My group and I decided to donate our money to Open Sky Education. We decided this because we were all very impressed with the statistics given at the panel discussions. A couple of things really stood out to us. One was that 100% of their seniors get accepted to college and two that 99% of their students qualify for free lunch. These stats show that Open Sky is doing great things for underprivileged students. We thought that was a great cause to donate to. Overall, I think our fundraiser was a big success. Our group worked well and we ended up raising quite a bit of money.

I thought the panel discussion was very informative. Having as many people as we did allowed us to hear many different perspectives. Everyone was very passionate about the organizations they represented and they all had impressive statistics to share. For the organization we brought in, he said that 100% of seniors at their school go to college. I thought that was pretty amazing. All of the organizations do amazing things and ultimately they reinforced that we can’t really go wrong with whichever we choose to donate to.

So far, my group and I have found that organizations are very willing to help us and support our cause. Many people we contact return emails within a day or two. However, we have experienced some difficulties. For our fundraiser, we went to businesses and set up days where we received 10% of their profits. However, one of the businesses lost our money and will not report how much money we made. So that has been difficult but otherwise things have been running pretty well.

I felt the panel discussion was incredibly useful and educational. You could tell everyone on the panel was very passionate about their respective causes. They all really illuminated both the value in donating time and money to charitable organizations, but also the struggles many organizations encounter. It surprised me, though, that nobody really emphasized that they really needed financial donations. All the organizations said they would much rather prefer people donate their time and volunteer. That definitely surprised me. Overall, I’m learning a lot about what goes into the process of donating after the money/time has been donated. There’s a lot of work that goes on after the donation by volunteers and staff.

I thought it was great to fill out the 990 for our organizations. I learned that the organization I analyzed was very good, with a score of 14. I think it’s important to know where your money is going when you donate so you can maximize the value of your donation. Something that surprised me was how long some organizations can survive even if they don’t receive any more donations. I thought it was pretty cool that some places can continue to do everything normally for years without receiving another dollar in donations.

Creating the mission statement was helpful with determining what is truly our goal for the fundraiser. It’s easy to get lost in the logistics of making the fundraiser, so it was nice to take a big step back and look at it from a more comprehensive point of view.

I expect to get a wide range of responses with the businesses my group contacts. I think some may be interested, while others may immediately turn us down. Overall, I think our cause is very worthy of donations. Many people donate to medically related causes, which is great, but education kind of gets overlooked. I think this will encourage businesses to donate to our cause.

I learned that my classmates and I share common things that are important to us. Many items were pretty similar. For our team fundraiser, we want to focus on education. We will go to businesses and ask if we could work together. One thing we’ll do is ask if they can ask their customers to round up their total to donate to our cause. We’ll also ask if the businesses want to donate any money directly. I think we have a pretty good start to our fundraiser.

Using the Make A Difference cards made me realize how many causes there are to donate time and money to. There are many organizations with a wide range of problems that need to be solved. I learned that Medical and Environmental causes are most important to me. I was surprised with how many religious organizations are in need of help. I also didn’t realize how many organizations focus on preservation of history and cultural traditions.

I hope to become more aware of the world’s needs and problems through participating in Main Street Philanthropy. Hopefully I’ll learn where I can make the biggest positive impact in the world through donating time and money. Also, I hope to gain leadership skills.