Community Foundations and Procedure

Remind the learners that there are four sectors (family, government, for-profit business and nonprofits). They exist because the government cannot and does not meet all needs. Review the four sectors by asking for examples of how each sector would address a specific need, such as childcare. The last lesson stressed the importance of nonprofits, especially those that are foundations. Foundations are started by individuals, families, businesses and communities as a way to support causes and programs that benefit society (the common good). They do that by giving grants of money (which do not have to be repaid) to worthy causes.

Today’s lesson will focus on the type of foundation known as a community foundation. Community foundations pool the resources of many donors and focus their grantmaking on a particular city or region. Have the learners work in groups to explore the website of the closest community foundation to their community. They can find out what projects received funding from the community foundation last year. Does there appear to be a focus for their funding (youth, senior citizens, environment)?

Explain that most community foundations obtain input from diverse perspectives in the community when deciding how grants should be awarded. This includes asking the opinions of young people. In some cases there are one or two youth representatives from the community on the foundation board that makes decisions about funding. In other cases there is a Youth Advisory Committee (YAC) that makes recommendations to the foundation board for their selections. Ask the students whether they think the student voice is valuable to the community foundation. Discuss why or why not.

Like “advice and consent,” which governs how the president and Congress work on some decisions, the foundation board seeks advice from different groups in order to be inclusive and serve the common good. In this case, the foundation board does not have to accept the recommendations of the different advisory committees. Most of the time, however, they take the recommendations seriously.

Ask participants whether they have ever been part of a meeting where they felt their point of view was not heard. Or, were they part of a meeting that got loud and emotional with not a lot of progress made? When decisions have to be made, it is to the advantage of everyone to have a procedure that allows members to make decisions calmly with the input of everyone present. “Parliamentary procedure” (using Robert’s Rules of Order) is used to make sure that decisions are made in an orderly manner.

Distribute copies of Running a Business Meeting (handout) and go over the information provided. This may be read as homework so they come to the next class period familiar with the rules.

Session Two

Hold a practice exercise of the Parlimentary Procedure,

• Task: You are serving on a Youth Advisory Committee to the school’s principal (take turns serving as chairperson and secretary).
• Problem/Task: Design a new dress code for the school (or update an old one). (Option: use a real issue in your school)
• Procedure: Use the guidelines in the handout Running a Business Meeting to run the meeting.
• Action: Run the practice exercise until a dress code is designed.