Click on the title to read an article written by a Rose Youth Foundation member:
What's Good by Dayna Zolle
Everything
You Didn’t Know About Jewish Philanthropy
but Didn’t Know Enough About to Ask by Sammy Forshner
Just Tryin' to Save the World by Dana Rommerdahl
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by Dayna Zolle, Rose Youth Foundation member
What would happen if twenty-three teenagers suddenly gained possession of $50,000? Chaos, right? Of course, selfish spending would quickly ensue and the tens of thousands of dollars would disappear instantly, right? Wrong. Meet Rose Youth Foundation, a group of twenty-three Jewish teens from the Denver metro area who receive $50,000 to distribute to nonprofit organizations in an attempt to help the community. I can say from personal experience as a board member for last year’s Rose Youth Foundation and a current returning member that this program is as good as it gets!
Deciding to which organizations to grant money is hardly an instantaneous process, and quite a bit of time and thought goes into every decision. Rose members meet about twice a month to learn about philanthropy, create grant priorities, send out requests for grant proposals, sift through the dozens of proposals that arrive, and ultimately decide which organizations deserve grants.
The year with Rose begins with both a crash course in philanthropy and a chance to become acquainted with every member. As Sam Levy, a previous member of Rose, observes, “I don’t often get a chance to meet with such a diverse group of kids who are all Jewish.” Rose is not only about helping the community, but it is also a chance for Jewish teens to connect to Judaism and an opportunity to be a part of a group that embraces differences. Members of Rose range from eighth-graders to seniors in high school, from secular Jews who never became a Bar/Bat Mitzvah to Orthodox Jews who attend Jewish day-schools, from athletes to debaters. Rose appreciates the full spectrum of teenagers because more diversity means differing opinions about granting money, which ensures better, more carefully-pondered results.
Once all the members know each other, priorities are set as to what the members of Rose would like to accomplish with the $50,000. Last year, Rose members decided to fund organizations fostering inclusion and acceptance of diversity in the Jewish community, creating Jewish community connections for young Jewish adults ages eighteen to thirty, and providing basic safety net services to families with children under eighteen. These priorities clearly take quite a bit of thought and debating, and are certainly not created on a whim, as teenagers stereotypically are said to do. Rose then sends out requests for proposals for grants based on these three priorities and last year received twenty-one grant proposals totaling $126,824. This is merely one example of the numerous indications that Rose is making a difference in how teenagers are viewed: CEOs of organizations create formal proposals, share copies of their organizations’ budgets, and even take time out of their busy schedules to meet with Rose members to discuss their possible grants.
The debates then begin about which organizations are most relevant to the priorities set, and which will make the most significant impact in the community. Then come the site visits, when the teens in Rose actually visit the organizations that have requested grants and interview the officials of the foundations to obtain more knowledge about the proposed programs. Often after site visits, the presidents of the companies comment that they are extremely impressed with the professionalism and courtesy of the Rose members.
Once all the information about the proposed grants is
acquired, the teens meet to make their final decisions. For the last
two years, Rose has adopted a consensus model of decision making in
which all twenty-three of the members must agree for the decision to
be final. This ensures that every teen’s opinion is considered,
but does require tremendous effort to compromise. Rose is an amazing
and invaluable experience that, as member Sammy Forshner states, allows
teenagers, “to really make a difference in the lives of people
right here where [they] live.” $50,000 can make quite an impact
in helping to “heal the world,” as the members of Rose Youth
Foundation strive to accomplish.
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Everything
You Didn’t Know About Jewish Philanthropy
but Didn’t Know Enough About to Ask
by Sammy Forshner, Rose Youth Foundation member
Do you have any ideas how the Jewish Community Center, Hebrew schools, youth groups, and other organizations in your town get the money to hold programs, activities, and keep their doors open for you and everyone else? Until two years ago, I was pretty much clueless. Sure, I took advantage of what these institutions had to offer, from learning to swim at the JCC, to community activities, festivals, and youth group programming. But I never stopped to think of how they were able to offer so much on the paltry couple of dollars, if anything, I would pay for a movie night or swimming party.
Now, I know. And even better, now I have a voice in making sure the institutions that really meet the needs of Jews in the Denver area will be able to keep their doors open. Thanks to Rose Youth Foundation I have learned everything you ever wanted to know about Jewish philanthropy, but didn’t know enough about to ask.
I am extremely thankful to be one of 23 Denver-area Jewish teens who meet twice a month to learn about what giving and philanthropy really means. From Maimonedes to RFPs (that’s “request for proposals”, in case you didn’t know—I sure didn’t!), we cover a lot of ground. By the time the end of the school year rolls around, we are frantically interviewing potential grant recipients, reviewing budgets, and making decisions that involve large amounts of cold, hard cash. I’m talking big bucks here, as in $50, 000. It’s serious work, and we take it seriously.
Along the way, we share a lot of candy, a lot of pizza, and even more laughs. We all come from different backgrounds and outlooks, and we learn to appreciate our differences and grow from what we learn about each other. We also learn a lot about ourselves, and how incorporating philanthropy, in many different ways, into our daily lives, makes us more whole. We are learners, and we become givers.
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by Dana Rommerdahl, Rose Youth Foundation member
Young children are notorious for their fearless mentality of limitless possibilities. I myself was even known to slip into a fantasy or two where I saved the world from an evil villain or heroically ended world hunger. But at the ripe old age of 14, the harsh reality of my limited contributions to the community, specifically the Jewish community, became all too obvious.
Of course, I would attend the occasional charity event or intermittently visit a nursing home, but my fulfillment from these actions, as noble as they were, seemed pretty lacking. I sought bigger and better results, something that would, in my eyes, make a true impact. This being the case, I was excited to hear of an organization that might actually bestow the opportunities I wanted.
Rose Youth Foundation
These opportunities lay within Rose Youth Foundation, a group of 23 teens from the seven-county Denver metro area dedicated to bettering their community and learning about philanthropy through hands-on grantmaking. The foundation is funded by Rose Community Foundation, one of Colorado's larger foundations. With $45,000 in grant money at Rose Youth Foundation's disposal, I felt that I could make a pretty serious impact.
What I also liked is that the foundation doesn't have personal or political agendas; the members just have a genuine interest in the well being of the community. You can see that from the causes that the foundation has helped: the Anti-Defamation League, Mountain States Region; Hillel of Colorado; CLAL - The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership; Boulder Jewish Community Center.
Doling out the cash
Though handing out $45,000 may seem like a piece of cake, there is a surprisingly amount of effort that goes into this task. It started with a crash course in philanthropy, including the different types of charity, and a bit of a history lesson too. We hear about and discuss the many levels of philanthropy and then we decide which causes we think are most worthy of our support.
We then outline which causes we want to support and send information out to the masses of hopeful grantees. When the grant applicants reply with their grant requests, we can finally start the real process of deciding who specifically to give money to. To give you a feel for the process, in the 2002-2003 year, with only $30,000 to give away, Rose Youth Foundation received $130,000 in grant requests!
Of the organizations that respond, Rose Youth Foundation rates and decides which ones most apply to what is outlined in our proposal request, and if the organization is worth funding at all. This is truly difficult because, currently, the Rose Youth Foundation has adopted a "consensus" model, where every single member must agree to make a final decision. When we vote, if only one person disagrees, then we are more or less back to square one. Although this can be seriously frustrating, we also realize that the decisions we make are more important than the extra hours it takes to come to an agreement, and we want to make sure every decision is a correct one.
Once the official grantees are notified, the big checks are finally given out. I hate to say it, but there is definitely a small ego trip I get from telling organizations that we've decided to fund them. It feels great.
Although I have not (yet!) saved the world from evil, it feels awesome to know that I am least making a significant impact now.
For more information about Rose Youth Foundation, check out the website at www.rcfdenver.org/RYF.