Well, for my group to decide what group we wanted to donate to, we looked up local businesses who shared our interests in protecting/preserving the environment. Out of the four or five organizations that we started with, we ended with trying to decide between two of them, Riveredge Nature Center (RNC) and the Kewaskum Athletic Association (KAA). Due to the fact that only RNC showed up to the board panel discussion, we knew the most about them and decided to only donate our $190.10 to them. Working in this group environment has been enlightening to what it is really like to work with a team because we had pressure to raise money which is important. Rather than other group activities where the goal isn’t that important, having to raise money made me want to help the group more. I found it hard at times because of the group communication but we all pulled through in the end and actually raised a surprising amount from each person in our group. At the start we had a pretty hard time making decisions as a group and agreeing upon things but I feel like the farther we went, the more we got to know each other which made it easier to make decisions that would accommodate everyone’s ideas in the group.

We just had our second board meeting and I think that it went way better than the first one because we had more people come in who seemed more prepared. I really liked their stories and hearing how and why they do what they do for the non-profit that they are at. Being able to hear their stories and learn about their non-profits is really interesting because it gives me an idea of what is interesting to me and sort of hints and what I may want to do when I grow up. They had a lot of excellent advice for us and I appreciate them coming in to talk to us. As far as our fundraiser goes, I think that it is going very well because we have raised around $100 already (already halfway to our goal). I am really happy that our fundraiser is going well and I think we probably have an idea of which of the two businesses that we will give the money to.

I learned a lot about their non-profits but something that I really took away from it is that a lot of them needed volunteers and donations to expand, there is always room for growth and that is their goal. Except the Humane Society who’s goal is to go out of business because they don’t want the world to have stray pets (even though there always will be). I also took away from it that they don’t always need donations in money form but in the form of volunteering and when the economy is doing good, people tend not to donate as much as when the economy is doing bad which is weird. Something that surprised me about one of the responses was from Dale Stockhausen who said that something that effects them the most is stupid people. It seemed a little harsh but once she explained how stupid people release domestic animals into the wild, it seemed to make more sense. I guess in the future I might volunteer my time more to organizations like these after hearing how much help they need or I might donate more in the future. After hearing what they said I might try a little harder in my project so that I can give as much money as I can to these organizations. From my fundraising experience I am learning how to help others through fundraising and how to actually fund raise successfully. I am also learning how to work alongside others to achieve something as great as donating to organizations in need.

I have learned that there is a vast variety of ways to evaluate different businesses but the one that I find more effective over the others is looking at the tax forms and giving a company a score. It is really easy to find their 990, fill in the blanks, do the math, and then give them a score rather than doing a load of research when evaluating businesses. I find it easy to just look at a score and know if I want that business or not. I am finding it really easy to find businesses and evaluate them with the 990 forms because with a template, all you have to do is find the info and fill in the blanks. It is just so easy to use the template and just look at a score for that business.

I learned that they KAA or Kewaskum Athletic Association is an association that teaches life lessons and goals to youth sports while instilling good sportsmanship. They are not limited to just sports though because they are helping create Reigle Park. That is how I found this organization because our group is mainly focusing on nature and environmental assistance. Even though the environment was not their primary focus, we like what they have done for the youth in the community and their help with the new park. That is our main organization that we would like to be able to support. It is important to look at the numbers before making an investment because you want to make sure that your money is being put towards a good cause and not being spent on other things. When I looked at the KAA’s tax forms, I noticed that they had more expenses than revenue although that was in the year 2016 so it was possibly a bad year for them. I still trust this organization due to the fact that it has been in Kewaskum for a long time and many people put their money towards the cause.

Well, I guess my experience for creating our purpose, vision, and mission statements was pretty good because even though we don’t have a solid idea for our fundraiser, we know how we want our fundraiser to affect the community. It was a little hard but once we got going on creating them, it went pretty smoothly. I know that the purpose statement is important because you can’t really do anything well without understanding your reasoning behind doing it. Then there is the vision statement and that is important because you want to know how your fundraiser will impact others, if it doesn’t make that big of an impact, you might want to change your idea. Lastly there is the mission statement and that is probably the most important because it is envisioning how you will make all of this happen. If you don’t know how to help your vision come true, it probably won’t. I expect that this week we will encounter some businesses that will be happy to help us and others who probably think that we aren’t worth the time but that is ok because it will help us find the right organization that matches our cause.

Well, to start off, I learned a little bit from the brown bag activity but not a whole lot because I knew some things about the members of my group and they didn’t share a whole lot about themselves. I knew that Eric liked to wrestle (wrestling sweatshirt) because I was in the sport with him but I learned that he likes to hunt (hat) and also that he likes to golf (golf ball) which I wouldn’t have really thought of things that Eric would like to do. Next, since I didn’t know Carly I learned a lot about her. I learned that she is in FFA (logo) and that she likes horses and has some of them (a picture of one) but also that she likes to take pictures with a pretty cool camera (picture of a camera). Kelsey only brought in a charm but I think that meant a lot because it was given to her by her mom but she also shared that she likes nature which is pretty cool because so do I. We haven’t quite got the details of our fundraiser down pat yet but so far we think that we want to help out the Reigle Park by raising money for the fish pond that they are going to put in which works out perfectly because our common interest was preserving nature. We don’t quite know how we are going to raise money for it but some possible ideas that we have are a coin drive, selling Swedish fish (which relate to the fish pond), or selling wristbands. We would probably hold it throughout the school weeks possibly during lunch.

My experience with the MAD cards was pretty interesting because even though no one really cared which one I picked, I still felt guilty leaving all of them (but some more in particular) behind because there is just that bit of guilt about not thinking that they deserve a lot. My perspective is probably a lot more different than most but it’s hard leaving certain cards behind. Because two of the cards that I chose involved nature, I kind of learned that things involving nature could be of interest to me in the future. I never really new that something about preserving culture could be cool until I thought about it when I did the activity and I think that it is actually kind of cool. I didn’t necessarily learn a lot about others but just from looking around, it seems like people chose the animal care a lot possibly because we all have pets and that is a little piece of our heart that we think is worth helping with. I hope to gain a sense of pride by helping out the community and donating to others and having them know that someone cared for them. If I needed help or my organization needed help and a high schooler helped to donate money for me, I would be so happy.