For my week 8 Blog we decided to donate to River Edge Nature center. We have raised just under $200 by doing things for our neighbors and family. We choose this organization because one of our members knows the organization personally and had volunteered there one summer. We also choose to donate there because the nature center best relates to our group and our cause, our group was raising money to help nature, what better than to donate to a nature center. For me it was easy to work in a group environment because I work well with others and i’m open to any ideas a group has. When we were deciding who to donate to we have some debates but we all agreed on river edge since one of our members has been there.   There wasn’t much of a discussion on our disagreements we agreed pretty easily.

I learned a lot of new things. I learned there are quit a few struggles which each organization. When there non profit they can struggle on finding the funds to keep there organization going. Especially when some are larger and have bigger demands.  A few things surprised me when the food group said “even if we were given 1 million dollars and that would equal to 1 million meals, it still wouldn’t be enough to feed all that need to be feed it would only be half”. In my future career I might help out shelters and donate food or as a a vet teach staff  I could suggest as a staff donating some bags of food. I will definitely look at this project differently now after hearing the 1st set of panel discussions.

I am beginning to see that there are multiple ways to review a organizations investment. Guide star makes it easy by searching your digitization and from there you can find your organizations and view there 990.  Guide star just makes it easy rather than trying to find it from a random source.  I see more value with using guide star because it does all the work for you all you have to do is calculate your math. I am finding it mostly easy but somewhat difficult. It’s easy to see there expenses on there 990 but I question where they get there money from if they don’t have profit money to use. Maybe there partners with other organizations and they help each other out.

What I learned about my organization was that Wings over Wisconsin was formed when 12 concerned sportsman grew concern over loss of the bird habitat that they hunt on how could they hunt if there were no birds on that habitat? The sportsman formed a group just like we did to do a good cause for the world around them and for others to benefit from. Without the formation of Wings of Wisconsin which has now grown to thousands of members, we would not have had a habitat for wildlife For the many more sportsman out there to hunt. Even if people didn’t the whole ecosystem would be in havoc without the balance of birds.

Its important to know the numbers when you are going into a cause because you don’t want to pay more upfront before you even try selling anything you want to make positive profit rather than negative profit meaning you wanna make more than you out into getting the things you need to buy. When I looked at there tax return I noticed they made money because they knew how to manage there money well and didn’t go overboard with spending.

My experience for creating purpose, vision, and the mission statement was definitely a hard one to come up with. It took our group a while to come up with a mission statement we were all new to the experience of the mission statements and it was hard to even to even come up with one since it’s such a broad topic. Even though our main topic is to help the environment there is so many levels and wildlife foundations that can be donated to. Our Vision is simple but our main goal is kinda complicated. They are important because it gives us different views on how to process narrowing it down to find something to donate. It’s a good way to work together and learn more about each other. I expect that our group will go through a couple spots where we can’t decide on things to agree on. We might hit roadblocks were we are just stuck and can’t narrow it down to find  a way to get the word out for our group. When we reach out to organizations we might present ourselves well but they might like another groups presentation better.

I learned in the brown paper bag activity there are things in my group I didn’t know about them. It was a good group activity to learn about each others hobbies and likes and interests. I found that we are very different in each of our ways but when we need to we can think of something in common if need to and make a common goal for our group.  In my learning experience for myself I learned how to communicate 0n different levels to people who don’t know much about my lifestyle. Ex: I’m in FFA and I had to explain on an easier level for people who don’t know what FFA is about.  For Our team fundraiser we as group haven’t decided yet but we know it will go towards something in town like the new regal park. We will work well as a group we put all our ideas out on the table and come up with a good idea.