October 9, 2018 Making Major Strides
As the semester begins to pick up, so have the responsibilities of the Making a Difference Board. Led by our Request for Proposal Committee, we are delving into the final version of our RFP. Throughout the month of September, through reflection on the concept of catalytic philanthropy and the encouragement and support of our faculty leaders, we settled on guidelines for our grantees to follow. This process required us to generate research papers on an issue area of our choosing, and present a few "best practice" organizations combating the problem in Rhode Island. We then read our peers' papers and began to familiarize ourselves with the variety of topics our fund could address. After deliberation in class we began to fully understand how diverse our interests and priorities are as a board. Once attaining this understanding we decided to focus on organizations that are working in a variety of ways to encourage individuals to claim and practice their own agency. Our RFP states that our current funding priorities are "organizations that provide programs that support people and inspire them with the skills, tools, experiences, education and connections necessary to succeed in their life." Driven by the ability for our mission to be interpreted widely, the Making a Difference Board is hoping to receive applications from a variety of organizations within 20 miles of the Providence College campus.
October 15, 2018 Learning from the Professionals
Our RFP has officially been released! We are working on distributing it to local organizations through our existing networks while trying to reach new connections through our website and other online forums. Our RFP committee worked tirelessly to produce a document the whole board voted for confidently! Two weeks ago we broke into small groups and began preparing case study presentations. Last week the presentation was on Corporate Social Responsibility and the group did a great job of explaining the philanthropic work of prominent companies. This week the presentation was on donor intent which led to a strong discussion on the legalities of donor intent and the importance of a clear contract between the donor and recipient. We also had the opportunity to hear from Marjorie Houston, the President of the Board of the White Family Foundation. She gave us some background on her work with the foundation and facilitated discussion through a series of thought provoking questions. Having an individual from the field speak to our class gives valuable insight into the world of philanthropy beyond Providence College.
October 29, 2018 Countdown to the End of RFP Season
We are entering the last few days for RFP submissions! At this point we have received 6 applications and our RFP committee did one final push advertising this opportunity to local organizations. The RFP committee was instrumental in creating an application that reflects the intention and mission of the board. Their hard work made this process very smooth. We are looking forward to beginning the process of reading the applications and conducting site visits. Our plan is to review the applications for our next class and begin to discuss who we think best fit our criteria and where our funds could best further both our mission and the missions of the various organizations. This week we welcomed Amy and Shanna from the Learning by Giving Foundation to our class. It was great to hear more about the foundation and their individual roles and visions for the foundation. We were also able to participate in their 15th anniversary video! In addition to all this excitement, our Marketing and Communications Committee rolled out our new logos. We are excited to use thee to strengthen our branding as the Making a Difference Board, and possibly create something that can be used from class to class going forward. The Events Committee has reserved a space for our grant awarding ceremony and we are thinking more intentionally about inviting Providence College community partners to deepen the connections between the college and our recipients. The Evaluations Committee is beginning to research best practices in evaluation and are looking forward to leading the class towards a consensus in the next few weeks.
November 5, 2018 RFPs are in!
Our RFP deadline was November 1. Last week our application total was at 6. We were starting to feel nervous that a low number of applicants would affect our selection process. Once the application closed last Thursday our total had skyrocketed to 24 applications. We were thrilled with the number and began delving into the applications. Our evaluations committee is creating a system for us to implement to narrow down our pool. We are currently reviewing all 24 applicants as a class after each reading them. Our goal is to narrow our applicant pool from 24 to 6-8 today. A decrease that big is sure to bring up some difficult conversations but we are looking forward to engaging in those tough topics and holding the mission of the MAD Board and the essence of our RFP true.
November 12, 2018 Down to the Wire
We are excited to announce that we have narrowed our application pool down to 7 organizations. Young Voices, Trinity Academy for the Performing Arts, Sojourner House, Capital Good Fund, Books are Wings, Man Up, Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless, and Family Services of Rhode Island. Today we are working to finalize the arrangements for site visits. We are conducting one site visit per organization. Our evaluations committee is continuing to develop a system that we will use during our next class, after all the visits have been completed, to determine our finalists. Currently, we are developing a list of questions worth asking at the site visits. This is prompting critical conversation around our own intention and what more we need to know in order to make a confident decision in fund allocation. The site visits will be a great opportunity to put a face to the applications and get a more personal perspective on the programs we have the opportunity to fund. We are getting down to the wire with the decision process....stay tuned for a big announcement next week! Our finalists will be confirmed on November 19.
December 4, 2018 Awards Ceremony is Here
After a semester full of learning, evaluating, discussing, and deciding we have finally come to a consensus on our award recipients. We were so fortunate to receive 24 incredibly competitive and thorough applications from organizations working to promote individual agency in the Providence area. After much deliberation our board has decided to fund Trinity Academy for the Performing Arts, Books are Wings, Young Voices, and Capital Good Fund. We are so fortunate for the opportunity to fund four very different organizations through the generosity of the Learning by Giving and the Providence College Dunkin' Donuts. Our events committee coordinated an awards ceremony in which we presented the grants to the recipients. Each organization was introduced by the board members that visited their site during the process. We then heard from representatives from each organization and enjoyed an evening of networking and appetizers. We are so grateful for the opportunity to learn about the practice of philanthropy in such a hands on way. Thank you so much to our faculty advisors Ms. Cate Latz and Dr. Dana Dillon and all others who made this experience possible.