I Hope My Kids Organize Their Own Online Fundraiser When They Are Teenagers

Spencer Brodsky

Spencer Brodsky is 17 and he is spending his time online to raise money to bring Green Stoves to Rwanda, something he's been doing for the past 2 years. 

Spencer wants to help Stoves for Rwanda leverage matching money from an incentive program being offered by Global Giving called "Give More Get More."    If he can raise an additional $500 to bring his total to $2,500 by December 1st, he'll leverage a matching gift of 30% or little over $800 from Global Giving.

As I parent, my hope is that by helping my kids find ways to share their passion for giving - they will make it a lifelong habit.   My children, now age and 10, have been big helpers in all my online fundraising campaigns for the Sharing Foundation.   They have posed for photos in t-shirts, emptied their piggy banks, helped me make fundraising videos, contributed clothing or other items to drives at school, and have attended lots of fund raising events, including last week's Tweetsgiving Meetup where my daughter won a lunch with Twitterville author Shel Israel that was being raffled off.

And this year, Harry sent some of his birthday loot to the Sharing Foundation, making me proud that he is following my tradition of giving to celebrate a birthday.  

Philanthropy doesn't have to be an adults only activity, giving can be part of your family fun.  And while it is especially appropriate to do this during the holidays, it can be a year-round activity.

Tips To Encourage Your Child's Philanthropy

1. Teach Your Kids About Charities:  YouthGive is a site that helps young peole and their families easily donate to charities while learning more about the organizations.  The organizations listed are profiled by other young people.  You can also check out nonprofit ratings and other information from Great Nonprofits, a sort of Zagat's Guide for Charities.

2.  Let Your Kids Choose: Kayta Andresen from Network for Good has fantastic idea last holiday season, "Give with your kids day" She suggests giving your child or someone else's child $25 to donate to a charity.   "You can give them money to spend at Network for Good (which has every charity based in the US) or Global Giving (which has a bunch of international projects).  Let them choose how to spend it, either by letting them pick the charity or by designating their donation to a special project.  Spend it together online, checking out pictures and project descriptions."

3.  Offer a Match: Blogger Marion Conway,whose children are now grown, recommended the book Raising Charitable Children by Carol Wiseman. With her children's fundraising projects, she and her husband offered to match what they raised because they both worked for companies that matching gift programs.

4.  Set Up a Spend, Give, and Save Allowance Policy: Celeste for the studio 501c3 blog suggests this piggy bank, with separate slots for investing, saving, spending, and donating is a great way to teach kids about devoting a portion of their income to
charity. 

5.  Encourage Them To Give Their Time:  Laura Hecht shared a wonderful story about a class project where students made cards for some elderly residents of a group home. They had to work hard to spare the time for the effort, but when the residents wrote moving letters of thanks, the kids felt great.  As Laura notes, "This prompted a sincere discussion about giving the most valuable thing we possess  - ourselves."

6.  Buy Gifts That Give Back:  Rather than braving the crowded shopping malls, you can spend some time with your kids online and find gifts that give back.    The Ebay World of Good Site has a fantastic selection of gifts that will make a difference.

Resources

Brain Teaser: Young People and Philanthropy
Youth in Philanthropy
Six Steps for Raising a Charitable Child
Learning To Give
Youth In Philanthropy
Children for Children Foundation
Kids Can Make A Difference
Youth Noise

What other stories, tips, or resources would you add?

Comments

[robert]

Thanks for the post. Good to see good news stories.

Robert

[Csbagnall]

hi Beth
My 19 year old son is working for the Baptists in Brazil. To get there he had to raise £2000. His biggest fundraiser was a public headshave promoted through Facebook which earned him (or rather BMS) £1,100.
However I think one of the important building blocks over the last 5 or 6 years has been an annual Christmas gift of £30 to his grandkids by my father in law to be given to charity. The children have to pick their own charity and write with the cheque. They often get personal letters from CEO's and have appeared in charity newsletters. This teaches them (a) giving is a good habit, and (b) there are rewards for getting involved.
PS - he gives them nice gifts too!

[Lauren]

Hi Beth, this is a great post. I'm far from having children of my own, but I do think about ways to get my hypothetical kids involved in the community at an early age. These are great ideas that I can use with my nephew for now! Thanks!

Lauren

[Barbara Kelly]

Make it a family affair: I'm linking you to a conversation on ammado, a global communications and giving site, that describes how a family can create a funding community with the beneficiaries it chooses and then display their values/choices in a family giving circle.....
http://www.ammado.com/community/100498/conversations/1492

The conversation also includes links to two articles in the Wall St Journal about family giving.

Thanks! Barbara Kelly, bkelly@ammado.com

[Vincent St. Paul]

Hi,
You probably would change your mind about Ammado if you knew that its owners, Peter Conlon and Anna Kupka, did NOT PAY staff at their other company, Xsil, last year and have still refused to pay them in spite of court judgements against them.

I always laugh when I see them try to claim that they "care" about other people. More than 40 people spent last Christmas in serious financial trouble because of Ms. Kupka and Mr. Conlon. That includes children and pregnant women and people with mortgages. And the worst part is that Xsil assets were sold for $2.3 MILLION early in 2009 and Mr. Conlon and Ms. Kupka STILL won't pay people's salaries. How "charitable" is that?

Please don't just take my word for it. The evidence is out there:

http://www.tribune.ie/archive/article/2009/apr/12/corporate-enforcer-in-probe-of-insolvent-technolog/

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2008/1206/1228515634652.html

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2009/0515/1224246568408.html

You're free to make up your own mind, obviously, but I would hope that nobody would want their kids copying the owners of Ammado. Ever.

I would suggest that if you want to give to charity, give DIRECTLY to charity and not to Ammado.

[Anna Kupka]

Dear Beth, it’s Anna from ammado, thank you so much for mentioning us, we would be more than delighted to work with any charities and help them with their fundraising; and of course they can just come and sign on to www.ammado.com.

Please allow me to clarify a couple of things in relation to the above post which mentions Peter Conlon and I. The statements in the post are false and are clearly defamatory under Irish Law. This may explain the reason why the person is using a fictitious name to hide his identity. If he were to publish his real name then we would certainly institute proceedings against him in the Irish courts.
Peter and I both left Xsil 3 years ago and the company only failed last year. While we stayed on the board of Xsil, it failed under a different leadership primarily due to its inability to generate the next generation technology despite spending several €millions of funds in R+D to do so and partly due to the start of the global financial crisis which hit the semiconductor capital equipment industry earlier than many other industries. While Peter was running Xsil, it was one of the most profitable companies in Ireland and one of the big success stories in the semiconductor industry worldwide. In his last year as CEO the Xsil group of companies made a pretax profit of €8.5 million on sales of €38.3 million. In October 2008 the directors of the Xsil companies were presented with a situation where Xsil Ltd could no longer continue as a going concern. The Xsil group situation is very complex and the executive management had left. The directors are being advised by an insolvency partner at one of Ireland’s top commercial law firms. The issues involved in winding down the Xsil group of companies are very complex as it had operations in several countries around the world. A public blog is not the appropriate forum to address these issues.

Suffice to say that under Peter’s leadership Xsil was completely professionally managed and this was recognized by the many awards the company won including: The Sunday Times - Management Team of the Year Award, Deloitte & Touche Fast 50 Award, the Irish Software Association Company of the Year Award, the Tornado Finance Award, the Price Waterhouse Coopers National Innovation Award. Xsil was also listed as one of the Red Herring Top 100 Private Companies in Europe.

Peter himself has also been honoured with many awards over the years, such as Ernst&Young Industry Entrepreneur of the Year, Person of the Year by the Irish Software association, he was nominated by Morgan Stanley for the Computerworld Honours Award for his endeavours in ammado and he serves on the boards of several nonprofits/colleges.

Thank you for allowing me to clarify this, Beth.