Learning by Giving at Binghamton University 2019 edition

Congratulations to all of us for a successful awards ceremony and a good job to all of those who helped to present the awards. I know for most of the semester we all anticipated our work done after the final vote and the ceremony. That's not the case anymore. We're very lucky to have been given the extra $2,000 but with this money, comes more decision making. It was during our final votes on operating and programming grant that discussion of spreading the wealth was brought up. Many had advocated for TruthPharm to receive the operating grant, but after they already reviewed the programming grant, many flipped their decisions to ensure that the ACA also received a grant. Now that we have this extra money, will we continue to stick to our view that we should spread the wealth, or would the class be open to donating to one of the final recipients again. While $2,000 is much less than $7,500 and could possibly be seen as supplemental money, it almost matches the price of the op...

Because this is one of the last blog posts for our class, I considered discussing our final donation decisions, possibly lamenting over the lack of funding for Meals on Wheels of Western Broome. However, as this class comes to an end, I think there is much more that we can take away than just our final decisions. Specifically, I want to talk about how this class has affected my view of philanthropy and how it will change the way I spend my time and money in the future. A couple of weeks ago I went to “Casino in the Woods,” an annual casino night that College in the Woods Council puts on in order to raise money for charity. I am not much of a gambler and generally don’t like the addictive nature of games designed to make you lose money. But since all of the proceeds were going to charity, I figured that the money I would ultimately lose at the event would be for a good cause. However, as the night went on, I couldn’t stop thinking about the implications of this...

Life After Philanthropy and Civil Society As our semester is coming to a close, we will all be departing our own ways and heading towards our exciting summer plans.   As I graduate Philanthropy and Civil Society, I am still left with many questions in my mind: Did we donate our funds to the right organizations? Did we explore every avenue possible in our research? Was the decision voting process even fair in the first place?   As many of these questions will go unanswered, it is crucial to always remain positive.   Of course we made the right decision, and we have all worked countless of hours in research in an effort to ensure our decision was perfect.   Not everyone may have gotten what they wanted, but the decision was made by all of us as a collective unit.   But now what?   Do we all just move on in our lives and forget about the inspiring journey we spent together?   The answer to this question is no.   Majority of...

In honor of mental health awareness month, I’ve decided to do my charity pitch on Mental Health America. Mental health has thankfully been becoming less stigmatized as time goes on, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still strides to be made.             When mental health is brought up, many people immediately think about disorders such as schizophrenia or bi-polar disorder, which are depicted in big movies such as A Beautiful Mind and Silver Linings Playbook. Those two disorders aren’t an accurate picture of the mental health struggles of the majority of Americans though. About 1% of Americans live with schizophrenia, while about 18% of Americans experienced an anxiety disorder and about 7% experienced a major depressive episode. This goes to show that more awareness needs to be brought to the public about general mental health. You don’t need to be hearing voices in your head or seeing things in order to str...