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.

 

Obligatory Donations

I want to talk about something that we haven’t discussed thus far in class.  In the philanthropic realm, I’m certain large portions of donations are made due to obligation.  Let me explain.  There always comes that time of year when a co-worker, extended relative or friend turns to you to donate to a cause they are passionate about. 

For example, while not necessarily a donation, you are all very familiar with the friendly neighbor knocking on your door to sell Girl Scout cookies.  You don’t really want the cookies because you’re on a diet but it would reflect poorly on your character if you don’t participate.  They are your neighbors after all and they will be your neighbor for many days to come. 

So what do we make of the practice of using family and friends to generate funds?  The actions of these people are certainly noteworthy, however, it seems obvious that they would not be nearly as successful if they were calling upon strangers.  This phenomenon and human nature may be having repercussions on philanthropy.

My biggest concern is that this takes away from the magic and the intrigue of a philanthropic donation.  In the long run, the individuals called upon for donations may be discouraged from pursuing a donation of their own accord.  This is due to the fact that their exposure to philanthropy thus far may be motivated by the wrong reasons.  They are largely compelled to donate to the causes of family and friends to avoid feeling guilty as opposed to feeling pride and pleasure (This goes back to the Girl Scout scenario).  Unless the donator is as invested as their acquaintance, the experience will not be as rewarding.  This is because the connection is to the middleman, not the organization on the receiving end.

This idea has shaped philanthropy considerably.  I recently read that America’s largest charities have not changed much over the last 40 years because we consistently giving to the same familiar brands.  That includes charities that our acquaintances annually support.   Our connection to our family and friends and our desire to avoid conflict, guilt and displeasure have been the motivation for many donations.

Instead of answering questions I propose, I want you all to imagine a world in which we are completely removed from our emotion in these philanthropic decisions.  How different would the charitable world look?  In particular, we would be able to turn down the donation requests of friends and family in favor of our own decisions without remorse? 

On a slightly unrelated note (I’m curious what you have to say), would we simply not donate to any organization at all because we wouldn’t feel guilt?

Guilt Trip Philanthropy?

Everyone is familiar with it.  It appears in the form of a question from a cashier in a store, a person with a booth outside your supermarket, or even from a fraternity or sorority knocking on your dorm door.  "Would you like to donate to ____ to help save ______ from (insert terrible form of suffering here).  This type of philanthropy always intrigued me.

It's quite different from the type of philanthropy we've talked about in class.  In fact, it's almost the opposite.  It is done passively rather than the donor actively searching for the possible recipient of the money, it is done without any prior research and it is a decision made impulsively and quickly.  Despite all this, which goes against everything we've talked about in class up until this point, it is effective.  Why is that?

Primarily it seems to play off of guilt.  My mother, for example, always says yes when she's asked to donate to St. Jude's or to "cancer research" and her answer is simple.  She always said "I sound like a terrible person if I say no.  I'm saying I don't want to help cure cancer or I want children to suffer."  Does she know if getting charged an extra dollar for her groceries will actually send a dollar to St. Jude's?  No.  Does she even know what the charity ACTUALLY does and how it spends its money?  No.  All she knows is somebody is suffering and if she cares about suffering she should donate.  This connects very well to the "Emotion constrained by reason" blog post for this week as well.  This form of "guilt trip philanthropy" certainly is the emotional extreme, because the person being asked will almost certainly have no logical reason to support the cause, other than feeling absolutely terrible if they say no.  This always bothered me.

A major theme in class was always that you are not a bad person if you don't give to charity.  Like with the tweet of the week, nobody was ever forced to donate.  Nobody is even looked down upon for not wanting to support a cause.  Philanthropy is not a requirement and every person doesn't believe in it.  For this reason, I always hated campaigns based solely on guilt.  I never say yes when I'm asked.  Does that mean I want kids to die and I don't want to cure cancer?  No.  That means that if I want to save kids and cancer patients I'll use the skills I've learned in this class to find a charity that does a good job solving those issues that I feel like I can logically support.  However, I can't fault those charities.  Their strategy works for them very well.

What do you guys think?  Do you say yes when you're asked?  Do you worry that your money isn't actually going to the cause?  Do I just sound cynical?

Community Philanthropy

When Laurie from Mom’s House visited our class, she spoke about the organization’s self-sufficiency philosophy.  Only 3% of Mom’s House’s funding comes from the government and the rest comes from grants and donations from the community.  Several of the finalist organizations, such as Family Planning, depend on government funding to run their programs.  With Family Planning, the government coverage of the cost of condoms and emergency contraception was cut, forcing the organization to turn to outside sources for help.  This raised several concerns about whether or not Family Planning would be able to sustain its programs.  Since Mom’s House does not depend on government funding, this is not really an issue for them.

Mom’s House receives most of its funding through grants and community donations.  After the floods of 2011, Mom’s House was basically destroyed.  However, with the help of the community, the organization was back up and running in under two weeks.  This truly shows how much the community values the presence of Mom’s House.  I believe that community involvement in an organization is crucial to its success.

http://www.mott.org/files/publications/CaseForCommunityPhilanthropy.pdf

This article addresses the importance of community philanthropy.  According to this case, community philanthropy “taps into the drive of local people to help each other.”  Much like our discussion in class about the importance of constituent feedback, this article argues that if people have more of a say in the development of a project, they will be more invested in its success.  Though this may seem like common sense, Mom’s House is an example of how community investment can help an organization flourish.

Some of the advantages of community philanthropy include flexibility, sustainability, and knowledge of community needs.  Since funding comes mostly from the community, the community gets to choose where this money goes.  Government funding is often allotted for a certain project, while community funds can be used for any problems that arise.  Additionally, there is no uncertainty about whether or not money will keep coming in for a project, as the community members know exactly where the money is coming from.  This form of philanthropy is particularly effective, as no one knows the needs of a community better than the people living in it.  They can figure out where the money should go to produce the largest result.  Also, since the people involved in building an organization are the same people being affected by it, they will be aware of what they need to do to sustain the projects.

As you can probably tell, I am strongly in favor of community philanthropy and self-sustaining organizations.  However, I want to know what you all think.  What are the advantages and disadvantages of being a self-sustaining organization?  Would you be more willing to give to a government funded organization or a self-sufficient organization?  As a class, how should these ideas affect our final grant decision?

Rational Giving: "Emotion Constrained by Reason"

This past week my presentation group met to decide which criteria we should use to evaluate the final six organizations.  We ended up with community need, sustainability, cost-effectiveness, impact, and grant money use.  Equally important to note was that we did not include core values as one of the criteria.  At this point in the process many people in the class feel some sort of connection to some of the organizations. We would not have picked these organizations if we did not feel that they were satisfying some sort of emotional core value we shared.  That is why our group chose the criteria we did because they are all factors that require logical arguments that are relatively more objective than core values.  Professor Campbell often states, “philanthropy is emotion constrained by reason.”  I think that emotion is what drove us to pick the top applicants and now we have to be smart and rational about whom we give the grant money to.  In class sometimes people may like or dislike an organization based on a “gut-feeling.”  However, I think that to make an informed decision, we need to be more careful and have reasonable arguments when deciding.  Do you guys agree or think that emotion and passion will ultimately drive our final grant decision? 

One of the readings we had to look at recently was a blog on Give Well about the different types of giving: passive, rational, and quantified (http://blog.givewell.org/2013/08/08/passive-vs-rational-vs-quantified/).  While quantified would be one of the best ways to make a decision, it is impractical because not all of the accessible information on the organizations is quantified or measurable. Rational is the better alternative because it is a happy medium between passive and quantified.  It requires effort and a bit of digging to obtain valuable information, although the information does not necessarily have to be quantified.  For example, we talked about how valuable feedback from participants or clients of an organization can be.  While that is not a measurable piece of information, it can still provide insight into the charity and evidence that the organization is making a positive difference. What kind of giving do you think we should utilize? Maybe there’s a different approach besides the three mentioned in the article that you prefer.  

In addition, I liked how the article stated that rational giving could actually be more of the emotional giving as opposed to the passive approach because rational giving indicates that the person is more invested in the situation.   I think that this relates to our class because we are each emotionally invested in many of the final organizations due to our core values and personal experience, yet we also have to be wise about the decision we make especially since it’s $10,000 and not just a few bucks.  It is similar to how one might take more time when purchasing a car or computer than when purchasing food or socks.  This grant money is large enough that it can significantly benefit an organization.  This is why I believe we need to be rational when making the final decision.  We need to make sure that we are giving to organizations that are most effective in addressing a community need.  This could even mean donating to an organization that may not necessarily be the one that we are most passionate about, but is doing the most good for what the community needs.   Do you guys agree?  Would you be willing to sacrifice one of the organizations that you are very emotionally connected to if it meant that the money would be going toward a different organization (one that you are still emotionally connected to, but to a lesser extent) that might use the money in a more effective way?

Donation Made!

Hi, everybody!

First and foremost, congratulations on making it to Spring Break! I hope you all are able to enjoy some time with your family & friends.

Second, I got to do the coolest thing today. I went to RISE, and dropped off a donation totaling $332, the result of winning the Tweet of the Week competition.


After winning the second week, I thought hard about a second local organization that I would like to support. And then I thought about the same thing after the third win. There are, as we've learned, a lot of very worthy non-profit agencies operating both locally and globally. It's almost overwhelming.


With that said, I ultimately decided to give the collective amount to RISE. As I wrote in my first blog post, my initial connection with RISE is very much a personal one. I was, and still am, incredibly lucky - I had an amazing support system to help me leave, and to help keep me safe in a vulnerable time. Not everyone is that lucky and that is where RISE, particularly the shelter component, comes into play.


When Rebecca Allerton came to class, part of what she said really struck a chord with me. A student asked how the organization measures success, a valid question and one we have learned to ask as we move forward with our decision making process. Ms. Allerton did not answer with statistics or an explanation of the process used to evaluate success, as others may have done. She said that each time a woman enters the shelter and remains safe, even if it is only for one night, she considers that a success. I could not agree with her more. Given the statistic surrounding domestic violence in Broome County (for example, the fact that law enforcement responds to 550-600 domestic violence calls each MONTH in Broome County), I think that the shelter offers an invaluable resource to the community. RISE is also the ONLY domestic violence shelter in Broome County. The fact that RISE is the only program offering this sort of service only adds to the reasons why I chose to support this organization.


Finally, following a conversation with Ms. Allerton, she was able to explain exactly what a donation of this size would be used for. I like knowing that the donation will be used towards tangible items - clothing, personal hygiene, basic needs items, that will offer a source of comfort to a woman, and possibly her children, in a moment when everything else seems to be spinning out of control.

Accountability and Transparency

During class on Tuesday, we talked briefly about accountability and transparency. We were shown a charity with a 2 star accountability and transparency rating and asked if we would donate money to them based on their rating. Obviously a non-profit organization is much more than their accountability and transparency rating and the impact that they make on the community is extremely important, but I think accountability and transparency are also highly important characteristics to look at when evaluating an organization.

Accountability is the willingness of the organization to explain their actions. It shows that the organizations are being responsible with their money, programs, and how accurate their reported figures are. Accountability ensures that the organization is effectively providing their services in order to address a community need. To be accountable, organizations need to evaluate their services fairly and perform a needs assessment for the community or communities that they are helping. Transparency is the willingness to disclose information. It involves how much the organization tells the public and how honestly and quickly they reveal their information. The IRS Form 990 is one of the major sources of information that are used to measure how transparent an organization is. These forms can be found for a particular organization at http://www.guidestar.org/.

Accountability and transparency are critical characteristics of an efficient, organized, and moral organization because the characteristics ensure that the organization is responsible, honest, has checks and balances, has no corruption, and accounts for the actions of their employees. When organizations aren't accountable or transparent, they could be unorganized and unstable. For assessors of the organization, like our class, the question that usually comes up is: "what are they hiding?"

For me, it seems, that there is no "good" thing that the organization could be hiding. When they are not willing to account for their actions and tell the public about their actions, it raises a lot of flags to whether or not the organization is trustworthy and will make the best use of our money to impact the community. For us as assessors of our 6 finalist organizations I think one of the biggest things to look is how accountable and transparent they are. How much do they tell us about their actions? and how responsible are they?

We can all agree that all of our organizations have worthy missions and goals that would greatly help the issue areas of the community, so I think the next thing to look at is their accountability and transparency. We want to make sure our money is going to the right place and will be as effective as possible. Accountability and transparency will ensure that the organization is trustworthy, organized, and not hiding anything. After looking at the missions and goals, I think the next thing to evaluate is the organization's accountability and transparency in order to make sure they are moral and worthy of our money.

What do you guys think about accountability and transparency? How important is it to you?

Here is a link to Charity Navigator's accountability and transparency rating tables. It shows all the things that Charity Navigator evaluates when looking at a certain organization: http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=1283#.U0DEzPldUqI

Empowering vs. Enabling

On Tuesday we briefly discussed the issue of empowering someone vs. enabling them, after listening to the presentation from Opportunities for Broome. The discussion, brought on by learning that OFB's housing placement programs do not have a time limit, really made me think about how fine a line it is between empowering someone and enabling them, and which of the two OFB is doing.

In life, there are two kinds of people. Those who will take the tiniest bit of opportunity and use it to climb their way out of a situation, and those who can have every opportunity in the world thrown at/handed to them, and will make no attempt or effort to gain long-term benefits from them. I personally like to believe that the first type of person is more prevalent. I want to think that the majority of the homeless population that OFB serves is made up of that first type of person. I don't really know how to quantify that, so if any of our data-savvy types can think of and/or find some data on the BC homeless population or the homeless population in general that would prove or refute my theory, that would be wonderful.

That first type of person would look at the lack of expiration date on their affordable housing and take it as a challenge to get out as fast as they can, and use the free or low-cost housing as a stable support to build a stable income around. These people would, I would think, be the people that spend the least amount of time in the housing projects. The second type of person would look at free housing, and see it as an opportunity to remain unemployed, or at a job that doesn't engage their full potential, skating by on the minimum required to remain in the program because"Hey-this house is pretty nice, and I don't have to work hard for it. Why would I work hard just to move into a cruddier house with higher rent?" Again, I really want to believe that this is the minority.

You could impose a limit on how long people can stay, but would even that motivate the lazy individual? Or would they just end up homeless again, while you potentially take away that extra year or two that the first type of individual really needed to jump start their new life?

Ultimately, I decided that while certain organizations and programs certainly make it easier for individuals to take advantage of them, it really is up to the character of each individual, and it would be a disservice to those of strong moral character if OFB (or any other organization) gave them fewer opportunities in an effort to try to protect themselves from those who game the system. Hopefully the benefit to the hard-working residents of OFB's housing program outweighs the cost from the people who try to game the program.

What are your thoughts?

Top-Down v. Bottom-Up

For the past few weeks we have been discussing what we believe should be the criteria for choosing the right non-profit to donate to. As of late, we have been looking at resources that aid in the decision making process. Two examples of these are the websites, Charity Navigator, which focuses on financial health, transparency, and accountability, and GiveWell, which focuses on reputation, transparency, and impact. Despite being credible resources to help you decide where to donate, neither of these websites address a question that I believe is extremely critical: Is the organization "top-down" or "bottom-up"?

I believe that differentiating between these two non-profit approaches is vital in my decision making process. For me to support an organization they must be bottom up. Top down approaches often cost more, and seldom achieve as many benefits for the local communities they impact. They are typically identified and defined by an outside public agency, which has no direct investment in the success of the project.The top-down model provides little or no opportunity for local citizen input during the development phase, or even afterward in the caretaking of the project. Usually, this approach yields resentment and lack of alignment between the community and local interest groups, a critical issue that hinders the impact of the organization as a whole. 

This article highlights how organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation use a top-down approach that doesn't have positive effects on the cause they are working towards. 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jan/27/philanthropy-enemy-of-justice

The article highlights the "havoc that power without oversight and democratic control can wreak." It exemplifies that it shouldn't just be a "rich man's" choice on how a problem should be solved, and that these large organizations don't consult with the communities they serve enough. 

So, I personally believe that differentiating between top-down and bottom-up organizations is critical in our decision making process and any  other donation decision that I will face in the future. My questions for you are these:

Do you agree with the importance of this distinction? 

and 

Can you think of any ways to test the "bottom-up-ness" of an organization?