Tag: charity

Creating a Hotspot for K-12 Innovation

Creating a Hotspot for K-12 Innovation

A Philanthropy Roundtable Event on Breakthrough Education Giving
Co-hosted by Donors Forum

Sofitel Chicago Water Tower • Chicago, Illinois
October 28-29, 2015

Chicago is becoming a center for big K-12 ideas and an ideal setting to discuss how donors and education entrepreneurs can create dramatic improvements for kids nationwide. Home to a new crop of personalized learning models, design incubators, and promising startups, the city also boasts emerging innovators in charter schools, policy, leadership development, and advocacy. Chicago’s forward-thinking donors, investors, and venture philanthropy funds also make the city an exciting place to discuss how funders can make a big difference by thinking outside the typical K-12 box.

Attendees had the opportunity to spend two days with hundreds of leading education philanthropists, visit inventive schools, and join high-level strategic conversations about effective K-12 giving.

Event Schedule

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

7:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. Site Visits

Chicago’s Next Generation Learning Models

Attendees had the opportunity to visit leading examples of personalized learning, including Intrinsic Schools, a learning environment unlike any other school. Intrinsic is made up of interconnected “pods,” each an open studio with spaces dedicated to individual and small-group learning. Students receive personalized learning plans to monitor their academic progress, and access a school-wide blended learning tool as well as Socratic style teaching. Perhaps most astounding is that the cost of this futuristic and breathtaking space was one-fourth the cost of comparable district schools. We also visited two other exemplary models: Chavez Multicultural Academy, a district school, and Chicago International Charter School: West Belden.

7:00 a.m. Registration Opens

Sofitel Chicago Water Tower
20 East Chestnut Street
Chicago, IL 60611

7:30 a.m. Bus Departures Begin

Donors had two options for their first site visit school:

• Cesar Chavez Multicultural Academic Center

• Chicago International Charter School: West Belden

After this first site visit, both groups convened at Intrinsic
Schools and toured as one combined group.

1:00 p.m. Return to Sofitel Hotel

• Networking Luncheon

2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. Optional Discussions

Session #1: What’s Working to Educate High-Ability, Low-Income Students

Giuseppe Basili, director of strategic initiatives, Jack Kent Cooke Foundation
Paula Olszewski-Kubilius, professor, School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University
Chester E. Finn Jr., president emeritus, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation (moderator)

Session #2: How Donors Can Make Meaningful Early Childhood Investments

Katherine Kaufmann, partner, The Bridgespan Group
Diana Rauner, president, Ounce of Prevention Fund

3:10 p.m. – 4:10 p.m. Opening Plenary

Welcome

Adam Meyerson, president, The Philanthropy Roundtable

Cultivating The Next Generation of Education Startups

Deborah Quazzo, founder and managing partner, GSV Advisors
Margaret Angell, director, education innovation portfolio, CityBridge Foundation
Alicia Herald, founder and CEO, myEDmatch
Deborah McGriff, partner, NewSchools Venture Fund (moderator)

We made a special visit to LEAP Innovations, Chicago’s nationally-recognized education innovation center that helps educators and entrepreneurs reimagine learning and develop next-generation school models. Located in 1871, Chicago’s hub for all digital startups, attendees got a rare glimpse into how talented entrepreneurs use dedicated space and resources to test ideas, validate concepts, engage technical experts, work with mentors–and ultimately turn big ideas into reality.

5:00 p.m. Opening Reception and Open House: LEAP and 1871

6:00 p.m. Big-Idea Pitches

Solving America’s Toughest K-12 Problems

Attendees had the opportunity to hear a number of solicitation-free, big-idea pitches from newly-forming education organizations, schools, and initiatives from around the country. Following brief reactions from a panel of experts, attendees were able to ask questions and offer constructive feedback.

Welcome

Jim Oliff, chairman, CME Group Foundation

Master of Ceremonies

Phyllis Lockett, CEO, LEAP Innovations

Pitches

Brian Hill, co-founder and CEO, Edovo
Gareth Genner, founder and CEO, Parish Academy
Blair Pircon, CEO, The Graide Network
Amy Charpentier, KIPP Through College director, KIPP: Delta
Ryan Hoch, co-founder, Overgrad

Expert Respondents

Barton Dassinger, principal, Chavez Multicultural Academic Center
Edith Gummer, education research director in research and policy, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
Deborah Quazzo, founder and managing partner, GSV Advisors

7:00 p.m. LEAP Reception

Thursday, October 29, 2015

7:15 a.m. Breakfast Roundtable Discussions

1. How Cities Can Develop Plans for Increasing the Number of High-Quality School Seats
Butch Trusty, chief impact officer, Education Cities

2. How New Approaches to Teacher Certification Can Transform Public Education
Don Nielsen, senior fellow, Discovery Institute

3. Building a Network of Independent Schools: Lessons from 20 Years of Growth
Jane Genster, president and CEO, Cristo Rey Network

4. How Can Donors be Effective in Supporting Alternatives to “College-For-All”
Blouke Carus, chairman emeritus and chief technical advisor, Carus Corporation

5. Hope Outside the Box: How Schools can Create Unconventional Funding Streams by Serving their Communities
Bob Muzikowski, president and founder, Chicago Hope Academy

6. Bridging the Opportunity Divide Through Career Preparation
Jack Crowe, executive director, YearUp Chicago

7. How to Develop High Schoolers into Real-World Entrepreneurs
Michael Miles, co-founder, INCubatoredu

8. How Charter Schools Can Promote Character and Civic Virtue
Steve Barney, trustee, Barney Family Foundation

2016 National Forum on K-12 Philanthropy

The 2016 National Forum on K-12 Philanthropy
September 13-14, 2016
Sofitel San Francisco Bay
Redwood City, California

This year, The Philanthropy Roundtable will be convening the nation’s leading donors and practitioners in one of our country’s epicenters for education transformation, California’s Bay Area, to highlight K-12 innovation and the latest trends from Silicon Valley as the nation marks the 25th anniversary of charter schools.

September 13: Site Visits, Reception, and Special Programming
September 14: Sessions and Speakers

Co-hosted by Legacy Venture

Registration will open in March 2016. A detailed program agenda will be coming soon!

Conference Location:
Sofitel San Francisco Bay
223 Twin Dolphin Drive
Redwood City, CA 94065
(650) 598-9000

The Philanthropy Roundtable has negotiated a special room block rate of $269 per night at the Sofitel San Francisco Bay hotel. Please call (650) 598-9000 to make your reservation. Rates will be available until Tuesday, August 30, 2016, based on hotel availability. The hotel block may sell out, so please make your reservations early to ensure a room. The Sofitel San Francisco Bay is conveniently located 10 miles from the San Francisco International Airport (SFO). Complimentary shuttle transportation is provided between the airport and the hotel. Contact the hotel concierge for more information on the shuttle schedule.

This solicitation-free event is open to those who annually distribute, or intend to distribute in the near future, at least $100,000 in charitable donations. There is no fee to attend.

For more information on attendance qualifications, please click here. For additional information about the content of this program, please contact Anthony Pienta, director of K-12 programs at apienta@PhilanthropyRoundtable.org or at (202) 822-8333.

Door-To-Door

Charities that reach beneficiaries directly are a rising trend worldwide, especially in developed countries like the USA. What’s different about this approach? First, it’s transparent and allows you to track all the way the destination of collected money and food (just like Holiday Heroes does). Also, door-to-door charity lets you… see the truth.

It takes pushing past your comfort zone and stepping into the unheated, yet tidy home of a lonely retired person or the crammed little room of a single mother and her three children to realize the truth about where you live.
Sometimes the people we visit agree to get on camera. Sometimes the tears in their eyes seem to swell up in the eyes of our volunteers. But it’s not what counts the most.

In fact, charity is what empowers us to change the lives of the needy, the country we live in, and overcome indifference—ultimately, change who we are. Simple acts of kindness among people are neither a thing to be taught, nor an extravagant idea or an example of exceptional courage.

Simply, those more lucky in life should build a bridge of good works reaching the homes of people struggling to survive every single minute, every single day.

Philanthropy in the Arctic: Good Intentions or Good Works?

There may be no better phrase to describe the past century of southern intervention in the Canadian Arctic than the maxim “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” As philanthropic, charitable, and non-governmental organizations seek to address development challenges in the region unmet or abandoned by the public sector, it is well worth asking whether their good intentions are redressing past injustices or perpetuating them.

Ideological and paternalistic

To be sure, the history is spotty. Ask Northerners what they think of when they think of outside charitable or non-governmental actors, and Greenpeace will probably come to mind. In 1976, Greenpeace Canada began a campaign to expose and end the commercial hunting of marine mammals, in particular the seal hunt. The campaign effectively destroyed the market for seal pelts, resulting in severe socio-economic ramifications for Indigenous and non-Indigenous hunters. It also vilified their traditions and livelihoods, casting them as murderers of innocent, cherubic seal pups.

Greenpeace apologized for their role in this debacle in1985 and adopted a policy in 2014 in support of Indigenous rights to a subsistence lifestyle and the right to sustainable development. But not everyone is ready to forgive and forget. Nunavut MP Leona Aglukkaq, in a 2014 speech to the Inuit Circumpolar Council, iterated that “these groups do not base these campaigns on facts or science, but instead on what they view to be a moral high ground. The ironic part is that from their moral high ground, they completely disregard the rights and traditions of entire groups of people.”

Actions speak louder than words. Many Arctic inhabitants are critical of Greenpeace’s popular #SavetheArctic campaign, which has been a boon to the organization’s fundraising efforts. But to the skeptical, the entire premise of #SavetheArctic implies, variously, that: a) the people of the Arctic need external actors to save them; b) the Arctic environment needs saving and the people don’t matter; and c) the people of the Arctic are either incapable or unwilling to protect their own environment. It can be galling.

Greenpeace is the most prominent, but certainly not the only, example of a Southern organization pursuing ideological ends at the expense, intended or not, of local interests. As new groups with philanthropic mandates have sought to engage in the Arctic, they may have been surprised and dismayed by the mistrust and suspicion they’ve been greeted with. But given recent history, it’s justified. Philanthropy in the Arctic seems too often to be motivated by either condescension or paternalism.

What’s next for philanthropy? More investment and more cooperation.

Washington-area philanthropy is becoming unabashedly business-minded. Practices such as impact investing and public-private partnerships that were experiments after the recession are now expected to be regular giving habits for many do-gooders. And that’s just for starters. Capital Business caught up with a few local philanthropy thought leaders to see what’s next for local giving in the region:

Jennifer Pryce

President of the Calvert Foundation

The Calvert Foundation does not operate like a traditional foundation, shelling out grants to nonprofits. Instead, it invites individuals to invest in notes backing a portfolio of organizations with social missions, such as education, affordable housing and fighting poverty. This is not a new idea. Calvert has been doing it for 20 years, raising $1 billion over that time. But Pryce said we can expect to see much more of it in Washington this year, as more foundations look to invest their endowments in socially minded concerns. “If their mission is creating jobs, they are looking for investments that are supporting job growth,” Pryce said. “How do you invest the endowment in a way that preserves the capital but you have it invested in good? This is huge in the foundation world and a lot are asking themselves that question.”

Another trend Pryce expects is more partnerships between government, businesses and philanthropists to fund social causes — public-private partnerships. Last fall, then-D.C. mayor Vincent C. Gray explored the idea of offering bonds to fund a project that would reduce teen pregnancy. “Much much more often I’m working in partnership with foundations and the government. It’s really a group hug,” Pryce said.

Jean Case

Chief executive of the
Case Foundation and the wife of
AOL co-founder Steve Case

In June, Steve and Jean Case committed $50 million to the Case Foundation for impact investing. Jean Case said she believes the momentum for impact investing will increase particularly for what is known as pay-for-success bonds, or social impact bonds. If a public project achieves its goal, the government pays back donors with a small profit. There is currently a bill before Congress, the Social Impact Bond Act, that would provide incentives for communities across the nation to introduce these bonds. She said this trend will heighten the standards of performance for the nonprofit sector, even more than it has in the past few years. “It’ll put a heavy focus on measurement and outcomes, which will have a spillover effect to make all of our programs more effective,” Case said.

First Book mixes market forces and philanthropy to help poor children

In a small, two-bedroom apartment in Corona, Calif., Trinity Santos, 5, reads her hardcover copy of “Green Eggs and Ham” again and again. She never tires of the Dr. Seuss classic, sometimes reading it to her 3-year-old brother, Joshua, said their mother, Diane.

Life is a struggle for the Santos family. Diane worked as a waitress before her children were born, and the family of four lives on the $35,000 that her husband earns as a phlebotomist. They don’t have much.

But the children own the four dozen books in a small, homemade bookcase, courtesy of First Book, a nonprofit organization that combines market forces and philanthropy to get new books into the hands of poor children to encourage early reading.

“I didn’t have books at home when I was growing up in the Philippines,” said Diane Santos, 33, who connected with First Book through a local parent­ education program she attended shortly after Trinity was born. “I learned the most important thing is reading with them, talking to them, introducing new words.”

First Book, founded in the District in 1992, has grown into a sophisticated national enterprise that gave away more than 15 million new books to low-income children and teens in 2015. But as financial troubles have deepened in households nationwide, First Book has turned to items well beyond books, this year adding winter coats, nonperishable snacks, toothpaste, fleece blankets, underwear and other goods to its charitable arsenal.

“There’s a profound need that is really unprecedented,” said Kyle Zimmer, 55, a onetime corporate lawyer who formed First Book with two friends after she volunteered at a D.C. soup kitchen and realized that many of the children had no books at home.

Even as the economy recovers from the housing collapse of 2008, many families continue to falter. The number of homeless children in public schools has doubled since before the recession, reaching a record total of 1.36 million nationwide in the 2013-2014 school year, the most recent one for which data is available.