talked with Samantha Meadows and she had a good piece of advice that I want to share. Sam’s advice was to not let your emotions get in the way of your decision making. She explained that after all the research we do we may get attached to one organization and it may make it hard if the class decides not to donate to them. She said to keep in mind that the organizations we are considering are all good organizations otherwise they wouldn't be in our finalist.

I know that our class all agreed on CHOW, Family Planning and Mom’s House already but there was a discussion in class about CEO. By listening to the conversation in class I could tell, although we have already selected 3, there will be a bit of an argument over whether or not we should donate to CEO. Going into next week’s class I think we should keep in mind Sam’s advice. We should do the best to not let out emotions take over and listen to each other’s points.

Thinking about this I decided to see if there were any other articles that discussed this issue. I found an article called “Two Paths for Charitable Giving: From the Head or From the Heart.”  (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/29/your-money/charitable-giving-from-head-or-heart.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0&ref=your-money) What I found really interesting in this article is that the author had examples of people who gave from the head and others from the heart. Although the article did favor doing some research into the organizations you are donating to it did not discredit the heart.
A part in this article I found relevant to our discussion of CEO is this: “Mr. Tempel said that it was fine to ask organizations to be accountable, but that it could go too far. ‘People who follow their head looking at return on investment — they will be most disappointed if they have unrealistic expectations on what is possible,’ he said. ‘Some things are just difficult to deal with, like solving illiteracy in a community.’ He said this was where nonprofits needed to tell donors what was measurable and what wasn’t, to prevent frustration and disappointment on both ends.’”I think this related to the conversation we began about CEO. Is the population CEO is working with just something difficult to deal with? How critical should we be of an organization’s numbers? While CEO is working with a hard group of people are they really make a difference? I think that it is important to take into consideration the difference they are making but we must keep in mind the group they are working with too. Also would our money make more of a difference in by giving more to the other organizations we discussed? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

CEO: To donate or not to donate? That is the question

Good afternoon class,

As we all have come to know by now much of our debate next week will be on whether to give CEO grant money or not. As a advocate for CEO it is obvious to understand where my opinion lies, but we should examine the organization deeply in order to gain a complete understand of its success.

The main issue that has been raise against CEO is its overall success. In class we specifically discussed the test results of the MDRC evaluation. Before we address the tests findings we most first recognize the importance of CEO openly participating in this test. First, the MDRC is the most accepted and rigorous test to evaluate the effectiveness of social policy. The fact that our other finalist organizations have never been subjected to this type of rigor demonstrates CEO's commitment to success. I believe this fact was under-estimated in class. Mom's House, CHOW, and Planned Parenthood have never, I repeat never, undergone a governmental evaluation such as this. Once again I believe the fact that CEO actively fought to participate in this test shows the organizations determination to be successful.

At the same time it seems the MDRC found that CEO is making positive strides in achieving their social change. CEO has significantly reduced recidivism, significantly increased employment opportunities in  the first year, its financial benefits outweigh its costs, and they are most effective with higher risk clients. The exact numbers to support these positive claims can be found in the MDRC's report. With all of these successes it is important to note that CEO is the only program of its kind in the community. So it would seem that CEO is doing a good job. For some classmates this is unpersuasive, considering that this is the most accepted and successful evaluation test in the country these results are concrete. But lets entertain some objections.

Majority of critiques that were posited in class were concerning the overall effectiveness of CEO. One, was the fact that CEO was only effective within the first year of parole. This is an important question that CEO must tangle with. We all can agree that the first year of a recently released prisoner is the hardest year of their life. This is the time period where we see many re-incarcerations, drug-use, and violence. So I would ask classmates to keep this in mind. CEO is most effective within the hardest and most troubling time of a prisoners life, this is a huge impact. Once again, I believe that when we evaluate the overall effectiveness we must remember and take note of the clientele that CEO is working with, because it is extremely unique compared to the other finalists. Second, the other argument is since CEO has nothing to compare itself to how can we accept a 50% success rate? This is a foolish question and should be dismissed. Any positive impact that can be made within these recent prisoners lives is important. Whether successful or not, the people who CEO works with are trying to make a better life for themselves. As a criminal these is extremely hard to do. Since there is no other program to help these individuals any help given is plausible.

I believe that CEO is a unique organization that should receive some of our grant money. Its overall impact within its target community is extremely successful, even if it is only with one year. If the class is concerned with CEO's sustainable impact, I would ask you to look at it in another way. The value of one successful CEO participant is much higher than those who do not succeed. I am interested to hear others opinions on CEO and welcome constructive criticism.