In class, we went over a thought experiment outlined in Steven E. Meyer's article "Saving the Babies: Looking Upstream for Solutions." This story presents an ethical challenge facing a group of villagers who are forced to question the way that they ought to exercise their duty to help others. The villagers encounter a very perplexing issue of a continuous flow of babies drifting down a river near their village. The villagers work to rescue and care for the babies, they are faced with the decision of whether they should go upstream to find the source of this problem or if they should all stay downstream because rescuing most of the babies requires the help of the entire village.

When considering what we would do in this situation, the class unanimously decided that we would go upstream to find the cause of the problem and hopefully prevent it from continuing. This sentiment was largely reflected in our discussions of parallel scenarios such as whether much of our philanthropic efforts should be directed towards solving the problem of food sustainability over donating to food banks.

However, there were a few scenarios in particular where the class seemed to converge on choosing the more short-term and direct solution to a problem (rescuing the babies from the river). When considering providing relief to hurricane and tornado victims or focusing on the climate change that causes them, the majority of the class prioritized relief to victims.

These discussions forced us to conclude that when deciding HOW we should approach an problem, there often seems to be no right answer. Despite our varying priorities depending on each situation, it seemed that much of our rationale for our preferences was grounded in where we BELIEVED that we would have the most impact in the problem at hand.

This lead into our discussion of the model that we would be using to assess charities: the RISE model. This calls us to consider the RELEVANCE of an organization to our goals, the IMPACT it will have, its SUSTAINABILITY, and its EXCELLENCE in Management and Operations. This is a model that we will be using throughout the course, when we are faced with these tough ethical dilemmas.

After Terry Cooke's presentation, we began to discuss where our focus area would be for our grant this semester. Our discussion began with 5 students presenting where they believed that the grant money should go. These presentations focused on: athletics and recreation programs, poverty and homelessness, education programs for immigrants, equal opportunity programs for at-risk youth, and food systems/food banks.

When we discussed these ideas, a few combinations of them were brought up. Namely, combinations proposed between poverty and homelessness with food systems/food banks, as well as between athletic and recreation programs with equal opportunity programs for at risk youth.

The main considerations that were brought up in our discussions of our options were the impact on the community and the individuals. Many people believed that investing in children was an approach where the desired impact could truly be realized. Moreover, people felt that the Hamilton need pointed towards giving opportunities to youth and children. Earlier, Mr. Cooke noted that some of the high school graduation rates in Hamilton were as low as 35%. Many people were shocked by these statistics, which established grounds for some in-depth discussion.

Eventually we did converge on supporting a charity that provides less privileged children and youth with the opportunity to participate in athletic and recreational programs. As a class, we want to focus on low income groups as we felt that these were the children whose parents may not be able to afford to put them in to the programs that they need to thrive.

After making this decision, we did a role-play exercise where one student was to ask another student for a grant for their made-up organization. After this exercise, the class discussed aspects of how the person asking for money was doing so. While much of the class was moved by the testimonial that the student brought up, a number of people wanted to know more quantitative information regarding this charity's impact. This was an interesting contrast, noted in one of our Stanford Social Innovation Review articles 'On Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Measuring Impact'. This article drew a contrast between the Captain Kirks, who are "motivated by possibilities" and "passion from the heart"  and the Mr. Spocks, who are more focused on the logic surrounding the matter at hand and only willing to take calculated risks. It will be interesting to see how these differences play out in our review and selection of the charities that apply for our grant.

This week, our class presented their ideas for various parts of the grant proposal in groups of 4-5 members.

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Each group focused on a different part, and a few included some stand-out aspects:

1. Overview: focus on EMPOWERING adolescents

2. Overview: focus on aligning with Hamilton Community Foundation's (HFC) values & youth development

3. Impact: performance measurements metrics​

4. Impact: focusing on WHO and HOW our funds will impact individuals

   • Unique aspect - using a rating scale to assess proposal responses​

5. Relevance: NEED - equal opportunities for youth; WHY WE NEED IT - poverty, crime, visible minorities, poor family environment

   • Unique aspect - wil​l look at staffing at charities

6. ​Relevance: ensuring charities are aligning with our​ class goals, balancing personal connections and facts

   • Unique aspect - grading scale level 1-4​

7. ​Sustainability & Excellence: focusing on funding, staffing, infrastructure

8. Sustainability & Excellence: research (learning) & expert opinion (excellence)

   • Unique aspect - used quotes from various sources, 5-point rating scale of 'meet expectations, not persuaded' to 'exceeds expectations, persuaded by answers'​​

We are pleased to announce that we received over 40 applications for our grant! The goal during today's class was to choose 9 charities to move on to the next phase of the application. Congratulations to the following charities who we will be working with to develop grant proposals:

• Girl Inc. of Halton

• NGen Youth Centre

• Living Rock

• Empowerment Squared

• Boys and Girls Club

• Hamilton Music Collective (AIFEC)

• Fit Active Beautiful  (FAB)

• New Hope Community Bikes

• Eva Rothwell Centre

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Over the next few weeks we will be meeting with these 9 charities in groups to develop applications for the next phase. We look forward to working with these charities, and are excited to continue with the application process!

On Monday, we spoke about having a Theory of Change. Professor Fergusson gave us a presentation about the organization that she co-founded, Social Impact Advisors. In particular, she focused on their work with Innoweave, which seeks to bring innovative thinking to the non-profit sector in order for organizations to have a greater impact and to advance their missions.

This presentation gave us interesting ways of understanding an organization's mission. In particular, we were presented with interesting ways through which organizations should be dealing with impact. Our professor drew a distinction between the ultimate impact of an organization and the intended impact. The ultimate impact deals with what the charity would like to see in their community in the long-term or what ideal world are working towards. As an ideal, the ultimate impact is not something that the charities are responsible for achieving. On the other hand, the intended impact statement specifies what the charity will actually hold themselves accountable for achieving.

This idea of intended impact connected the discussion with our course reading, Delivering on the Promise of Nonprofits. This outlines the necessity that organizations consistently confront the questions: 

• Which results will we hold ourselves accountable for?

• How will we achieve them?

• What will results really cost, and how can we fund them?

• How do we build the organization we need to deliver results?

These are important considerations to keep in mind when working with and assessing the charities.

In the latter half of Monday's class we finalized the grant application in a very involved and dynamic discussion. We were presented with a drafted grant proposal sourced from our presentations for our first assignment, which was created by a few of the students in our class. We collaborated on reworking, refining, and polishing the questions and organization of our final application. Our focus in this discussion was largely on clarity and precision balanced as well as leaving room for the charities to share their story.

In today's class, we discussed empathy mapping, which is a tool that can be used by companies to asses the characteristics to give them a greater ability to meet the needs of their clients. We took this into the charitable sector by considering the needs of the participants in the programs offered by charities. In our groups for filling out the grant proposals, we created hypothetical scenarios of a youth before and after their interaction in the charities that we are working with. We discussed these youth with regards to the model of empathy mapping pictured.

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We spent the remainder of the class discussing our model for how

we will assess the applications. We worked as a class to establish a

weight that we will attribute to each of the categories of the rise model.

Our discussion concluded on an emphasis on impact, as we prioritize

our funding having a significant impact on the problem we are looking

to address. We landed on a distribution of 10% on relevance, 50 on

impact, 25 on sustainability, and 15 on excellence in management and

operations.

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Moreover, we discussed a scale on which we could rank these elements. We considered ranking how convinced we are of the charity's fulfillment of the RISE model on a 4 point scale. In addition, we considered establishing a criteria for assessment of each of these elements as they are distinct in what they require.

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In this class, we did a quiz which covered various topics that we had gone through in the first half of the course. These included information that we learned about the charitable sector, the RISE model, and our discussion of upstream versus downstream solutions to problems.  

In this class, we brainstormed questions for surveys to get feedback from the charities with which we worked in order to get their opinions on the process of working with a student who would be filling out a grant application on their behalf.

Next, we discussed our system for rating the grant applications. We also considered whether each person should be allowed to vote for the charity that we worked with. Arguments were presented against allowing this with regards to the bias that students may have toward the charity that they worked with. Others defended this, advocating for the objectivity that we could have when evaluating the applications. We settled on disallowing voting for one's own charity. 

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In the second half of the class we learned about sustainability and corporate social responsibility. First we brainstormed how to make an organization sustainable and then how to make it exemplary. We learned about and discussed the importance of the seven dimensions of corporate social responsibility, which are: community and society, corporate governance, customer relationship, employee relations, environment, human rights, and supplier relations. Finally, we discussed the ISO 26000 model for Organizational Governance surrounding sustainable governance and concern for the local and global community aside from philanthropy alone. 

In this week’s class the goal was to finalize where the grant money would be given.  After completing two surveys the reoccurring winning charities were Empowered Squared, NGen Youth Centre, Eva Rothwell Centre, and Living Rock.  The next step was then to have a class discussion about how to allocate the $10 000 either between these four charities or choose one to receive the total amount. 

Everyone in the class was then asked to form groups based on where they thought the money should go.  Empowered Squared was the largest group.  Within these groups, everyone was discussing and forming arguments as to why their organization should receive the money, and/or a certain amount of it. 

The key debate points included:

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Living Rock – The group argued that the focus of the organization is survival, and gives those in need a “starting point” to a better life.  Many of the other charities to not offer such a specific focus on survival. 

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Empowered Squared – This group rebutted that the organization focuses on the use of athletics to build a community/safety to entice participants to later join other programs of theirs.  This group also argued that the $10 00 will be beneficial by being able to start a whole new program.  They are looking to start new programs to accommodate the long waiting list they currently have.

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Eva Rothwell – The group rebutted that this organization also would have a strong benefit from the $10 000 because it would go towards redoing their kitchen and replacing broken appliances.  They also stated the location of the centre is in a prime location and offers both survival and extracurricular programs.  

NGen – The main argument this group focused on was the organizations goal to offer and comfortable, safe space to marginalized individuals. 

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Ultimately, the class decided on giving $6 000 towards Empowered Squared and $4 000 to Eva Rothwell.