This week we talked about who want to donate our money to now that our money has been due. Our group, Leaders for Learners, have decided that we want to donate our money to Open Sky Education which is out of Milwaukee. We have raised around $250 and we are very proud of our work. Both of our events that we held were very successful even through the difficulties of receiving the money. Through all of the struggles it has taught us how to be patient and to control our temper. My group and I are very confident in who we are giving our money to because when their representative came in, he gave us some very interesting fact that led us towards donating to them. The number one interesting fact was; 100% of their students get into college. For the most part our group worked together and we decided on the same things most of the time. I believe that this Leadership opportunity will impact my future on becoming a better leader.

This week we had our second discussion panel with different organizations. We had Open Sky from Milwaukee come in. It was very neat to hear about their organization. In the last 7 years 100% of their seniors get accepted to college which is a very good success rate. I believe that you have an awesome business if you can have that high of a rate. Big brothers Big Sisters were also here, even if we didn’t invite them it was neat to hear about their organization and how they work. We may think of them for one of our recipients but we are thinking Open Sky just because they have a lot of success. We finally are getting our money from Buffalo Wild Wings and had our second night at Chocolate Factory. We are hopeful that both nights went well and hopefully can plan another night before this course is over.

From the discussion panel of non-profit leaders, I learned that every organization has difficulties and can get a lot of head aches. Every organization is unique but yet have their different ways of doing things. It was cool to see that the representatives of the non-profit’s also help the other non-profits that were here. It was interesting to hear about every organization and how they each individual have their own beliefs. I find it pretty easy to evaluate the organization because you look for their information on line and read their tax forms and other forms on them. As a group, we held on night for our fundraiser and are working on holding another one. We are waiting to hear how much we made but it seem to go really well.

This week we are working on multiple different things. We learned how to evaluate an investment within companies. We looked at the 990 tax form for the different organizations and compared them to one another. It was cool to see the differences between organizations and it help my group decide who we would donate to. The higher the score on the Quantitative Rating the better. All of our organizations were within the same range. We used the tax forms to our advantage to make a decision even though it was difficult at some times. Some websites did not have an organization so then you have to use a different website. For the most part it was easy but it just takes time to complete.

My group has decided to do partnerships for our fundraiser and talk to local businesses. We have talked to a few and waiting to hear back. We are still debating where we want to donate our money to but we are waiting to hear more from the organizations. I believe that our fundraiser is going to go well and we will be very successful.

After spending some time researching some of the organizations out there that share the same beliefs as my group members and I, I have learned a lot about what they stand for. We have learned that the organizations that we have been thinking about have replied to us and they are willing to work with us on figuring out if they are the right recipient. We will stay in touch with them and share information about one another. Tax returns are an important part of an organization to consider when choosing a cause to donate to. In order for an organization to seem reliable you need to look at where their money is going to be sure that they are true to what they are advertising about their beliefs. Looking at different organization you see who is sticking to their beliefs and working towards their mission.

When we were creating our Purpose, Vision, and Mission Statements I thought it was very interesting because it was not very easy. We though very deeply in what we really wanted to achieve within our fundraiser. I understand that they are very important to our fundraiser because it is something that our team can follow so we are on track all the time. These statements will help you stay organized and allows you to set goals for your fundraiser that we will follow. I believe that Purpose, Vision, and Mission Statements are a very good idea for businesses and fundraisers to achieve there plan that they have dreamed. When we are reaching out to organizations for this week I expect to have a lot of people that are impressed that we want to help them and would accept our donation will an open mind. I think that they people we have chosen will take it seriously and keep us up to date or keep in contact with us because they will want us to choose them over everyone else.

I think the Brown Paper Bag Activity was very interesting. I learned several new things about the people in my group that I didn’t know previously but I also learned how everyone values different things. I would say majority of our class had something to do with family in their bag. I believe that family is an important factor of everyone’s life. The other big thing I think most people had was music. Music seems to be very important to teenagers at certain times. Our team fundraiser is going to be asking restaurants if they want to partner with us. Which includes, selling a product and we get a certain percent of each one sold, rounding up to total dollar to help us, or any other way that will help us out. By doing this method, we will not have a start up cost so there for it will be 100% profit to go to the organization that we will choose. We still don’t know what we for sure want to raise money for yet but we will get that figured out very soon. We will start fundraising as soon as we get the approval from school to do it and we figure out who we want to give the money to.

While we used the Make a Difference Cards, I truly learned about myself and others perspective towards different organizations. First, when we choose our top six cards it was kinda of hard but then when we had to narrow it down to our top three cards it was very hard. As we were selecting our cards, I felt very bias towards the organizations that I normally didn’t hear about or think about. I had chosen the charities that I knew about or have worked with before. It was very interesting to see the different organizations that are out there and what they specifically donate too. I feel like it is very hard to just choose your favorites because inside every good person, they want to be able to help everyone and anyone. Just because everyone chooses a different charity or has a different perspective than you, you still except them for who they are and that’s why all different charities can be active. From being involved in Main Street Philanthropy, I hope to be able to better understand what is all involved with in a charity and learning about all the different charities that are out there. I also hope to be able to help a charity throughout this class. I feel like I know somewhat about working with charities because I have a similar one of my own. I help organize a three day event to raise money in my brothers name to hand out local scholarships. But as I work in this program, I hope to learn more on how to better myself with in my very own situations. I also hope to become unbiased towards the charities that I didn’t chose, learn more about them individually, and learn more to hopefully become a philanthropist some day.