Measuring generosity

Posted on January 17, 2018 by Abby Rolland

In October, the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy launched a new, interactive website, GenerosityforLife.org. Through this website, individuals evaluate their charitable giving and volunteering and access resources to learn more about generosity.

Those resources include grant-funded research by eight scholars studying generosity through diverse lenses, including education, sociology, psychology, and economics. Funding for this research was generously granted to the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy by the John Templeton Foundation, and then re-granted out to the eight winning proposals.

“This (grant) program further developed both the breadth and depth of information devoted to generosity and generous behaviors,” said Dr. Una Osili, associate dean for research and international programs.

In this blog post, we’ll dive into two of those research projects, giving you the opportunity to learn more about the scholars’ specific research interests and generosity itself. We’ll explore the other grant-funded research projects in future posts.

Education scholar Dr. Laura Liu, now of Indiana University-Purdue University, Columbus, focuses on art-based approaches to educational research and teaching practice. Dr. Liu’s academic focus and work has centered on making books that emphasize generosity, including ecological sustainability and cross-cultural generosity.

Prior to conducting this study, she published a children’s book series on generosity that she uses to help undergraduate and graduate students explore different and effective ways of teaching on the subject.

With this grant, Dr. Liu compiled a study where two second-grade classrooms, one middle income and one lower income, interviewed their grandparents or parents about generosity. Then, the students created books about how they learned generosity from that adult figure. Finally, the books were included for one month in the public library, where students could visit to view their authored texts with their parents and grandparents.

Dr. Liu found many interesting and encouraging results about teaching generosity to young students. Her first finding was that the books changed students’ relationships in the classroom itself.

“The teachers saw that the youth used generosity in their daily dialogue with each other and internalized generosity as a value and a goal in their classroom space,” she said.

In her second finding, Dr. Liu also saw cross-cultural interaction both within the classrooms and across the two schools, as students learned how similar their stories were to their classmates and to stories shared from the other school. Dr. Liu highlighted that the students “had this shared connection in seeing how strikingly similar each of their stories were, and it changed how they viewed one another.”

A third discovery focused on the intergenerational connection. Dr. Liu invited students to interview a parent or grandparent and learn how that important figure had learned generosity in their own life.

“It really made the students appreciate and connect with them,” she said.

Dr. Liu also found this process supported parents and grandparents in sharing their own life lessons and the virtues they wanted to pass down to their children.

Finally, Dr. Liu noted the value of displaying student books in the public library, which sought to encourage more families to engage with the library as a shared civic space.

“Not only can they go to the library and check out books for free, but the students are an important part of it. They’re authors and their books are featured in the library,” she said.

Dr. Liu saw a few families visiting the library to view the books with their children. The library itself emerged in this study as an institutional expression of civic generosity crossing cultures and generations.

In the future, Dr. Liu hopes to expand this project to other schools and countries to examine how generosity is learned and taught locally and globally.

“It’s one of the most meaningful research studies I’ve done in terms of both generating findings and having an impact on students, their families, and the teachers,” she said.

A different angle to studying generosity was taken from a sociological perspective. A study led by Dr. Patricia Snell Herzog of the University of Arkansas with colleagues Dr. Casey Harris, Dr. Shauna Morimoto, and Dr. Jared Peifer studied and analyzed the impact of interactions with social science data on promoting prosocial behaviors, such as charitable giving.

Dr. Herzog’s study looked at how participants (selected into groups at random) interacted with a weather website (the control group), the GenerosityForLife website (one treatment group) and a website focused on social stratification data (second treatment group).

After interacting with the website assigned, participants were asked whether or not they wanted to keep an incentive or donate it to a charitable cause. These participants included current college students and then former participants of the National Study of Youth and Religion.

“Our results indicated that giving is dynamic in response to social science data,” Dr. Herzog explained. “The inclination to give was highest when participants viewed the philanthropic data on the GenerosityForLife website and lowest when they viewed the social stratification data.”

Another finding was that participants in the college sample were between 40-50 percent more likely to donate their incentive than participants in the national survey, regardless of what website they viewed.

“It seems that individuals may be more compelled to give when informed of national or regional norms rather than when informed of social inequalities. This study provides initial evidence regarding the potential for social science data to impact knowledge consumers,” Dr. Herzog said. She presented the findings at five conferences this past year.

Both scholars expressed gratitude to the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

Dr. Liu: “It’s been a tremendously positive experience. The school continuously encourages us to develop our ideas further and to collaborate in different ways. It’s a benefit to academia and to a wider audience to have the topic of generosity front and center. ”

Dr. Herzog: “We are very grateful for the support that this grant provided and look forward to discussing next steps in the coming year.”

Learn more about these grantees, their work, and the GenerosityForLife web platform

Keep an eye out for our next post on two more research projects, which will be published this April.

Abby Rolland is the blog content coordinator for the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

A day of fundraising exploration

Posted on January 11, 2018 by Abby Rolland

I am not a fundraiser.

I say that now, in order to clarify that what I say is not the opinion of someone from the field and with practical experience. My experience is with marketing and communications, and while I have worked with fundraisers in the past through previous roles, I don’t have direct fundraising experience.

But that didn’t matter.

As I was sitting in the course Developing Major Gifts, taught by The Fund Raising School faculty, I realized that I didn’t need to have fundraising experience to understand the knowledge being taught. Would it have been helpful? Sure! Was it necessary to understand the knowledge shared? No!

That’s the beauty of The Fund Raising School – its courses give practical and engaging information that is applicable to experienced fundraisers AND those new to the field.

First, the practical.

Our first exercise revolved around reading about and discussing a case story focused on a donor who gave multiple unsolicited donations and then a large major gift. Without going into too much detail, the participants at each table discussed the donors and the gifts, and what they as fundraisers should do.

Diving deeper into donor motivations and engagement, it definitely got me thinking about how fundraisers do their jobs, and how challenging it can be to segment donors and devise ways to speak to each diverse segment.

The second part was around ethics in fundraising. The answer to the case study was not black and white, and I could tell the fundraisers in the room grappled with the issue. I did too. It makes me ask the question – how far does one go when accepting a major philanthropic gift? The line between an acceptable gift and one that’s not is a thin one. The instructor did point out several clear, tangible steps that each fundraiser could do in order to avoid dealing with an ethics issue on their own.

That leads me to the engagement. The first instructor of the afternoon was Bill Stanczykiewicz, the director of The Fund Raising School. Again, I am not a fundraiser, but Stanczykiewicz made all of the information so interesting. He held my attention the whole time, and he presented the material in an easy-to-understand way. He used to be on radio, and you can tell. He also made an effort to say everyone’s name when he called on them and gave everyone a chance to say their opinion, while staying on topic the whole time.

Gene Tempel teaching — Gene Tempel leads the discussion on ethics in fundraising.

Our second instructor on the ethics section was Dr. Gene Tempel. Now, this man is a legend in the fields of fundraising and philanthropy. He helped facilitate the transfer of The Fund Raising School to the then-Center on Philanthropy and served as the executive director and founding dean of the school. And here he was, co-teaching this course. Again, engaging.

He asked questions, made us question our ways of thinking, and gave the fundraisers clear steps to take in regards to ethics while also letting them tussle with potential answers and repercussions. Again, I was riveted the entire time.

Now, this is not the extent of the course or the instructors of The Fund Raising School. I sat in on one afternoon of a three-day course, and The Fund Raising School offers 17 public courses in 14 cities, online courses, and customized training all throughout the year, so there are many fantastic instructors with huge amounts of knowledge about fundraising. The amount I learned in one afternoon was astounding, and it was all so interesting.

Some advice? Take these courses.

As I said before, whether you’re an experienced fundraiser, new to the field and wanting to learn more, a board member who wants to get more involved, or you’re involved in some other way with a nonprofit organization, take these courses. You will learn, and network, and engage, and grow.

I know I did.

Abby Rolland is the blog content coordinator for the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

Learning by Giving students award grant to Edna Martin Christian Center

Posted on January 9, 2018 by Abby Rolland

Every year, undergraduate students at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy have the opportunity to learn about and practice grant making. In the course Learning by Giving, students choose what needs in the community to address.

They build a mission statement, request and analyze grant proposals, conduct site visits, and then make a decision to whom to grant the money and how much to give.

Learning by Giving class professor Dr. Greg Witkowski noted the collaboration and respectfulness needed by the students to ensure success, saying they listened to each other and made it a policy to come together in deciding the winner of the grant.

“They decide if they want to distribute the $10,000 to multiple organizations or grant it as a whole,” he said. “I’m there to facilitate and provide background information, but they make all of the decisions.”

This year, the grant was generously supported by the Learning by Giving Foundation and PNC Bank Foundation, with United Way of Central Indiana also being an important partner.

The class decided to grant the entire $10,000 to Edna Martin Christian Center and the Great Families 2020 program, a program that implements a two generations approach to fighting poverty by establishing programs and working with partners to affect parents and their children.

“It’s about giving families a hand-up, not a hand-out,” stated project manager Vincent Clark.

Not only does the Edna Martin Christian Center draw from its own staff and programming to help the families, it also works with over 100 partners to ensure that every need is met.

“Our goal is to take really good families and make them great,” Clark said.

Mia Black, the case manager for the program, said the grant funds will be used with passion, with intention, and with the utmost responsibility.

“We will be purposeful about how we use this money; we plan on addressing issues ranging from budgeting, to self-care, to self-esteem, etc. We want to help these families in Martindale-Brightwood be great for years to come,” she explained. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart for everyone who is going to benefit from this opportunity.”

One of the Learning by Giving class students, senior Josette Robinson, said the class decided to award the grant to Edna Martin Christian Center because it fit every aspect of the class’s mission statement of “supporting a two-dimensional approach to early childhood development and stability of low-income families in Marion County.”

Robinson, who conducted the site visit at Edna Martin, found that the center provided the most comprehensive programs for both children and families.

“It was eye-opening to see how long the center has been a staple in the community, as well as how well-respected and trusted it is,” she said. “Their passion for uplifting the community by providing the most comprehensive programs possible was evident throughout the visit. We are confident that this grant will fortify civil society.”

Robinson said each of the students contributed to the overall process, including engaging in research to select a cause to support, interacting with the speakers who came to talk about the process and how their organization fit in that process, and learning the importance of being good stewards of the funds.

“The course name says it all. We really did experience learning by giving!”

Abby Rolland is the blog content coordinator for the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

Doubling down on her future

Posted on January 5, 2018 by Abby Rolland

You may find Kelsey Harrington on the third floor of University Hall at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, or you may find her at the Kelley School of Business.

Why? Harrington is the first undergraduate philanthropic studies major to also major in business. Odd combination? She found a way to learn about both of her passions and she hopes to turn that knowledge into her profession.

It started when she was younger.

“I was very active in extracurriculars in high school, especially Key Club and Student Council,” Harrington says. “For Key Club, I served as the lieutenant governor on the district board, which operates at the state level. I served on several committees and also helped plan the state convention.”

While Harrington learned about service to the community through Key Club, her first experience with business and philanthropy came from being in Student Council.

“We had a member of Student Council who had to go to the Mayo Clinic. We talked about what we could do to help, and decided on a Dance Marathon,” she says. “I was the student director and we wrote to companies asking them to donate and help out. In six weeks, we raised $24,000 with a school population of 300 in grades 7-12. I realized that ‘wow, there are people stepping up and making a difference.’ That was my first real introduction to corporate social responsibility (CSR).”

What Harrington didn’t realize was that she could study CSR through both a business angle and a philanthropy angle. She applied and was a direct admit to the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University Bloomington. While registering for freshman classes she chose a nonprofit management and leadership course, taught by a Lilly Family School of Philanthropy alumnus, as an elective.

“I loved the class so much. I spoke with him about it and he recommended that I transfer to IUPUI and major in both business and philanthropy,” Harrington says.

And that’s exactly what she did, although planning on graduating on time with three majors (she also added an international studies major) was not easy.

“I mapped out my college education to make sure that I could do it! Thankfully, I have great advisors who have helped me figure it all out,” she said.

Now, Harrington is deep into her majors and learning how to pull from one to inform the other.

“I piece them together. I always feel like the socially-minded business student and the business-minded philanthropy student, while acting as a connection to my classmates to the other topic,” she says. “The perspective I take on things tends to pull from one of the other majors.”

To tie her interests together, Harrington is interested in learning about and researching CSR.

“There’s a lot of controversy around CSR, which makes me evaluate it from both the business and philanthropy sides,” she says. “I’ve learned through my classes that no one sector can solve the world’s problems. It makes me question; why aren’t we working together more?

“I’ve also learned that where your greatest passion is and where the world’s deepest needs meet is your calling. So, I use that philosophy in my approach to CSR. As a company, what is your strength or where is the need for that strength? How can you fill a need in the best way? It’s all about being strategic and intentional about the help you give. I want to improve the concept of CSR. When it’s approached correctly, it can improve the lives of causes and bring aid to these causes in ways that matter. By improving it, organizations and communities benefit.”

Short-term, Harrington hopes to implement her knowledge and apply it in a spring break learning trip to Boston to learn about CSR in action with General Electric. Then, she plans to also use what she’s learned in an internship in corporate social investment in Cape Town, South Africa during the summer.

Long-term, she has big dreams for her future.

“Anything I want to do, I want to work with intention. I’d like to work for the UN on children and poverty-related issues,” she says. “Being at the school has really opened my eyes to those issues. I could also see myself teaching in the future, and teaching through a lens where business reflects philanthropy, or how philanthropy impacts business.”

For now though, Harrington remains determined to graduate on time with all three of her majors and encourages others interested in business and philanthropy to learn about it.

“If you’re interested in this marriage and want to improve CSR or other parts of business, then follow that passion. Apply the topic in a way that matters to you,” she says.

Harrington credits the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and the Kelley School of Business for their support.

“It’s been really cool to have two schools that are so invested in their students. I feel listened to and supported by faculty and staff,” she says. “The support and reach from both schools expands far; there are always events with alumni connected to the community. That will only help my career and grow the impact I can have in my community. The schools provide guidance and opportunities for me to be the strongest leader I can be.

“Overall, I’m really passionate and excited about what business and philanthropy can do for others.”

Abby Rolland is the blog content coordinator for the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

Strengthening the community

Posted on January 3, 2018 by Abby Rolland

It started with a piece of mail.

Community Foundation of Boone County (CFBC) President and CEO Kristi Reynolds had been thinking about doing her own professional development, but when she saw a mailing from IUPUI and The Fund Raising School, she started to imagine how CFBC could maximize the potential of The Fund Raising School courses.

“CFBC has made it its focus to be a nonprofit leader and convener in our community. We want to help nonprofits become stronger internally and provide better services,” she said. “We want to build capacity in those organizations in a way to promote efficiency. When they thrive, our community does as well.”

Working with CFBC program director Barb Schroeder, Reynolds identified the Certificate in Fund Raising Management, which consists of four courses provided by The Fund Raising School, as the best way to maximize CFBC’s resources.

“The Certificate in Fund Raising Management stands as something that is nationally recognized and provides great value,” Reynolds said. “Our participants could leave with a professional certificate and gain valuable experience.”

The certificate program would not only provide a great education, but also would be a starting point for building new relationships.

“When you put nonprofit directors in the same room, they’re going to learn about the others they’re with and learn about their organizations and work on establishing partnerships,” Reynolds said. “When nonprofits partner together, they’re maximizing the limited amount of resources that are in our community. At the certificate courses, that’s exactly what happened.”

From March-June 2017, 40 nonprofit executives sat and learned together through the courses Principles and Techniques of Fundraising, Developing Major Gifts, Developing Annual Sustainability, and Managing the Capital Campaign, and the courses had an immediate effect.

“Two of the organizations focused on youth mentoring started to build a relationship and realized that they could merge to provide better services; it was a great fit,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds says CFBC is also seeing other results, such as more sophisticated and strategic fundraising in the community.

“You see annual campaign mail that uses the techniques taught in class; it’s personalized, tells a story, it’s succinct,” she said.

The nonprofit leaders themselves listed benefits of taking the courses:

“I now have specific tools to become more efficient in my fundraising.”

“(Being able to) network with others in the county and brainstorming ideas with them.”

“I appreciated learning about evidence-based concepts and strategic action steps that I can take to help my organization raise more funds to serve my community better.”

Five CFBC staff members also attended the training, and Reynolds said the group all being “on the same page” and learning the same techniques and ideas as other nonprofits were helpful benefits from earning the certificate.

“We’re a nonprofit too; we’re always learning and trying to use best practices and understanding how we can work with our community and our donors more efficiently,” she said.

And Reynolds and CFBC have no plans on stopping. As part of the Certificate in Fund Raising Management, participants are required to take one mandatory course and three out of four other core courses. CFBC is going to offer the last core course Planned Giving: Getting the Proper Start in March.

In addition, Reynolds has shared the success of the courses with other community foundations around the state.

“This was a pilot program. Since then, I have spoken about the process and initiative with other community foundations throughout Indiana,” she said. “I sit on our state community foundations committee and I spoke at a recent community foundations CEO retreat about the benefit of a partnership with The Fund Raising School and how they can duplicate this process and support nonprofit agencies within their own communities. When nonprofits are stronger, the community is stronger.”

What does Reynolds hope to see in the future?

“We’re really grateful for our partnership with the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and The Fund Raising School. Hopefully, we can take it to the next level and other community foundations and organizations will use this program and we can really raise the level of nonprofit professionals across the state.”

Abby Rolland is the blog content coordinator for the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.