1.) One time I was with two friends and we were stopped on the street by a Planned Parenthood canvasser who asked us for money. I gave $10 because I wanted my friends to see donating as a good thing in general and to not see me as shying away from donating. I’m not sure if that was the right call.
2.) When I was in college, I was a founding member of a student venture philanthropy organization. We had a $10K grant to give to a local non-profit that we gave, along with 200 person hours of volunteering to implement the grant. We solicited proposals from non-profits for how to implement it. It’s possible we could have had more impact with our money if we could give it abroad (e.g., to AMF), but we would not have been able to effectively volunteer, so there wouldn’t be anything to do as a club. I think our learning was heightened by giving locally. (It wasn’t our money anyway and the donor was quite keen on local giving.)
3.) Another thing I did in college my senior year was help run the student org that coordinated all the volunteering on campus. I think it was another great opportunity to learn how non-profits and volunteering worked, even if it was confined to only local orgs.
Three anecdotes:
1.) One time I was with two friends and we were stopped on the street by a Planned Parenthood canvasser who asked us for money. I gave $10 because I wanted my friends to see donating as a good thing in general and to not see me as shying away from donating. I’m not sure if that was the right call.
2.) When I was in college, I was a founding member of a student venture philanthropy organization. We had a $10K grant to give to a local non-profit that we gave, along with 200 person hours of volunteering to implement the grant. We solicited proposals from non-profits for how to implement it. It’s possible we could have had more impact with our money if we could give it abroad (e.g., to AMF), but we would not have been able to effectively volunteer, so there wouldn’t be anything to do as a club. I think our learning was heightened by giving locally. (It wasn’t our money anyway and the donor was quite keen on local giving.)
3.) Another thing I did in college my senior year was help run the student org that coordinated all the volunteering on campus. I think it was another great opportunity to learn how non-profits and volunteering worked, even if it was confined to only local orgs.