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| The class of Fall 2016, and our respective grant recipients of the term, bidding you farewell. |
Friday 9 December 2016
4MG3 Fall 2016, Bids you Farewell
Thrive Grant 2
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| From left to right: Katie Gorie (Administrative Assistant), and Cathie Pead (Interim Executive Director) of Thrive posing with Laiba Noor (Student) after receiving the grant. |
Thrive Grant 1
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| Katie Gorie (Administrative Assistant) and Cathie Pead (Interim Executive Director) of Thrive being awarded the grant for $5000 by Laiba Noor (Student). |
HYP Grant 1
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| On the far right, Daniel Higgins (Student) awards HYP the grant for $5000, being accepted by Nea Reid (Artistic Director), accompanied by the poets that performed for the class. |
The Final Class, Farewell (Class 11)
Dec 2/2016
This was the final class of the year, and was our award ceremony for our grantees; Hamilton Youth Poets, and Thrive Group. Additionally, the grant winners from last semester’s course, Living Rock and Bayan Community Services, appeared to let the class know how the grant was used. It was already a very emotional class; however, it was made even more emotional by three surprise performances by HYP. Three of the Poets from HYP gave three very moving and emotional performances, demonstrating to the class what slam poetry is, and just how captivating the art can be. With that, I bid you farewell. It has been a wonderful term, and an absolute pleasure working with the LGF as a Student Ambassador. Thank you again for the wonderful opportunity, this is Matthew Parliament, signing off.
Thursday 8 December 2016
The Final Decision, the Hardest Part of the Class (Class 10)
Nov 25/2016
Having returned from our site visits with our top candidates, the class had to make its final decision; which charity, or charities, would receive funding. The class began with several brief presentations from the students that had conducted the site visits; after which, the class began a long debate and discussion to determine which of the candidates would be selected. The entire class went through several stages of voting in order to condense the list. The first stage involved every student voting for their first and second choice. From there, we were able to work the list down to our top two choices. At this point, the deliberation began; as we had to decide how to distribute the funding, and whether or not both charities would receive a portion of the grant. At the end of the class it was decided that students would anonymously enter their ideal distribution of the funds into an excel spreadsheet, and we would take the mean of the spread in order to distribute the funds. Ironically, our final average ended up being a 50/50 split between the Hamilton Youth Poets (HYP) and Thrive Group. The class ended with a call to both organizations to inform them that they had been awarded $5000 each, and inviting them to our last class of the year.
Blast From the Past 2: Class of Winter 2016 and Recipients
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| The class of Winter 2016, along with the grant recipients (Banyan Community Services, and Living Rock), and the grant recipients from 2015 (McQuesten Sprouts Camp and Hamilton Victory Gardens). |
Blast From the Past 4: Living Rock, Recipient of Winter 2016
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| From left to right: Emily Rowe (Student), Karen Craig (Program Director), and Cory Silva (Student). Living Rock was awarded with $6000. |
Blast From the Past 3: Banyan Community Services, Recipient of Winter 2016
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| From left to right: Patrick Vuong (Student), Kim Ciavarella (Chief Executive Officer), Patrick McCowell (Director of Residential Services, Arrell Youth Centre), Vickie Ho-Devine (Communications and Fund Development Officer), and Nick Sebben (Student). Banyan Community Services was awarded $4000. |
Blast From the Past 1: Grant Recipients of Winter 2015
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Wednesday 7 December 2016
The Final Presentations and the Top 7 Applicants (Class 9)
Nov 18/2016
This class was the semi-final step in our selection process for our RFP. There were five groups in total, and each group presented the results of their selection process. By the end of the class, we had a total of 7 charities that had been chosen by one or more groups to receive some or all of the grant money. There was one charity in particular, charity X, that had been selected to receive funding by three of the five groups. While we were happy that we were nearing the end of our journey, one group reminded us of the difficulties of philanthropy; the burden of having to decide which charities don’t receive funding. All of the charities that applied were excellent charities that were doing great work in their community, and it was a difficult process to narrow these charities down to a select few.
Final Presentations Group E
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| From left to right: Hermes Lee, Dominique Krawchenko, Rob Brown, Hardip Singh, Kristen Massola, and Rebecca Butkevicius. |
Final Presentations Group D
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| From left to right: Laiba Noor, Isa Mulder, Ryan Stegmaier, Matt Vukovic, Christina Del Sordo, and Simon Bugiardini. |
Final Presentations Group C
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| From left to right: Cristen Lauricella, Diana Albanese, Chelsea Parker, Julian Gerhart, Tyler Gladden, and Matthew Parliament. |
Final Presentations Group B
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| From left to right: Andre Marini, Nathania Ofori, Alyssa Stone, Kyle Yip-Chuck, and Drew Bryant. |
Final Presentations Group A
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| From left to right: Jordan Cole, Daniel Higgins, Manprit Kaur, Rebecca Tummers, Dom Ventresca, and Gurpreet Badwal. |
Written Interview 5: Ryan Stegmaier: Why did you sign up for this course?
“I signed up for this course because when I think of how I would like
to apply all of the skills I have acquired through my degree at McMaster, I
hope to use them working for a not-for-profit organization or charity of some
kind. There is nothing more rewarding in
my opinion than giving someone help that they genuinely need and improving
their lives by doing so. I signed up for
this course to gain more insight on the not-for-profit sector in Canada and to
learn about ways I could use my skills in the Commerce industry to get into
this industry. Through the series of
lectures, guest speakers and donating $10,000 to a charity, it is safe to say
this class has matched and gone beyond any expectations that I had going into
it.”
Tuesday 6 December 2016
The Beginning of the End; RFP Recommendations (Class 8)
Nov 11/2016
This class was centered around fine tuning our selection process with the RFP. We were assigned into groups that would individually review the RFP applications and advocate the applicant that we felt was most suitable. Our job was to select the top three applications based on our own individual criteria, and then discuss why we chose our applicants with our groups. We then had a week to work with our groups to prepare our final recommendations. This meant that each group had anywhere from 3-18 potential applicants and had to reduce that number to 1-5 (based on how much funding would be provided to our final applicants). The challenge here was in reducing the 20 applicants down to a maximum of five. This meant that each group had to agree on a ranking system, or systems, in order to make our recommendations.
Written Interview 4: Rob Brown: How Does it Feel to Have Real Money to Give Away?
“I definitely like this aspect of the course a lot. It allows me to get
a sense of experiential learning within a familiar course environment. It’s
nice to be able to use both the theory to develop the RFP and then see the
results in a practical application. It’s a way for me to develop my skills even
farther and experience what it would be like as a foundation or a grant-giving
body, and it has a real world impact where we can help a charity in the local
community. It’s nice too that the decision is made outside of a vacuum, in the
sense that somebody responds in a real way; it’s not a case or a simulation and
it’s a great opportunity. There’s definitely some anxiety about making the
right decision in such an unfamiliar field, and there’s not really a right
answer. It also promotes a lot of discussion as a class, because as a large
group we need to decide what we want to do and where the money is going to go,
and I really enjoy listening and participating in that discussion.”
Habitat for Humanity & the NFP (Class 7)
Nov 4/2016
We had another guest speaker in this class, John Gerrard, CEO of Habitat for Humanity, Halton-Mississauga. John spoke to us about the issues of turnover within a charity, and what can be done to mitigate or eliminate it. Most of the turnover issues stem from younger volunteers (late teens to early twenties), that volunteer on occasion, and may only volunteer once or twice. The challenge is in retaining volunteers and ensuring that they continue to give their time. To that effect, one of the motivators for staying with Habitat for Humanity is that people can get hours towards trades and apprenticeships through their volunteering. In doing so, these people are able to volunteer their time, as well as develop some of the skills that will be useful in their career later in life. Habitat also hires recent graduates, which helps these students begin their career and get the experience that they need to excel in the future. Many of these students keep in touch, and continue to volunteer their time, or create additional networks for the organization. It was an excellent presentation, that may have convinced some students to begin their career in the NFP sector; as it’s an excellent way to make a difference for others, while still creating a bright future for yourself.
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