>Hi All,
>
>We are frequently approached by student groups interested in having
>fund-raising events/drives for community agencies or charities as they are
>seeking suggestions for where to give the money they raise - often less
>than $1,000, though sometimes more. Often the students can tell us the
>kind of organization they are interested in supporting (i.e. agenices
>working on women's issues, homelessness, HIV/AIDS, etc.), but other than
>that, they often look to us for complete guidance concerning their
>donation. This is often compounded by the requests being more or less
>last-minute (at least from a CBOs planning perspective).
>
>While we are pleased to be a resource for these students, we are aware of
>the responsibility it places on us to be representing the many agencies
>with whom we work, and their various needs. We primarily work with these
>agencies regarding ongoing and one-time service projects, and typically
>don't ask them to share information with us about their other resource
>needs. We would like to find a way to obtain better information about
>those needs, so that we can be a support the agencies and the students who
>might fundraise on their behalf.
>
>We would be interested in learning how others in the field find out about
>agency needs and respond to such requests, so as to help us in our
>planning. One thought we have is to draft a simple questionnaire for our
>partner agencies to ask them what kinds of needs they have, and how they
>might like to work with students who fundraise, so that we can have
>information on-hand for these groups. Of course, we don't want to start
>a stampede of interest, when we only get a limited number of student
>requests each year, but we want to be able to respond to the requests in
>a slightly better way than we are able to at this point.
>
>Thanks in advance for any suggestions you may have,
>
>David
>
>--
>
>David Grossman TEL: 215-898-4831
>Director FAX: 215-573-3665
>Program for Student-Community Involvement
>University of Pennsylvania email:
>200 Houston Hall, 3417 Spruce Street grossman@pobox.upenn.edu
>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6306
David,
I've seen ideas similar to yours used specifically for the holiday season,
(which is more problemmatic because at that time of the year there are
always many more things on the wish list then there are well organized
groups available to assist them), however, I like the concept. You might
try expanding it include one-day service projects also.
Perhaps though we in this field should consider how to address this problem
more fundatmentally. I've dealt with similar groups also and many of them
always seem to be doing these fundraisers only because of long lasting
campus traditions or because of organization rules. Some of these events
have become so established on campus that their connection to philathropy
has become forgotten to all but a few of the participants. The event itself
(usually a party, dance, show, etc.) has become the main point not the
charity. Other times the groups are scrabbling around looking for
organizations to assist (either via fundraising or short-term service work)
because they need service hours for pledges or for their national office.
Here the students only seem to have internalized that a requirement must be
met, not that any learning or understanding be gained from the experience.
I personally think its admirable that many of our national student
organizations (honors, fraternal, social, etc) have developed such
requirements, however, they make the same mistake that some campuses do
when they require service without considering the importance of reflection.
Realizing that many of these groups have sponsors or advisors on-campus,
perhaps we need to consider trying to encourage these faculty and staff to
use service-learning strategies in their work with these groups. It would
serve not only as an example of the co-curricular application of
service-learning strategies, but it might also be a way to introduce some
faculty to the potential of SL in their classroom.
Just a thought!
In Service,
Lloyd Jacobson
National Programs Director
Campus Outreach Opportunity League (COOL)
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