Introduction
It’s all in the MAD cards! Let the journey begin.
The Main Street Philanthropy experience overall is built on a lively curriculum consisting of classroom learning, small group activities, and individual assignments. Students identify and screen qualified community organizations, find donors to raise funds, and make actual donations.
What’s Your Passion?
Students are challenged to decide how, if they had to give away several thousand dollars of real money in their own community, how would would they decide which charity was most deserving?
It begins with a Make A Difference™ card-sort activity to identify what gets them excited. They must screen 20 different cards representing 20 areas of charitable focus, and narrow the field until they find the three they care most about. Minutes into the activity, students are fully engaged with what they now call “MAD cards” and the list of possibilities grows smaller and smaller, and the choices harder and harder as they debate and consider the causes that ignite true passion.
Finally, students agree on their Top-3 “passions” and are ready to use the back sides of the cards to identify local charitable organizations that align with their choices. Student groups are formed into small teams based on their Top-3 selections and the work begins in earnest.
Over the coming eight weeks, the students will investigate, blog about, report on, evaluate, and finally decide which local charities get the gift. It’s an exciting adventure jam-packed with important life lessons.
