Project #1

Post #3: Project #1 Case Statement

For my capital campaign assignment, I've chosen to adopt the University of Minnesota and develop a capital campaign to renovate the Mariucci Arena, home of the Golden Gophers' mens and womens ice hockey teams.

Response to Rockefeller Foundation

After watching the interview about the Rockefeller Foundation, I think their goals are far too large. The terms they continually threw around--sustainability & resilience—are so vague and huge that it was difficult to comprehend what the panelists were discussing. I don’t question the value of building more sustainable systems to combat future climate change, but I question how they wish to go about this. The entire interview lacked details on what exactly they want to do. Half the time was spent locked into comparing sustainability in the U.S. to that of developing countries. While they made interesting points (‘how do we protect our comfort?’ versus ‘how do we survive?’), the whole thing still wasn’t feasible to me.

This systems-based philanthropy is right up Bill Gates’ alley, but there’s a clear difference between the two. Listening to Bill Gates invigorated me. I felt there was something real, something focused and tangible, about the Gates Foundation. The Rockefeller speakers discussed big concepts and plans: short term focuses on security, economic, and environmental issues by business that cause long-term repercussions, a need to be more proactive in preventing future weather issues, humanizing these big concepts, etc. They spoke in terms of building systems (like Gates), but lacked the human element that made their work real. Their case statement hardly exists—the viewer is left wondering what they’ve been asked to support. There were too many factors with too little detail to really wrap your head around what the Rockefeller Foundation sets out to accomplish.

Response to Gates Foundation Interview

I feel Bill Gates’ philanthropy is completely genuine—his motivation, as I mentioned in class, seems to be driven by an honest desire to improve the world around him, not by ego. He deflected attention from himself and back onto his works in India whenever possible. Through his extreme wealth, Gates seeks to build new, better systems to improve lives on a massive scale. An $100,000 gift is beyond the ability of most Americans; it’s barely a drop in the bucket to Gates.

On this thread, a man like Nick DeBenedictis is wealthy, and would easily be willing to donate almost $1 million to build a new wing on a Philadelphia-area health center. His philanthropy is locally-focused in order to benefit others from similar backgrounds to him. Gates’ goals are much larger—his philanthropy is focused on creating systems that change the world. A gift from DeBenedictis might help 100-200 people; a project Bill Gates supports could benefit millions of underprivileged Indian men, women and children. The scale is difficult to fathom, and for me is almost overwhelming. For one person to be able to use his wealth to not just benefit people, but entirely change the culture and standard living of an entire country, is the epitome of the definition of philanthropy: “the love of humankind.” Somewhere between DeBenedictis’ and Gates’ philanthropy would be organizations like UNICEF, which work to benefit on a larger scale, but not to the system-changing degree of the Gates Foundation.

SMT 309: Post #2

Question: What is the average size of an online gift?
Answer: According to Nonprofitmarketingguide.com, the average online monthly gift was $31.96 for organizations included in the 2012 Online Marketing Nonprofit Benchmark Index Study.

http://www.nonprofitmarketingguide.com/blog/2012/05/16/online-fundraising-stats-and-trends-for-nonprofits/

SMT 309: Post #1

Question: What day of the week has the highest average online gift?
Answer: Based on a 2006 post on GuideStar, people are most generous during the week (not on weekends). "By dollar amounts, Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays are the days donors are most generous. By number of donations, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays are top days."