Did someone say Award Ceremony?!

On the cold evening of November 30, 2016, the students of UAA Learning by Giving proudly presented the grantees their awards in a special occasion celebrating community engagement and generosity. Student ambassadors Mark Phang and Cat Taylor are shown with Keeley Olson, Executive Director of STAR Alaska, and Marcia Howell, Executive Director of the Alaska Injury Prevention Center, respectively.

But wait, there's more!

Here we are shown being interviewed by our professor, Dr. Judith Owens-Manley, director of the Center for Community Engagement and Learning at the University of Alaska Anchorage. This gave us a chance to provide our institution with a better understanding of the value of the opportunities offered to us as students this semester. Indubitably, we found Learning by Giving challenging, rewarding, life-changing, and we wish all the best for future philanthropy students. Oh and one more thing...

 You didn't really think I'd leave you all hanging without a nice group photo, did you?

Lend Me Your Ears!

As the semester comes to its end, we asked Jory Knott a couple of interesting questions to help us understand the significance of what we've been studying. The questions were:

1) Why is it important to study philanthropy?

2) Of all the countless ways one could study philanthropy, what makes the Learning by Giving class unique and effective?

Now, you might wondering... who the heck is Jory Knott?! He's a sharp, generous, supportive classmate, that's who! Now he demonstrates his technology skills by providing us with his answers to the following questions in the form of audio clips! Let's all give Jory our undivided attention...

 

 

Drum roll, please!

Well, this is it! The moment of truth has finally arrived. After months of discussion and research, the students of UAA's Learning by Giving has selected its four grantees:

• Alaska Legal Services, a provider of free civil legal aid to low-income Alaskans
• Alaska Community Land Trust, devoted to developing healthy and prosperous communities in the city of Anchorage
• STAR - Standing Together Against Rape, providing crisis intervention, education, and advocacy services to victims of rape and sexual assault
• Alaska Injury Prevention Center, focused on preventing traffic and pedestrian injuries in Alaska 

Student ambassadors Mark Phang and Cat Taylor are shown above (background) recording individual students' grantee nominations. From there, the game of elimination began.

"What a bittersweet moment," says student Jory Knott (not pictured), "how incredible it would be if we could award all of them."

I'm with you there, Jory! Let's continue working to make this world a happier, safer place to live!

Let's get down to business... funny business that is!

Sorry not sorry,
But I absolutely had to dig through the inter-web to see if anyone actually wrote non-profit or foundation jokes

Great news everyone... they did!

1) "Knock knock"

    "Who's there?"

    "...The annual fundraising event!"
 
2) "A Development Director found a magic lamp. A genie appeared and offered one wish. The DD said, 'I wish for one million dollars to support my organization.' 'Done,' said the genie, 'come to your office tomorrow and it will be there.' Next day, the DD came to the office and when she opened the door, three million binder clips fell out. 'What the heck!' she said to the genie, 'I asked for one million dollars!' 'Yes,' the genie replied, 'but you didn't specify that it couldn't be in-kind..."

 3) "What do you get when you cross a Program Director, a Volunteer Manager, and a Janitor?"

      Answer: a situation that is not too uncommon in non-profit organizations

Okay, get ahold of yourselves people, enough fun and games.

Greetings from Alaska Learning by Giving! I hope you have popcorn because guess what? I have a masterpiece movie for you. Magnum Opus material right here. AJ gives us some perspective on personal growth over the class and why other students should take this course! This week, we made our grant selections. More to follow on that!

One particular Friday two weeks ago, our city was struck with the first snowfall of winter! As people forgot how to drive on slippery roads, we carefully made our way to campus for "Urban and Rural AK: Community Engagement at UAA". This conference was for networking faculty, students and community members to engage in dialogue together.

After Kirk Rose, CEO of the Anchorage Community Land Trust, gave a keynote presentation about tremendous progress in one of our historically impoverished neighborhoods, we moved into breakout sessions. Our Learning By Giving group panel was made up of our professor Dr. Judith Owens-Manley, the LBG student ambassadors, a student from the grant-writing summer class named Kim, and one of last year's grant winners. That grantee was Heidi Hill, Shelter Manager at Abused Women's Aid In Crisis (AWAIC). Mark and I created the presentation, and were asked to share our classroom experiences, as well as our role being student ambassadors for the LBG Foundation!

You can check out our Prezi below!

Learning By Giving Presentation at Urban and Rural AK Conference, UAA

P.S. -- We heard after the summit that an impressed and enthused faculty member approached the Center for Civic Engagement and Learning, wanting to have a community component in their classes like technical writing did for Learning by Giving. It is great to know this model is effective, and catching on!

With the sun shining bright outside the UAA Allied Health Sciences building on last Thursday, students, staff and community members gathered for an introduction of panelists. Mariko Sarafin represented the Alaska Community Foundation. Jeff Baird came on behalf of The Rasmuson Foundation, while Executive Director Ira Perman arrived from The Atwood Foundation. Somewhat ironically, the University of Alaska Foundation was unable to make it! Hopefully we can meet them later in the semester.

Mariko explained how ACF was a young grantmaking public charity worth about 75 million, with thousands of donors and 390 funds. In comparison, Rasmuson and Atwood Foundations are private foundations, worth 630 million and 32 million respectively. These entities are treated differently by the IRS because they were seeded by endowments from wealthy families, and must make a 5% payout annually. The Rasmuson Family wealth was from banking, while the Atwood Family was in newspapers. The Rasmuson Foundation gives to tribes, nonprofits, and cities, with projects of broad benefit. We learned that “Pick, Click, Give” was their initiative, allowing Alaskans to quickly and easily donate dollars from their PFD online. The Atwood Foundation gives to arts, research and history.

Ira Perman told a story about how he watched a show called “The Millionaire”, where the camera panned to a desk and checkbook, and mysterious person would give one million dollars to another in need. Ira said, “What a cool job!”, inspiring him from a young age to learn about philanthropy.

We all enjoyed the panel and are very grateful to the attendees!

A "Stately" Presentation

Alaska attorney Cliff Groh (far left) and his colleague (second from left), a professor of Economics at the University of Alaska Anchorage, visited our class on October 5 to give us an overview of how the economy of our state works. Cliff Groh is a lifelong Alaskan who has been practicing law for over two decades. He currently serves as the President of the Alaska Common Ground, a forum dedicated to the discussion of public policy issues of the state. Cliff's presentation, aptly named "The State of the State," engages students in a classroom setting. Student ambassador Mark Phang (That's me in the middle!) and classmate AJ David (far right) simulate legislative activities that affect Alaska's funds to various sectors, including non-profit organizations. We learned that balancing the budget up north is no easy task!

Camera shy?

AJ David, a student most courageous, shows no fear as he volunteers to be the first person in our class to be interviewed by us..... on video! However, this should come as a surprise to no one - he has aspirations of becoming a TV show host! Go AJ! Way to make a great "first impression!"

Lights... Camera... Action! We student ambassadors now get a taste of our own medicine as we put ourselves in the spotlight and discuss our learning goals.

Last week, we were lucky enough to get to talk to the President of The Foraker Group Laurie Wolf! The Foraker Group is a 501(c)3 non-profit that basically supports all other non-profits. They provide consulting, classes, backroom services, fundraising expertise, sustainability, grant writing help, you name it. The previous CEO, Dennis McMillian, taught a community service class here at the university with his book, "Focus on Sustainability" which is well worth a read!

Laurie brought materials with her, including a pie chart showing total U.S. dollars given in 2015, to the tune of $373.25 billion. Individuals gave 71% of that amount, while corporations gave 5% (mostly in-kind donations of drugs, technology, samples, and plain ole stuff.) It was insightful!

Her emphasis of a healthy donor culture was invaluable. We discussed how the ideal division of labor should be 30% research of your donor base, 30% relationship building, 10% making requests, and 30% recognition/reporting. In Laurie's experience, Alaskan non-profits are spending WAY too much of their time making requests!

We will get around to introducing the class better, but in the photo below, left to right: Dr. Judy, Caitlin, Laurie Wolf, Mark, and AJ.

Hello from Alaska, AKA the coolest state (pun intended!) My name is Caitlin, and I am one of two student ambassadors for our Learning By Giving class. I am happy to pictorially introduce Mark Phang, student ambassador extraordinaire. We are happy to share what goes down in UAA town!

We are a small class of 5 students with a wonderful teacher, Dr. Judith Owens-Manley. We will be sure to introduce her in another post, as well as the other students and our activites!