My team decided by narrowing it down to 2 groups that we really liked, those being VFW of West Bend and Honor Flight. The people that came in for VFW said that they volunteered at Honor Flight so my group decided that it would be similar, sort of, to donate to Honor Flight, because it felt that we were donating to both organizations. Even though, it wasn’t direct.

It was easy working in the group environment because I got along with everyone and they were all easy to deal with. We all made the decision and if someone didn’t like it we would discuss and figure out a happy-medium.

This previous week, we had John Klinemouth come in from the VFW, he gave my group incite into what goes on behind the scenes of Veterans of Foreign Wars. I learned from the non-profit leaders that every company wants volunteers but not all of them NEED volunteers. I was surprised that with a million dollars, all the organizations would better their surroundings for either their animals or their customers. Awhile ago, Honor Flight came in and told us that with a million dollars, they would send more vets out to D.C. because it’s expensive to send 70-100 vets on one plane and rent it for a day. After listening to the organizations speak, I feel like I am more informed on what the norms are for those specific organizations.

From the fundraising, I have experienced so much. So far we have raised $468 dollars by ordering t-shirts. I am also learning that with these specific organizations, some run solely on volunteers with a small board and some run on staff members, but all of them have the same mission. To better the community.

I learned from the non-profit organizations that there are many volunteers for the more popular places, but once you get to the smaller/ home-town ones, you loose the volunteers you need and can rely on. In the future I will try to do things differently because I know now that there are more places that are looking for volunteers that are closer to home. From my fundraising experience, I am learning that there are more and more vets that need help and could use the time and the love from other people, they don’t get that much from the homes that they are in, so if they could get the love and appreciation from someone that isn’t involved at the home, it would benefit them greatly.

My team and I are leaning towards Honor Flight because they have a great story and I am closely related to that organization, due to the fact that my grandfather went on a flight through them.

I am learning that there are many ways to invest in anything. I am now finding more value in everything I see, by using one method. It’s somewhat easy to evaluate non-profit organizations because the numbers are right there and are easy to see but adding everything together by figuring out what goes where, is difficult.

With the MAD cards, I chose the Elder Care to be the most important because it hits close to home. There have been many people in my family that went into elder care, so I believe that every single elder person deserves the correct care. I also learned that my partner was very keen on helping the hungry because he knows that there are more people dying from starvation than there are actually eating.

I hope to gain the knowledge of being a high level leader and also how to teach others how to become leaders.