Living in the Present Tense

By: Erin Cunnea, Allow Good Loyola Chapter Member & Junior studying English, Math, and Theatre Secondary Education. This was Erin's first year as a facilitator at Nicholas Senn High School in the Edgewater neighborhood on the north side of Chicago. 

"I have never liked when adults call children and teens “the leaders of tomorrow.” Don’t
get me wrong, I appreciate the sentiment: youth hold so much promise as they mature in
experiences and wisdom, but this statement ignores the experiences, talent, creativity, and
maturity teens already possess. Underestimating youth has become such a habit that we often
refer to them only in the future tense – the next generation of change, of leaders.

Allow Good turns that notion on its head. I was first drawn to the organization when I
heard about it from a friend who was involved. I couldn’t believe its mission: give a classroom of high schoolers $1,000 and, through a semester-long curriculum, guide them through the process of researching non-profit organizations, reviewing a grant application, vetting presentations, and lobbying and debating over fund allocation. Describing what we did in the classroom sounds daunting, but in motivation is simple. Allow Good empowers youth to address needs in the community and affect real change through philanthropy. I did not teach Mark Zuckerberg. I taught a Nigerian immigrant who wants to help other immigrants struggling with the same issues he faced when his family arrived in Chicago. He is a philanthropist. Bill Gates was not in my class, but *Kyle was. He debated passionately about the importance of addressing immigrant and refugee mental health as a primary concern and the erasure of torture survivors’ experiences. He is a philanthropist. Oprah never sat in one of my desks, but *Gianna did. She pointed out the necessity of establishing trust between an organization and the community it serves – she pointed out the organization we chose had a variety of programs that talked to young men of color about gang involvement in a safe environment, and that it also provided clothing, food, and safety for single mothers and their children. She is a philanthropist. One student spoke to me about her future in college. Several discussed past and current volunteerism at the organizations we were researching. When the representatives from five of the organizations came to lobby for the grant, one of the students’ main questions was, “What opportunities do you have for young people to get involved?”

Allow Good literally allows teens to capitalize on the good existing within them to affect
the greater good of the world. My class realized that they are unstoppable, and that authentic
change is not created when one’s bank account reaches a magic number or when one reaches a certain age. It happens with 26 high school juniors and seniors, one incredible organization, and a whole lotta good. :) "

*names changed for privacy

Teaching Philanthropy: The Importance of Sharing Leadership

By: Sarah Dynia, Allow Good Northwestern Chapter Member & Founder/President of Stuffed Love

In my freshman year at Northwestern University, I took a class called Learning Philanthropy. This class focused on the importance of philanthropic giving in a constructive way, ensuring that donations went as far as they could to make an impact on an issue you cared about. As a passionate supporter of youth engagement and leadership development, I was excited when one of my friends introduced me to Allow Good. The potential to empower local youth to create change in their community and promote service learning through this organization is exciting and gratifying, and I am so honored and proud to be part of this organization.

I want to empower young people to believe in their ability to create change through their unique talent and skills, just as I have been empowered to do. In eighth grade, I founded my own nonprofit project, Stuffed Love. Stuffed Love’s mission is to remind people that they are cared for and loved through hand-sewn stuffed pillows. We distribute thousands of these pillows to various groups, such as children with congenital heart defects, veterans, and the homeless. Being a leader for a nonprofit is an exciting and rewarding job. You get to see your passion and drive come to fruition and help people. As a young adult in nonprofit leadership, I am constantly asked how and why I manage Stuffed Love. Both adults and youth are curious on how I can handle being a young student and taking care of all the tasks related to keeping Stuffed Love going. From these interactions, I have noticed that youth are often assumed to be unable to make an impact. Volunteering, and especially leadership roles within volunteering, are usually reserved for the grown-ups. Many high school students do not engage in service beyond hour requirements needed to graduate or pass a class. Additionally, service leadership is a role typically constrained within a school-specific setting, and can be treated as a resume bullet point instead of a place to feel empowered and engaged. This highlights a critical gap in service knowledge in youth: their important role in service and philanthropic actions in their communities.

Modeling and facilitating service and leadership are my favorite parts of my role with Stuffed Love and Allow Good’s work. I have been able to present to students and work with them one-on-one to grow their own service projects. My message to these students is always focused on the tremendous impact that they can have on their communities. I want these students to know that their age does not prevent them from changing the world. My work with Allow Good also helps me to share this message through philanthropy. As an Allow Good facilitator, I want to break down the stereotype that philanthropy can only be done by rich old men. By teaching young adults how to be effective philanthropists, I believe we are setting these students up for a life of philanthropy and service where they know they can be agents of change.

Service and philanthropy are not age-exclusive. Through my work with Allow Good and Stuffed Love, I am able to influence the way that young people think about philanthropy. We need to motivate the youth of today to be activists for change. By teaching them the skills needed to be effective philanthropists, we are preparing students to take the things they see as needing to improve and fix them. I am so excited to get into a classroom and share my lessons on philanthropy with my students and teach them that they have the ability to change the world.

Program Alumna Nina: 5 Things I Learned From Allow Good

Nina participated in Global Philanthropy Summit (now called Summer Summit) in 2012, 2013, and 2014; Emerging Leaders in Philanthropy in 2013; and Global Engagement Excursions in 2014 and 2015. She has stayed involved with Allow Good through her position as the Youth Chair on our Board of Directors. In honor of our 5th year of programming, we asked Nina for the top 5 things she learned from working with Allow Good. 

1. Service can take on a variety of forms. Often times growing up, we have a limited definition of service that largely consists of donations to charity and direct forms of community service (such as volunteering at a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter). Allow Good is unique because it teaches teens and young adults that no matter what walk of life you choose to pursue, you have the capacity to give back to your community. This is especially seen in programs such as the Summer Summit, where participants can see the service components in companies and organizations ranging from Groupon to Design for America to Microsoft. Allow Good teaches teens that giving back isn’t limited to giving checks to charity - rather, it is something that all of us can incorporate into our daily lives and careers, regardless of whether we choose to pursue a STEM field or public service.
    
2. Philanthropy is accessible to everyone. Continuing off of the previous idea, Allow Good teaches teens that we too can be catalysts for change - philanthropic work isn’t just for richer adults. Allow Good provides teens with the tools that they need to solve issues that they are passionate about by broadening their outlook on what philanthropy involves. It doesn’t have to be about money alone; volunteering our own time and talents can be equally as effective in creating change.
    
3. Meaningful change takes time to create; it is not instantaneous. Working with Allow Good over the course of the past few years, and watching how the organization has grown, has taught me that creating a true impact within a community takes a great deal of time and effort - a large monetary donation won’t always immediately fix the problem. Allow Good shows teens how to solve a societal issue from multiple angles, and to look at the various factors that influence it, as they teach us that understanding those intricacies are imperative to solving problems in the long-term.
    
4. Collaboration and teamwork are essential for maximizing one’s own impact. What makes Allow Good special is not only exposure to different forms of philanthropy, but also the community of young philanthropists that it helps create and join together. Throughout the past 5 years, as I’ve participated in various Allow Good programs, I’ve had the opportunity to meet like-minded teens from around the Chicagoland area, all of whom have brought their own ideas, solutions, and experiences to the table. Exposure to such diversity from other young adults broadened my own perspectives on how best to help my own community. Allow Good provides a forum for discussion on a wide variety of issues, and in doing so, they magnify the voices of teenagers, who aren’t often heard in other nonprofit organizations.
    
5. There are smaller, more complex details involved in philanthropic work. Another interesting facet of Allow Good’s programs is that they teach teens the finer details of philanthropic work, from different types of business models that give back to a community (such as TOMS shoes) to the grantmaking process, wherein participants have a full immersion in the experience as they choose an organization that they want to give to. Much of the time, kids are limited in their knowledge of how a nonprofit organization operates on a day-to-day basis, and Allow Good offers them clearer insight into those processes.

Nina is pictured here on one of 2014 Global Engagement Excursions to Nicaragua

Catching Up With Allow Good Program Alumna, Anna

By: Anna
Anna participated in our Global Philanthropy Summit 2012 (now called Summer Summit). She was also an intern here at Allow Good in 2014. She is a recent graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.

Here is Anna’s update:

“I just graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, where I majored in Health and Societies -- basically looking at health through history and anthropology. I chose this major because of its ability to equip me to do good in the world. Many of my classes revolved around social justice. One of my favorites was a course with a community service component called Politics of Food. I worked at a local nonprofit for 3 hours a week as part of my coursework, while learning about food policy + justice in class.

I also spent a semester abroad in India, South Africa, and Brazil with a program studying public health. I learned so much about health and social justice through this program -- whether it was a guest lecture by a professor about post-Apartheid healthcare in South Africa, a meeting with a nonprofit that produces sanitary napkins in India, or a discussion with my homestay family about the Brazilian economy.

While I am most passionate about health policy (and specifically women’s health), Allow Good taught me to always remember the ripple effect -- the idea that small actions can ripple into greater impact. I remember learning at the very first Global Philanthropy Summit that the most important priority for the Liger Learning Center in Cambodia was not a shortage of school supplies, but was the need for clean water and sanitation! As a 17-year-old, this was incredibly formative; I started to think about the roots of social issues, leading me to pursue Health and Societies as a major at Penn

The ripple effect underlies everything I do now. I am about to start my first post-grad job, working on the research team at JB Pritzker’s campaign for Illinois governor. I am beyond excited to form an understanding of how political campaigns work, and to push for change in Illinois. In the future, I want to take my campaign skills and translate them to the field of health policy advocacy -- using my ripple effect to push for better policy.”

Anna has an impressive resume: researching racial disparities in children's vision care in Illinois for the Health Policy Team at Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, conducting research on America’s media coverage of the Zika virus through the Annenberg Public Policy Center (UPenn), leading a team of volunteers at the Democratic National Convention, and volunteering with Hillary Clinton’s campaign."

Thanks so much for sharing your story with us and continuing to be a changemaker in health policy advocacy and beyond. The Allow Good Family wishes you the best of luck starting your career and we look forward to seeing all that you will accomplish.

Three Years Later...

By: Sonali
Sonali participated in our Summer Summit and Emerging Leaders in Philanthropy programs. A native Chicagoan, she is currently a student at Tulane University. 

The summer after my sophomore year in 2014, my father signed me up for a program called the Global Philanthropy Summit with an organization called Allow Good. I was reluctant to wake up early during my first week of summer to drive to Evanston in rush hour traffic, knowing no one or what I was going to do that week. Three years later, I am grateful for that week at Allow Good where I learned what the word philanthropy meant or that you did not have to be a millionaire to give to others because of three things-time, talent, and treasure. The vocabulary and knowledge I gained from that week felt much more valuable than anything I had learned in high school. In the spring of my junior year, I had the privilege of going through the Emerging Leaders in Philanthropy program, which was essential to helping me form what I may want to study beyond high school. When college applications rolled around that fall, I knew I needed to attend a school with focus on both public service and a degree focused on social good.

Going into my second year at Tulane University this fall, I am majoring in Social Policy & Practice and Political Science, with minors in Management and Spanish. Tulane is also the number one school in the country for public service and I work for the Center for Public Service. Allow Good showed me at a formative age the importance of making change no matter what age you are. Further, it taught me lessons about philanthropy, charity, non-profits, and social entrepreneurship I would have never learned without the Global Philanthropy Summit or Emerging Leaders in Philanthropy. I am grateful for these experiences because I know they fueled my desire to work on public education policy following college.

This summer, I was able to join Allow Good on their Summer Summit, attending some of the same workshops I experienced three summers ago, and also seeing how the program has developed and grown. Not only was it a great refresher to revisit many social enterprises and non-profit organizations, but watching the participants' thought processes and creative ideas was thrilling. It is comforting to see that even in a chaotic society with little attention given to social good in schools, students still demonstrate their creativity and social awareness. To me, the Summer Summit showed me the importance of organizations such as Allow Good, which focus on youth and educating them on what they are capable of.