Limitless Philanthropy

After writing my last post I have been thinking a lot about the needs of a non-profit and new ways to fulfill them. It's interesting the way life sometimes chooses to answer questions for you through new people and experiences. As I was reflecting on this problem and potential solutions, I had several experiences which reminded me, this is a two-way street..

I believe many people have a giving heart and the desire to contribute to causes but believe that they aren't part of that elite group of prosperous philanthropists. Webster's Dictionary defines philanthropy as: "goodwill to fellow members of the human race; especially active effort to promote human welfare;" there are many ways this can be done.

I work for a non-profit which seeks to find quality homes for children who have been abused and abandoned in the foster care system, our ultimate goal being to eliminate the foster care crisis and find forever families for all the children who have been displaced in foster care. Although our goal is to find foster families, not everyone is suited to be a foster/adoptive parent, and it is a job that should not be taken lightly. However, everyone can contribute to this cause. For many people they see two paths: 1. I can give money; 2. I can adopt a child. But there are many paths to eliminating this crisis. We have an incredibly generous woman in our office who donates her time monthly assisting with our accounting. She has a powerful skill and a passion for our cause and because she is willing to donate her time and talents, we don't have to pay for this expense. I have a friend who works for a company who gives him free merchandise (books and toys for children). As a recent graduate he may not be able to donate his time or money but he is able to give these new toys to our organization who then gives them to children once they are placed in homes. We have many generous supporters who would like to be able to give more to our organization but don't have the means, so they are running in the Pasadena Marathon this Sunday (as am I), raising funds from their friends, family and colleagues who may not have known about our organization but are now tied into our cause through the voice of their friend.

These are just a few examples of ways you can give but there are many more. My point is, don't limit yourself--we always have something more to give. Look at what you have (skills, gifts, time, support, relationships) and therein lies something to share.

The Future of Non-Profits: Adopting a Business Model

When I tell someone I work in development for a non-profit the response I hear the most is: "Wow, how is that going with the current state of the economy?" My response: of course, as with everything else, it has created an environment of competition. There are only so many foundations, grants, and large donors out there and with the growing number of non-profits and waning number of individual donors competition is great. So what is the solution?

Consolidate and diversify.

Now this may sound contradictory at first but I will explain what this actually means.

Consolidate:
One major problem for non-profits is we keep aiming for expansion, yet behind closed doors we are all struggling to pay the rent. What is the solution? Partnerships. If my mission and your mission overlap, why not share services? And better yet, if you are a corporation looking to create a non-profit to give back to your community and help with tax write-offs, why not partner with an organization that already exists? According to NCCS (National Center for Charitable Statistics) there are over 1.5 MILLION tax-exempt organizations in the US. Among those 1.5 million organizations there is surely one that matches your goals and mission.


Diversify:
Non-profits need to stop limiting themselves to the practices of the past and adopt a business model. What many people don't understand is that a non-profit functions quite similarly to a corporation; the main difference being, rather than selling a product, you're selling a solution. So we need to begin to think like a business, think outside the box, and find diversified means of bringing dollars in the door. When the usual avenues become crowded, what do we do? Build bridges over them.

Consider the specific skills your organization has and the types of funding you lack. For many organizations, the most difficult type of funding to obtain is for operations and overhead. Look for new ways to cover these expenses. If you have an amazing web developer, consider sharing his skills outside of your organization, bringing in new income that can help cover his salary. If there is another organization in your community with overlapping interests, share services, resources, contacts. Think of these as mutually beneficial relationships.


I've said it before, and I'll say it again, get back to the mission. As the number of organizations grow, overlapping missions is inevitable. So let's learn to share, partner and use this new competitive environment to our advantage by finding innovative strategies toward new funding opportunities.

GivCause

If you haven't already, please check out my page on GivCause. I will be hosting my own "show" based on the ideas I share here on my blog. I hope you will take a look and explore the site and many other wonderful causes represented. More videos from Next.Gen.Giving coming soon!

Moving Upstream: Health Care

I heard an interesting anecdote on health care this morning I would like to share:

There were 10 health care workers standing at the end of a stream. Suddenly they saw a body floating downstream, followed by another an another. They instantly jumped in the water and began pulling out bodies one by one attempting to resuscitate them. As the number of bodies continued to increase two of the workers jumped out of the water an began running upstream. The other eight workers yelled after them "why are you leaving us when we have all these lives to save?" The two responded, "we are going upstream to find out why they keep falling in!"

This is a lesson in prevention. When we looking at health care we must not only consider the sick, but what leads them to become sick. Poverty isn't just about what material items we lack but also being unwanted, unloved and uncared for.

Two roads diverged in a financial crisis.

Years ago, the CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz spent many months visiting coffee shops across Italy with the goal of creating a better social experience here in the states for coffee consumers. What he noticed is that Italians loved to socialize over a cup of coffee, but the infrastructure within coffee shops here in the US was not in place for this to happen. With the “if you build it, they will come” concept, Schultz decided to furnish a few of his coffee shops with couches, chairs, and tables. Immediately, Starbucks customers caught on, and the rest is history. Today, it seems the most popular place to meet and greet is at coffee shops.

For my circle of friends however, we prefer to chat while drinking a beer in a Jacuzzi. It has become what we’d like to think as our own exclusive Jacuzzi club. In one of our recent Jacuzzi club “meetings” this past winter, my best friend (a Princeton graduate) and I had a lengthy discussion about what I thought about his school after my recent visit. To say the least, I was very impressed with everything Princeton has to offer: Nobel Prize winning professors, top notch athletic facilities, a beautiful campus, etc. However, at one point, I swear I met 30 consecutive students who were all going into finance after graduating; this left a sour taste in my mouth. Don’t get me wrong, I understand there are many great people working in the finance world, but I did find it troublesome that it seemed like a majority of our nation’s greatest minds are heading into finance.

Well it turns out that other people have also been wondering the same thing: “just how many Ivy-leaguers work in finance after school?” Just weeks after our discussion, my friend found a great post on this topic in the NY Times called “Out of Harvard, and Into Finance” written by Catherine Rampell. What do you think? Does it matter to you so many Ivy-leaguers head into finance upon graduation? Do you think more Ivy-leaguers will continue to choose careers in public service or non-profits as recent trends show or will this just be a short term reaction to the recent financial crisis? Is it troublesome to you that so few Ivy league graduates ever serve in the military? Can we find a way to utilize Schultz' "if you build it, they will come" concept to encourage these graduates to move in a more adventurous and philanthropic career direction? I leave these questions to you.

Pasadena 10K for Child S.H.A.R.E.

On May 20, 2012 I will be participating in the Pasadena 10K in support of Child S.H.A.R.E., an organization which helps find homes for abused and abandoned children in the foster care system throughout southern California. I would appreciate your support in my efforts to raise $2500, the cost of securing a home for one child in foster care. Please visit my First Giving page below to learn more and donate. You can also visit www.childshare.org to learn more about this organization and the services they provide. Thank you.

http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/mariaprichard/pasadena-marathon

Africause

I ready two articles today. Both concerning populations suffering conflict in Africa. Yet these two articles were very different. 

1. CNN: Slavery's Last Stronghold

2. TIME Magazine: Kony2012

The first article is quite lengthy. Even if you don't have the time to get through the whole thing I recommend you read what you can. It will truly open your eyes to the atrocities of slavery which are occurring every day without punishment or consequence in the country of Mauritania. In this North Western country in Africa, a strict caste system exists determined by lineage and the color of your skin. Slavery is so engrained in this culture, many who have actually been freed from slavery are unable to comprehend the meaning of this freedom and often continue work for their "masters" accepting a salary which they are unable to count. 

Although slavery in Mauritania was abolished in 1981 and made illegal in 2007, there has only been one successful prosecution of slavery and it is still both accepted and supported by the government today. There is one organization fighting to counteract this horrific state of society: SOS Slaves. This organization was born from the alliance of two unlikely friends from opposite ends of the caste system. Together they are fighting to eliminate slavery in the country and open their eyes to the concept of freedom. However, this is easier sad than done. Freedom is not just a societal status, but engrained in their way of living and thinking:

"Boubacar, the other SOS founder, later would tell us that when masters grant freedom to their slaves, in a perverse way they are actually serving to further enslave them. 'Freedom is not granted,' he said. 'When freedom is granted by the master you remain dependent, grateful.' 

Freedom is something that must be claimed."

The second article discusses Kony 2012, Jason Russell (of Invisible Children) and the LRA in Uganda. The difference is, the primary focus of this article is all the buzz surrounding Invisible Children, Jason Russell's current mental and emotional state and their celebrity-backed campaign. There is no question that the current Kony campaign has brought a great amount of attention to the issue, however the quality of attention is my concern. What are the primary issues actually being discussed as a result of this campaign? Although this article mentions the LRA, Kony and the political conflict surrounding the campaign, the spirit of the article is a commentary on the media frenzy surrounding the campaign rather than the cause itself.

I tend to suffer a lot of inner-turmoil over the way groups choose to represent their causes. On the one hand, any philanthropic effort which yields a positive change, effect or outcome should be counted a success. However, I tend to consider myself somewhat of a purist when it comes to that presentation. Time and time again I hear leaders of the nonprofit world say remember your cause, remember your origin; in one sentence, what are you fighting for? If you and your constituents can't answer this simply and easily, you've somehow lost your way.

I would like to quickly digress here and mention that I believe that this applies to all things in life. In work, in love, in family, in all things; the greatest power comes from knowing what you want and being able to state it concisely and effectively. Find your passion and find your power.

I do commend Invisible Children for employing many of the most current marketing and social media tools to create a campaign that is both accessible and popular among the target generation. However, ultimately the question is whether the ends can justify means and how far this campaign is actually capable of going.

I hope you will take the time to read both of these articles and form and share your own opinions.

The Educated Citizen

I'm back! I'll admit, I have no excuses to why I haven't posted in three months. With a little restructuring of my priorities, I believe I will be able to commit to one solid post per week. I mean, after all, The Bachelor is almost over and that will certainly free up two more hours for me each week...

During my junior year at USC I decided I would like to attend grad school, most likely in my late 20's. After talking with several friends who are currently enrolled in law school, (who don't really know why they are in law school) I am glad I decided to hit the work force first to figure out what grad degree would suit me best.

One graduate degree I am interested in pursuing is a Masters in Public Administration (MPA), as it is catered to those looking to continue working in the government, non-profit and social entrepreneurship fields. The MPA program I will be gunning for is the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. Like many of Harvard's graduate programs, the Kennedy School is considered to be the top MPA program in the country. Recently, when I was reading more about the Kennedy School, I stumbled upon President Kennedy's convocation address at Vanderbilt University in which he details the obligations of the educated citizen. I encourage you to listen to this speech and see if it speaks to you as much as it does to me:

"You have responsibilities, in short, to use your talents for the benefit of society which helped develop those talents." -- JFK

These are, in President Kennedy's mind, the three obligations of the educated citizen:

1. Your obligation to the pursuit of learning

2. Your obligation to serve the public

3. Your obligation to uphold the law

Take a listen here: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkvanderbiltconvocation.htm

In my next post I will update you all with what is new in my life in 2012.

Steinbeck

I recently stumbled upon several Steinbeck quotes I fell in love with and thought you might enjoy reading as well. I like to keep a collection of thoughts, quotes, letters and photos that have impacted me throughout the chronology of my life and some of these made the cut..



“And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.” -- East of Eden


“Try to understand men. If you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and almost always leads to love.”


“I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one. . . . Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. . . . There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?”  -- East of Eden


“To be alive at all is to have scars.”  -- The Winter of our Discontent

Multi-Giving

It's easy to let the day get away from you.. One task leads to another and all of a sudden you've skipped from your morning coffee to the end of the day and you're just too wiped out to do that extra something you've been saying you'd do all week. This is my extra something. So I've decided to start multi-giving (derived from the more commonly used multitasking).

As a nonprofit professional and self-proclaimed philanthropist I like I believe I live in a constant state, or spirit, of giving. But I would like to refocus my energy, improve my productivity and recommit myself to this blog and my greater goal of (hopefully) inspiring a little giving in the world around me.

Fortunately, I am blessed with a pretty wonderful sea of givers around me who constantly inspire and share with me. So I would like to dedicate these next few posts to all of you who uplift and remind me that compassion, humility, entrepreneurship and philanthropy are not merely ideas from yesteryear but rather the ideals that make up the great minds of tomorrow.

And with that, a little inspiration via a fellow friend and giver...

"We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness... Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost." -- The Great Dictator

Cuipo Tropical Rainforest Preservation

A friend and peer recently reached out to me concerning a budding new organization called Cuipo which is concerned with tropical rainforest preservation, a pressing issue facing our environment. He kindly provided me with some background on the fundamentals of this organization: 

"Cuipo is a social enterprise whose mission is to protect the world's endangered rainforest while providing education and awareness programs that inspire individuals and organizations to cultivate lifelong habits for sustainable living. A social enterprise is a company that advances its social mission through earned income strategies.

Cuipo has determined that it can operate more efficiently and incentivize partnerships and joint ventures by working as a social enterprise as opposed to a traditional non profit organization. Unlike traditional non profits who are constantly raising funds to cover a predetermined annual budget, Cuipo is able to reinvest proceeds and utilize their capital to purchase exponentially more land and create awareness for our cause. Cuipo donates 100% of the land it acquires to its 501(c)3 (non profit foundation) 1 Meter At A Time. Cuipo funds the cost to maintain and preserve the land once it has been adopted to ensure that it remains in its natural pristine state, safe from deforestation."

Their innovative strategy makes this organization one to watch in 2012.

More information to come on this organization and how you can get involved. For now, please show your support by "liking" their Facebook Page.

"have a little faith"

I just finished reading Mitch Albom's novel, have a little faith. I must say I was a bit hesitant to give this book a chance, wary of religious cliches and overly poignant anecdotes. However, I must say I was pleasantly surprised and found the story demonstrated the universality of faith in the greater sense of the word. I would like to share a few passages which resonated with me and I believe will help inspire and enlighten anyone on a philanthropic quest. Enjoy.


"When a baby comes into the world, its hands are clenched, right? Like this?"
He made a fist.
"Why? Because a baby, not knowing any better, wants to grab everything, to say, 'The whole world is mine.'
"But when an old person dies, how does he do so? With his hands open. Why? Because he has learned the lesson."
What lesson? I asked.
He stretched open his empty fingers.
"We can take nothing with us."


I walked a mile with Pleasure;
She chatted all the way;
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.

I walked a mile with Sorrow.
And ne'er a word said she;
But, oh! The things I learned from her,
When Sorrow walked with me.

--Robert Browning Hamilton


[A conversation on redemption..]
"And maybe people who only get chances to do bad, always around bad things, like us, when they finally make something good out of it, God's happy."


"If you could pack for heaven, this was how you'd do it, touching everything, taking nothing."


"...Which is why our sages tell us to repent exactly one day before we die."
But how do you know it's the day before you die? I asked.
He raised his eyebrows.
"Exactly."


I believe many of these lessons are especially important for those of us who grapple with issues of trust and redemption. In our attempts to provide services for members of the inner-cities, homeless communities and the like, we are often faced with the question of whether our funds and efforts will provide actual solutions or rather be abused and taken advantage of. This question will always persist, however the true stories contained in this novel just might show you how to take a second look and have a little faith...

Taking Care

Okay, this is a little different than my usual post, however, as we embark on 2012 I would like to share an idea with you that was presented to me tonight in my yoga class: Taking Care. You make take this post as a commentary, a philosophy or even a meditation, but I encourage you to take a few moments, let go of your daily anxieties and merely open your thoughts and mind.

As philanthropists, social entrepreneurs, givers, whatever label you choose to cling to, if you are reading this blog you likely belong to a group of people who inherently feel a responsibility to "take care." Often times this responsibility can feel overwhelming. From our loved ones, to the many issues facing our planet and society, never mind our own personal health and sanity, how can we possibly take care of it all? At times we get so wrapped up in this sense of responsibility we lose sight of the true cause, what truly sparked our passion in the first place.

Take a moment to breathe. Think about your breath and how it carries you through life. Even in the face of the greatest despair or disaster, our breath carries us through. We innately bear an incredible coping mechanism, a natural strength to withstand even the greatest challenges. In taking care of the world we must remember the world in turn is taking care of us.

As you look forward to the future and the challenges that stand before you, consider the grace of your breath. Rather than looking to fight or surmount life's challenges, set the foundation to open yourself up for grace. Grace of life, grace of humanity, grace of society, and the cyclical grace of nature which wants to support us in our quest to take care of ourselves and everything around us. Don't allow yourself to become discouraged by the nay-sayers, remember the origin of your passion, and stay present.

This year, I hope to face life's challenges with the grace of breath and the ever-present knowledge that a solution can exist if we allow ourselves to take care and in turn let nature and others reciprocate in taking care. Even though at times it may feel as if you alone are carrying the world on your shoulders, remember, the world is round and the earth in turn carries you.