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Students Taking Effective Philanthropy Seriously

Lesley University, Boston, MA

Lesley University, a 10,000-student, multi-site university for women and men, offers undergraduate and graduate programs in education, the arts, human services, and the environment sciences at its Cambridge and Boston campuses and in 150 locations in 24 states. Lesley prepares individuals for lives and careers that make differences in our communities and serves the evolving needs of students and our diverse society through innovative programs and pedagogy, high quality instruction, scholarship, advocacy, and outreach. The goal of a Lesley education is to empower students with the knowledge, skills, and experience they need to succeed as catalysts and leaders in their professions and the world at large. Lesley offers undergraduate and graduate programs through four schools: Lesley College; the Art Institute of Boston; the Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences; and the School of Education.

Since 2003, Lesley University has offered an undergraduate specialization in Nonprofit Management, which attracts students from the Global Studies, Management, and Human Services majors. The specialization includes a Fundraising and Philanthropy course, which provides an overview of American philanthropy and individual donor charitable giving as well as the types of fundraising generally employed by nonprofit organizations. Students are introduced to the individual donor giving pyramid and the technical skills of writing proposals, annual appeal letters, and donor cultivation and stewardship. Guest speakers, including local nonprofit executive directors, foundation program officers, and corporate community relations professionals, help to ground information learned in class within the real world nonprofit experience.

Fundraising and Philanthropy's strong link to the community encourages experiential fund raising learning as students conduct prospect research, develop proposals, and execute due diligence through site visits. Recent class performances have included: prospect research for a small nonprofit offering science programs to girls in middle school; collaboration with teens living in Cambridge's Area 4 neighborhood to develop a proposal for a local project; and video taping a small, Cambridge-based, settlement house serving low-income communities, which is in need of repairs. Through such projects students begin to understand the complexity of community needs, the financial difficulties faced by most nonprofits, and the role of individual responsibility in solving community problems.

Although the course does an excellent job of connecting students to communities and their needs, the important experiential piece of becoming the donor is missing -- the donor perspective is presented largely through lectures and guest speakers. At a university, the perfect setting for reinforcing the donor perspective is service-learning. It is the intent of the proposed project to advance our students' philanthropic education by imbedding service-learning into the course and by connecting the service learning to the activities of a local foundation.

Students Taking Effective Philanthropy Seriously - Lesley proposes to partner with the Cambridge Community Foundation (CCF) to involve students directly with the philanthropic processes through CCF's Youth in Philanthropy Encouraging Excellence (YIPEE). YIPEE was initiated by CCF to engage students from three Cambridge, Massachusetts, public high schools. YIPEE pairs community volunteers with Cambridge students and provides funding for the youths to identify problems faced by teens; to request and review grant proposals seeking to resolve the problems; and to allocate money to nonprofit organizations.

YIPEE was designed to foster, through hands-on experience, a lifelong commitment to leadership, volunteerism, and philanthropy. Unfortunately, because of its dependence on volunteers, YIPEE has not been able to operate consistently. We hope to alleviate that dilemma by creating a Lesley/CCF partnership.

The partnership will link YIPEE with Lesley's Nonprofit Management specialization to create Students Taking Effective Philanthropy Seriously (STEPS). Ten Lesley students who are enrolled the Fundraising and Philanthropy course will be paired with ten local high school students as mentors. Working together and guided by the Fundraising and Philanthropy faculty, the students will research local community nonprofits; identify community needs; create a philanthropic mission statement; develop an RFP process; select grant recipients; and evaluate the program's effectiveness. All of the students will learn the nuts and bolts of managing charitable funds to achieve stated philanthropic goals and to support community needs. All of the students will increase their understanding of the larger context of philanthropy.

Sustainability - Initial funding from Campus Compact and the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund would establish the STEPS Giving Account. CCF has made a multi-year commitment of $4,000 annually to sustain the STEPS Giving Account beyond the scope of the Campus Compact grant.

Implementation - During fall 2008, Lesley's Nonprofit Management specialization will incorp-orate and support STEPS, and Lesley and CCF will develop the structural components that will sustain the partnership and will continue STEPS past the initial funding. STEPS will also build on the many connections and partnerships that both the University and CCF have in Cambridge and Boston. The following schedule outlines the goals and activities for the proposed project:

Nov 2008: Distribute STEPS information to Lesley faculty prior to the spring semester academic advising and registration; secure academic credit for Lesley students who engage in a leadership role in the project; create criteria and a process for student selection;

Nov 2008: Select up to 10 Lesley students to participate in STEPS; meet with principals from
the three Cambridge high schools;

Dec 2008: Design and conduct a preliminary orientation with the 10 Lesley students; create a
schedule for the spring semester; select up to 10 high school students;

Jan 2009: Conduct one-day retreat with the 10 Lesley students and the 10 high school students to brainstorm the Gift Account philanthropic mission; begin weekly class
sessions at Lesley; begin research and community needs assessment;

Feb 2009: Begin interviews, and visits to community agencies;

March 2009: Develop and distribute of Request for Proposals to community agencies;

April 2009: Make recommendations for funding; begin process evaluation with student reflection and high school principal/teacher input; 625host public awards ceremonies;

May 2009: Complete STEPS evaluation; course and project re-design as needed.

Conclusion - Lesley University is very excited about the possibility of working with Campus Compact and the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund to establish a STEPS Giving Account. Working together, we can provide meaningful, hands-on experiences for Lesley University and local high school students that will foster a clearer understanding of the role and necessity for philanthropy as well as life long commitments to improving the quality of life for all through philanthropy