Abstract
Student philanthropy projects empower students to become grant givers. Through learning by giving, students get hands-on practice making decisions with real monetary impact. This article explains the steps in a student philanthropy project in a grant-writing course, illustrating how business and professional communication courses can be a natural partner for this approach. Results of a qualitative survey show how student philanthropy enhances learning by turning the tables, enabling learners to become decision makers with the important responsibility of writing, evaluating, and responding to communication in ways that will have positive effects on nonprofits in their community.
Keywords
In the challenging economic conditions of recent years, philanthropy has drawn increasing attention. Just at the time when nonprofit organizations and the individuals they serve were more in need of funding, budgets at all levels became tighter, making the competition for philanthropic funds more intense than ever. The weak economy of the Great Recession caused many individuals and organizations to decrease charitable giving or stop it entirely.Giving USA 2012estimated that (adjusted for inflation), in 2011, givingtofoundations decreased 8.9% and givingbyfoundations decreased 1.3% (The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, 2012). Even though the U.S. financial situation is still unsteady and budgets remain tight, the philanthropic climate seems to be improving. According toGiving USA (2016), in 2014 and 2015 combined, overall giving from all sources increased about 10%. According to the chair of the Giving USA Foundation, W. Keith Curtis, this increase indicates that “people really do want to make a difference” and “are embracing philanthropy at a higher level than ever before” (Giving USA, 2016, para. 4).
Therefore, now more than ever, it is important to prepare students to think about philanthropy. Student philanthropy projects, which empower students with the means to make grant-giving decisions, offer an engaging and exciting way to introduce students to the difficult philanthropic choices they will be faced with making in their work and personal lives. Additionally, student philanthropy is a natural partner for business and professional communication courses because many of its components help students put into practice the very concepts being emphasized in class, such as audience analysis, persuasion, research, and effective oral and written communication.
The sections that follow provide background on student philanthropy, describe how a student philanthropy project was implemented in a professional communication course, and discuss student reactions to the project. The article concludes with implications for those interested in implementing a student philanthropy project in their own courses.
Literature Review: Student Philanthropy and Service Learning
Scholars of business and professional communication have long argued that while assignments such as case studies or role-plays are certainly beneficial learning tools, the classroom cannot exactly duplicate the genres and social situations of the workplace (Freedman, Adam, & Smart, 1994). Service learning opportunities are an effective way of providing “authenticity” to assignments (Cyphert, 2006, p. 186). The literature abounds with examples of implementations of service learning in business and professional communication courses. For example,Crews and Stitt-Gohdes (2012)described an assignment in which students in a business communication course were tasked with using Facebook and Twitter to help nonprofit organizations promote activities and solicit funds;Bourelle (2012)explained how she used a service-learning project that involved designing fund-raising campaigns for nonprofits to link theory and practice and to prepare students for internships;Crossman and Kite (2007)presented the results of their study of English as a second language students’ written reflections on service-learning projects in a master of business administration strategic communication course; andPope-Ruark, Ransbury, Brady, and Fishman (2014)examined the effects of service learning on student motivation in a grant-writing course.
While service learning has been covered extensively in the business and professional communication literature, student philanthropy has not been as thoroughly addressed. Student philanthropy projects constitute a special kind of service learning that immerses students (directly, indirectly, or some combination of both) in philanthropic endeavors. AsOlberding (2012)explained, student philanthropy is “a teaching strategy designed to engage students actively in the curriculum, increase awareness of social needs and nonprofit organizations, and teach grant-writing and grant-making skills”; student philanthropy can be thought of as a “learning by giving approach” (p. 71). Programs, courses, and assignments involving student philanthropy have become more prevalent over the past decade and can be implemented in a variety of ways.
Philanthropy involves giving money, which is something that many students do not have in abundant supply. Therefore, in courses with a student philanthropy component, students are typically provided with money from an outside source.Teitelbaum (2008)described a student philanthropy program involving two high school English classes in a low-income urban school district. For many of these students, their only experience with philanthropy was from being recipients of it. The students were each given $25, funded through a grant, to contribute to a nonprofit organization. By participating in this program, students applied their communication skills by researching the nonprofits and reflecting on their experiences while also learning about philanthropy in order to make informed decisions. In another example of student philanthropy, the “Corporate Citizenship Project” class in the College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University (WVU) was provided with approximately $20,000 to award to nonprofits. This course also involved a field trip to Cleveland, Ohio, where students learned from others in the nonprofit community (such as the director and founder of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) and met the 1955 WVU graduate who initially funded the program (AACSB International, 2005;WVU, College of Business and Economics, 2011).Knight (2010)described how student philanthropy programs are being integrated into various courses within business schools. For example, a group of MBA students at Boston University participated in a project in which the Highland Street Foundation of Newton, Massachusetts, provided $10,000 for the students to award to one or more nonprofits (Frazier, 2011).
As student philanthropy has become more prevalent, programs have developed to support it.Angelo (2007)described several college courses involving student philanthropy that were funded by a foundation established by Doris Buffett (the sister of Warren Buffett). This foundation initially began as part of Ms. Buffett’s Sunshine Lady Foundation but has since developed into a separate foundation, the Learning by Giving Foundation (https://learningbygivingfoundation.org). As described on its website, this foundation provides “high quality experiential for-credit courses in philanthropy” with grants that the students then distribute to nonprofit organizations in their communities (Learning by Giving Foundation, n.d., Frequently Asked Questions section, para. 1). Stemming in part from this idea,Coursera (n.d.)offers a free self-paced massive open online course (MOOC) that introduces students to philanthropy, called “Giving 2.0,” presented through Stanford University. Additionally,Campus Compact (n.d.)sponsors and promotes student philanthropy through its Students4Giving and Pay It Forward programs. Some universities have their own student philanthropy programs, such as the one discussed in this article, that develop ongoing relationships with outside funders, including some arranged through Campus Compact.
While there has been little specific discussion of student philanthropy in the business communication literature,Pope-Ruark et al. (2014)examined students’ collaboration and motivation in a grant-writing course where students competed for a share of funding money to distribute to preassigned nonprofit partners. Additionally,Addams, Woodbury, Allred, and Addams (2010)described two assignments somewhat related to student philanthropy. In the first, students drafted fund-raising letters for nonprofit organizations; several of these students then submitted their letters to the intended recipients and raised over $27,000 in a 2-year period. In the other assignment, students were asked to write fund-raising letters to business school alumni, and funds were provided by the dean of the business school to be awarded as small scholarships to the student writers of what were judged to be the most effective letters. Similar to the example inPope-Ruark et al. (2014), the second instance resembles student philanthropy in the sense that outside funds were made available to the class, but it differs in that the funds were directly or indirectly awarded to students in the class rather than distributed directly by the students to nonprofit organizations. In both cases, the students were not making the funding decisions themselves. The distinction with student philanthropy is that studentsarethe ones making the funding decisions, thus directly experiencing grant writing from thefunder’sperspective. In the discussion that follows, I argue that student philanthropy is well suited for business and professional communication courses because it involves many activities related to written and oral communication and gives students the rare opportunity to make decisions with real funding attached.
Using a Student Philanthropy Project in a Grant-Writing Course
The Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project at Northern Kentucky University is available to instructors in any discipline. In the typical model for this program, students in a one-semester course select a community need, often related to course content (e.g., a foreign language class could choose to focus on nonprofits providing assistance to immigrants or a social work class could focus on organizations aiding children). Once the need that the class will fund is identified, students work through the same process that many grant givers do:
Find nonprofit organizations meeting that need
Research these organizations
Solicit proposals
Evaluate the proposals
Select one or more applicants to be the grant recipients
Award the funds to those organizations
Variations of this process can be used. For example, one variation involves soliciting applications in advance rather than having the students generate them. Another variation involves spreading the project across two semesters, where one class solicits, analyzes, and narrows down the applications and another, using these analyses as a starting point, further researches the organizations and selects the grant recipients.
This article describes the use of student philanthropy in a course focused on grant writing. While student philanthropy projects have an exceptionally clear connection to grant writing, the activities involved in student philanthropy are relevant to many other business and professional communication courses. Grant proposals and request for proposals (RFPs) are indeed genres that most business and professional communication students would benefit from learning more about and are often addressed in even introductory textbooks (e.g.,Anderson, 2018;Kolin, 2017). In general, the activities involved in soliciting proposals and awarding grants relate well to business and professional communication.
While most business and professional communication courses focus intensely on helping students learn to make their communication of any genre more audience centered, it is less common for students to be placed in the position ofbeingthe audience. Student philanthropy, however, turns the table and provides exactly that opportunity: The students become the audience for grant proposals written by real nonprofit organizations. By evaluating proposals and making funding decisions, students learn about philanthropy and the difficult decisions involved, and by being in the funder’s position, they gain insights that will make them more sensitive to their own audiences when writing not only grant proposals but any kind of communication. Therefore, student philanthropy projects provide an excellent complement to the typical assignments in business and professional communication courses—even those that do not focus solely on grant writing—because students take on the reader/decision-maker role rather than the writer/persuader role common to typical assignments in such courses. While the discussion below is organized around the key steps and student activities in my implementation of student philanthropy in a grant-writing course, throughout the explanation I point out how the activities are relevant to other business and professional communication courses as well.
Securing Funding
The core of student philanthropy, regardless of the subject matter of the class involved, is that there is money for students to give away. Therefore, the first step is to obtain this funding. This part of the process can be completed by the instructor, assigned to the students, or some combination of both. Individual instructors can secure funding through grants from foundations (e.g.,AACSB International, 2005;Learning by Giving Foundation, n.d.) or other sponsors, such as in the assignment described byAddams et al. (2010)in which the instructors of a business communication course secured scholarship funding from the dean of their business school as a way of incentivizing students to write alumni fund-raising letters. Another variation on student philanthropy assigns students the responsibility of raising money through means such as letter writing or crowdfunding websites, although in these situations, the instructor might also arrange to have the student funds matched by a foundation. For example, the student philanthropy program at my university will sometimes agree to match funds raised by students in the designated student philanthropy courses; these student-raised funds, along with the match, can then be used to increase the amount the class can award to nonprofits.
In the implementation of student philanthropy in my grant-writing classes, the student philanthropy program at my university typically provides each class with $2,000 to give away. This funding comes from various corporate and nonprofit sponsors solicited by the program, so individual instructors are not responsible for soliciting the funding. Usually classes decide to give $1,000 each to two recipients, although they could choose to give the entire amount to a single recipient.
Part of the value of the student philanthropy experience is that students are quickly faced with the reality of working within the sponsors’ constraints as to how the money can be distributed. For example, my classes have had various constraints ranging from the broad—the sponsor was willing to fund any 501(c)(3) nonprofit (as defined by the U.S. Internal Revenue Code [IRC])—to the very narrow (e.g., one sponsor wanted to fund arts-related activities in a designated region of the state, and another sponsor wanted to fund nonprofits operating in a specific census tract).
Developing and Issuing a Request for Proposals (RFP)
Once a class involved with student philanthropy has funding to distribute, there needs to be a way for nonprofit organizations to apply for the funding—an RFP, including an application form. The RFP can be developed during the course, giving students experience in this genre, or the instructor can prepare the RFP in advance.
While RFPs are clearly important to grant-writing courses, they are often addressed in other business and professional communication courses as well. In these courses, textbooks typically discuss RFPs solely from the perspective of writers needing to respond to them. For example,Locker and Kienzler (2015)recommended, “Follow the RFP’s specified format in every detail. Use the exact headings, terminology and structure of the RFP when responding to one” (pp. 554-555). Yet in addition to being respondents to RFPs, in their careers or personal lives, students may very well also be in the situation of needing to prepare RFPs; thus, student philanthropy provides the opportunity to experience RFPs from this angle as well. Students could be tasked with writing the RFP as one of the first writing assignments related to the student philanthropy project. Alternatively, they could be given a generic RFP, such as that provided in the Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project handbook (Olberding, Neikirk, & Ng, 2010) and asked to suggest revisions to it. Because every course is different, when deciding how much time to spend on the various elements of a student philanthropy project, instructors must consider their course content and be selective about which parts they want to emphasize.
When I have used student philanthropy in my professional communication courses, the coordinator of the student philanthropy program at my university has distributed the RFP and application instructions to local nonprofits well in advance of the class starting. Recently, applications have been collected through survey software such as SurveyMonkey or Qualtrics, but email or hard copy mail can be used as a vehicle for submitting applications as well.
The RFP should explain the donors’ constraints for the funding, and the application should include a request for nonprofits to explain their plans for the funding and highlight their qualifications. Typically, a requirement of all applicants is U.S. IRC 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. Any additional requirements specified by the sponsor of the class’s funding should be described in the RFP and application, and applicants should be asked to explain how the project for which they are seeking funding would meet those specific objectives. For example, if the funding sponsor wants to fund arts projects in a specific part of the state, the applicants should be asked to explain how their proposed project connects with that goal. Or if the sponsor has a “menu” of several objectives, the applicants should be asked to explain which of these their project addresses and how. See theappendixfor a sample RFP application; question six in this sample focuses on the sponsor’s specified constraints—that the project must benefit low-income clients and have an educational component.
When applications are solicited in advance, a deadline should be established so that the applications can be ready for the students very early in the course, ideally during the first or second week. If students are responsible for writing the RFP and soliciting applications, that needs to be done near the beginning of the course to allow sufficient time for the other components of the process. Even though in my courses, students are not responsible for writing the RFP, I ask them to evaluate it and determine what additional information they need in order to make effective grant-making decisions. They can then be sure to fill those gaps as they further research the applications.
A possible advantage to having students solicit the proposals themselves is that they can then work with and advocate for organizations that they are most interested in and with whom they might already be very familiar. A possible downside to this approach is that students could naturally be biased from the beginning toward their “own” organizations, thus removing some incentive for them to learn about other nonprofits. It also raises the issue of conflict of interest, yet that can be a benefit, as it allows students to experience the challenges of ethically handling such situations, which invariably arise in philanthropic work. In fact, the Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project handbook specifically addresses the conflict of interest issue (Olberding et al., 2010).
Establishing Evaluation Criteria
Another important aspect of philanthropy is establishing clear criteria for decision-making, a topic that is commonly addressed in business and professional communication courses and textbooks (e.g.,Anderson, 2018;Locker & Kienzler, 2015). When writing grant proposals or other communications (e.g., job application letters or recommendation reports), students are taught to target their writing to criteria important to their audiences. In student philanthropy projects, however, students are not only empowered to establish the criteria that funding applicants must meet, but they are also responsible for evaluating the submitted proposals according to those criteria.
In the student philanthropy projects in my grant-writing classes, I invite a representative of the funding sponsor to class to discuss that organization’s philanthropic goals and constraints. These constraints most basically include the requirement that all funded organizations have IRC 501(c)(3) status, but often there are other constraints as well. In addition to the funding sponsor’s constraints, students also must decide what other criteria they will use to evaluate applications. The instructor should help guide this process to narrow down the criteria. These criteria can include things such as the long-term viability of the organization seeking funding, the number of people served by the organization, and the urgency of the organization’s need for funding. In relatively small classes, these criteria can be settled on through class discussion. Alternatively, the instructor could have students write a communication, such as a short recommendation report, identifying and justifying the criteria that they recommend be used in evaluating the grant applications submitted. Then these suggestions can be made available for all students to review, with further discussion taking place in class and/or on an online discussion board.
Evaluating the Applications: Researching Organizations and Reporting Results
A central part of student philanthropy is learning about nonprofits: the services they offer, the challenges they face, the importance of fund-raising, and the importance of giving. Because solid research is an important precursor to solid writing, this step also ties in well with the content of many business and professional communication courses, regardless of their particular focus. Much of this part of the student philanthropy project process takes place when students are charged with evaluating the grant proposals they receive in response to the class’s RFP. In my student philanthropy classes, I typically ask students to arrange an on-site visit (if possible) with their assigned nonprofits. I also ask students to do one or more graded assignments such as the following:
Write an informational/persuasive report on their research/site visits
Write a persuasive report communicating their recommended funding decision
Develop a persuasive presentation
Present the case to the class
In the meantime, students must communicate with nonprofit representatives, usually through email or phone calls.
The tasks involved in this process are not limited to grant-writing classes—all could easily be connected to discussions and assignments related to research, information gathering, and the oral and written presentation of results that are common in many kinds of business and professional communication courses. Two important elements of this process are discussed in the following subsections.
Conducting Informational Interviews
The need to learn about nonprofits through site visits and interviews ties in well with the discussions of primary research common in many business and professional communication classes. It can also easily be connected to the interviewing involved with job searching. I help prepare students by brainstorming as a class about the kinds of questions to ask and help them develop organized interview plans that they can share with the representatives of the nonprofits before on-site visits. Naturally, some students are apprehensive about the prospect of visiting unfamiliar nonprofits, talking with their staff, and meeting their clientele. In this case, mock interviews could be conducted in class, and teams of students can be assigned to visit the nonprofits together. In my experience, the staff members at the nonprofits are welcoming and eager to help students learn about their organizations, facilities, and needs.
Persuasively Reporting the Findings
Once students have learned about the nonprofits, they should be assigned to report their findings, often in multiple genres addressed to multiple audiences. Occasionally, I have divided student philanthropy across two classes, having one class (e.g., a business or technical communication class) research and develop a “short list” of funders and the following semester’s class (e.g., a grant-writing class or any other business and professional communication class) use the first class’s work as a starting point. In this case, one audience for the materials generated by the students in the first class is students in the second class (which has not even started yet). While this adds an additional challenge for students, it is a realistic situation because in the workplace, students will often find themselves writing for audiences that enter the project later.
In typical business and professional communication course assignments, the audiences are the instructor and hypothetical groups or individuals. In contrast, in a typical student philanthropy class, the audiences include the other students in the class, the instructor, the representatives of the nonprofits, and potentially even the community at large. Having these real audiences gives students’ work more meaning, value, and use and can motivate them to perform well (Pope-Ruark et al., 2014).
Maintaining Communication With Nonprofits (Email, Phone Calls, Texts)
An important challenge for students in student philanthropy classes is communicating with the nonprofit representatives. As with any time that “clients” are involved in course projects, students need to be instructed in strategies for communicating with them in a professional manner. I have found it helpful to require that students have me review the first few emails that they send to ensure that they understand the project and that they are explaining it clearly to the nonprofit representatives. Requiring the students to copy the instructor on all communication with nonprofits throughout the course is also a good strategy. Instructors can point out that it is not uncommon in the workplace for employees, particularly new ones, to copy their supervisors on communication.
Selecting Finalists
The instructor must determine how students will share their research findings with the class so that decisions can be made about which nonprofits should be evaluated further. Assigning written and/or oral presentations fits in well with many kinds of business and professional communication classes, from basic to advanced, with the requirements adapted to the learning objectives of the particular course. Typically, I have students write a brief, informative, and persuasive summary giving basic background about the nonprofit, then telling how it matches up to the funding criteria the sponsor and the class have established, and ultimately giving a recommendation as to whether the organization should make the short list of applicants to be invited to present to the class. Alternatively or additionally, students can be asked to orally present their findings and recommendations. These presentations should be given a time limit that must be adhered to, because students often learn much about the nonprofits and want to tell the class everything. Students can be allowed to use whatever means will make their presentations most persuasive, such as brief videos and/or other artifacts. It is important to coach students to always keep the criteria for the grant in mind; sometimes—as valuable as an organization’s work may be—it may not be a match for the funding sponsor’s criteria. In such cases, students’ research may properly lead to the recommendation that the proposal not move to the next round.
After all of the findings have been made available to the class in whatever manner the instructor specifies, the students should be asked to vote to select a determined number of finalists. To help students in their decision-making, it can be helpful to provide them with, or have them develop, a rating sheet based on the criteria. Examples of other proposal evaluation forms that are used for evaluating grant proposals in the workplace can be provided. Samples can also be found in the Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project handbook (Olberding et al., 2010).
When the finalists are selected, representatives of those organizations can then be invited to present to the class. It is important to allow sufficient time in the semester to schedule these presentations because coordinating the times can be challenging. However, I have found that nonprofit representatives are always eager to participate in this manner and can usually work it into their schedules if given sufficient notification. This part of the process also serves as an important lesson to students about the need to give others in the workplace advance notice and allow for busy schedules, delays, and uncertainties. In the case of an online class or if circumstances prevent the representatives from being able to attend class, live or recorded video presentations can be used.
Evaluating Finalists and Selecting Grant Recipients
When the nonprofit finalists are selected, they should be invited to class to give presentations about their organization and answer questions. The nonprofit representatives should be encouraged to bring whatever resources they believe will make their presentation most persuasive. For example, in addition to development directors or grant writers who typically prepare the applications, presenters in my student philanthropy classes have included one of the residents from a men’s faith-based rehabilitative group home, a former homeless individual who now volunteers for the homeless shelter that helped him turn his life around, and a young adult with developmental disabilities participating in a program that matched her with mentors. The representatives of the nonprofits should be encouraged to focus their presentations on how their needs meet the criteria of the grant, and—especially if this element is missing—students should be encouraged to ask questions. These presentations are relevant to any type of business and professional communication class because they enable students to learn more about the nonprofits and to interact with the presenters. As time permits, the presenters can also be asked to address other topics relevant to the class. For example, in my grant-writing class, I often ask presenters to discuss their jobs, career paths, and what they look for in new employees—topics that could be relevant in many business and professional communication classes.
The finalists’ presentations will likely need to be spread over multiple class meetings, but after all have presented, procedures should be established for having students vote to determine the grant recipients. It might be helpful to have those students representing the finalists make a brief pitch for why the organization they are representing should be chosen for the grant. The voting can be done online or even simply on paper. The class should decide the rules for voting, or these can be mandated by the instructor.
Students often express how difficult the voting is. They have learned throughout the process all about the many valuable services the nonprofits provide, and they struggle to choose one over the other. Another challenge is that students have worked hard to make the case for the organization they studied in depth and may find it difficult to be objective. One way of alleviating this challenge is to place the constraint that students cannot vote for their “own” organizations. Typically, I let the students decide whether to employ this constraint. This decision often generates much debate; some students want to be able to vote for their own, but others express concern about whether that is fair. Regardless of how that point of order is decided, students should be reminded to let the criteria guide their voting. Students tend to take this task very seriously, and the end result shows the effects of making a compelling case aligned with the established criteria, as indicated in this comment from a student reflection: Judging and selecting were hands down the hardest parts of the project. There were so many great [organizations] who needed the money that it made the decision difficult. However, I think the [organizations] that won did so because [the students representing them] were able to best communicate the impact that this grant money could really have for their organization. (Scripps Howard Center for Civic Engagement at Northern Kentucky University, 2015, p. 18)
The challenge of selecting the grant recipients is one of the greatest benefits of student philanthropy—it shows students how truly difficult this kind of decision-making can be. Even if students are not allowed to vote for their “own” organizations, the voting is difficult because students have learned about the significant work that each does, and putting a value on that work, or judging some of it to be better than others, can be uncomfortable. This is, however, good preparation for decision-making in the workplace and can be connected to situations beyond grants, such as choosing job applicants from many excellent candidates.
Communicating the Results to the Nonprofits
Typically, there can only be one or two grant recipients in a student philanthropy class. Thus, a key challenge for students is communicating the results to the nonprofits that they have been working with all semester. Often, this means that students need to compose and deliver the negative message that despite an excellent application and a clear need, a grant cannot be awarded. This is excellent practice in delivering negative messages, which is a typical part of many business and professional communication courses and something that is often required in the workplace. AsCreelman (2012)argued, there is much controversy regarding the bad news message genre and more examination of “living” models is needed. This aspect of the assignment gives students in any business and professional communication class the opportunity to create these living models themselves, targeting real audiences with whom they have built relationships. Being directly embedded in the situation allows for discussions of important issues, such as what level of detail about the decision-making process should be provided, what benefits can be emphasized even if an organization will not be receiving a grant at this time, or even whether writing is the best way to convey the message.
Awarding the Grants
Finally, the happiest part of student philanthropy is awarding the funds to the selected recipients. This can be done in a variety of ways; for example, the representatives of the organization could be invited back to class to receive the check and have a small celebration with the students. At my university, the Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project has a large ceremony that instructors and students from all participating classes are invited to attend. University administrators such as the president or provost, deans, and department chairs attend as well. Students are also responsible for inviting the grant recipients to attend. Instructors from each class select students to give short remarks, introduce the nonprofit representatives, and award the grants to the nonprofit representatives, who are also invited to give brief remarks. In addition to the students speaking, any other students from the class who desire can also stand up on the stage as the grants are awarded. The ceremony is an excellent opportunity for students to get experience speaking in front of a large group. All students in the class should be encouraged to attend the ceremony, as it provides important closure to the project.
Reflecting on the Learning
In discussing the use of service learning in business communication courses,Dubinsky (2006)emphasized the need for reflection. He wrote that “service-learning pedagogy rests on a stool of three legs: service, learning, and reflection” (p. 306). In my course, in addition to discussing the student philanthropy project as a class, I have students write a reflective memo about their experiences. This reflection assignment fits in well with any business or professional communication course, as it enables students to consider for themselves how the activities involved in the philanthropy project connect back to the specific learning objectives of the course. Reflective memos from students in my class have been included (with the students’ permission) in the publicly issued annual report of the Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project (Scripps Howard Center for Civic Engagement at Northern Kentucky University, 2015). In addition to asking students to write reflections, I have them complete one or more surveys, as discussed in the next section.
Results of Student Surveys
Each semester, the coordinators of the student philanthropy program at my institution administer presurveys and postsurveys to students in all participating classes. To gather additional specific comments from my own students, one semester I administered a survey on paper during the last week of the class, and it was completed by all of the students in the class. I left the room when the survey was being completed. The survey was anonymous, and it was made clear that neither their choice to complete it nor their responses would have any effect on their grade in the class. There was a variety of students in the class, including undergraduates, graduates, and non-degree-seeking students. Below I present some key findings from this survey, which was approved by the institutional review board.
When asked what they learned from participating in the student philanthropy component of my grant-writing course, students listed takeaways such as the following:
Philanthropy awareness can and should be taught. Several students indicated that one of the greatest benefits was learning about the important work of local nonprofits, the many opportunities to contribute, and “how great the need for help is.”
Students mentioned the benefit of learning about grant writing as the “grant giver rather than the grant seeker,” the “challenges for grantmakers in determining a recipient,” and the fact that “beliefs or opinions have to be put aside to accomplish a task.”
Students who participated in the awards ceremony mentioned the benefits of practicing public speaking and bringing the process to closure, enabling them to see the value of the program to the grant recipients as well.
When students were asked about the most effective aspects of the student philanthropy project, the following key elements were mentioned in their comments:
Working collaboratively with grant applicants and becoming engaged in learning about and advocating for their organizations
Managing the difficult decisions presented by the final selection process
Using skills learned in class to benefit the community
Learning the value of philanthropy and realizing how important even small amounts of money are to nonprofits
Being able to interact with and learn from the nonprofit representatives
Learning about “the other side of grants”
When asked whether they recommended including the student philanthropy project in the course in the future, 100% of the students surveyed answered “yes,” giving reasons such as the following:
“It helps students better understand the qualities of a ‘winning’ proposal.”
“Being on ‘the other side’ helps us strengthen our own proposals.”
“This project allowed us to see what goes on behind the scenes of selecting an organization to fund.”
The student writing the last comment listed above also added, “Really, I can’t imagine this class without [this] component.”
The survey also asked students what they believed to be the biggest benefit of the student philanthropy project. Some of the responses are listed below.
“It connected me to organizations and gave me a way to help in my community after leaving this course.”
“Involving the students in real world applications exposes them to actual needs and the breadth of organizations with very worthy causes.”
“It was beneficial to learn about grant writing from a funder’s perspective. I very much enjoyed going ‘beyond the classroom’ and into the community.”
“It introduced me to many nonprofits and the process of writing a grant proposal, giving persuasive speeches, and [writing] negative messages.”
Implications
Student philanthropy truly allows students to see grant writing from the audience’s perspective. Understanding the audience’s perspective is important in almost all business and professional communication courses and is an early chapter in nearly every business and professional communication textbook. Therefore, student philanthropy projects such as the one described in this article provide a unique opportunity for students tobethe audience ofrealgrant seekers’ proposals.
Thus, business and professional writing classes are excellent venues to include student philanthropy projects. As described in this article, many of the tasks required of students involve written and spoken communication skills. Although student philanthropy projects fit particularly well with courses focused on grant writing, they can easily be adapted to courses with other emphases. While the activities involved in a student philanthropy project can easily be connected to the subject matter of many business and professional communication courses, participating in student philanthropy can also lead to even further benefits for both students and the nonprofits. Candidates for the grants may be interested in participating in other service-learning projects in this or other courses, giving students the opportunity to help develop needed communication such as marketing materials or client surveys. For example, one of the other assignments in my grant-writing course is for students to work on a real grant. While some students can readily find organizations to work with, others cannot. Therefore, as shown in question eight in the sample RFP/application in theappendix, to help match students with interested nonprofits, I include a question about whether applicants may be interested in working with a student grant writer. The same could be done to find nonprofits interested in participating in service-learning projects involving other genres as well.
Student philanthropy projects can be useful to both students and instructors in terms of making connections within the regional nonprofit community. Many nonprofits, particularly smaller ones that depend on volunteers and lack staff who can focus solely on fund-raising, welcome assistance with preparing grant proposals and other communication. By becoming familiar with the nonprofits in their community through student philanthropy projects, students have the opportunity to identify not only volunteer opportunities but also ways of gaining valuable experience and identifying possible job opportunities.
In addition to enhancing student learning in the class, student philanthropy can have long-lasting effects on students. A study examining the longer term effects of student philanthropy found that 82% of the student philanthropy alumni responding to the survey indicated that the program positively affected their learning of course concepts, and 76% believed it made them more likely to donate to charities (Olberding, 2012).
Conclusion
This article discusses strategies for incorporating a student philanthropy project into business and professional communication courses. In doing so, instructors can help students apply many of the skills they are using in the course while they are learning long-lasting lessons about philanthropy. Participating in student philanthropy projects can also help students become more engaged and aware citizens within their communities. Additionally, experiencing proposals from the funder’s perspective gives students unique insights that they can, in turn, apply as writers. The nonprofit participants in student philanthropy benefit as well. In addition to the possibility of receiving a grant, the nonprofits have the opportunity to increase awareness of their organizations’ work while also making connections with many potential future supporters. Thus, student philanthropy is a multifaceted endeavor that can have a long-lasting impact on all involved, including instructors, students, nonprofits, and the constituencies they serve.
Footnotes
Appendix
Author’s Note
This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Northern Kentucky University. Student comments were reproduced by permission.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Northern Kentucky University Scripps Howard Center for Civic Engagement Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project Professional Development Funds.
Author Biography