In November, as Rick King glanced over the first wave of his new Future Philanthropists Program participants, seeing the 15 fresh-faced high school juniors was like a Dad taking in the birth of his first-born child: the longtime Oak Parker was exhilarated, hopeful and thinking ahead.
Over the next six months, King, a handful of adult mentors, and these teenagers from Oak Park and River Forest, Fenwick and Trinity high schools would meet once a month to read and evaluate grant applications to select a recipient from a competitive candidate pool of nonprofit groups.
For the young grant makers-in-training, the $25,000 question was how would they judiciously divvy up and dole out the dough?
That was answered on April 27 at Dominican University in River Forest as seven grants, in increments from $1,900 to $5,000 were awarded to the Oak Park Education Foundation, Sarah’s Inn, Parenthesis Parent-Child Center, Wonder Works Children’s Museum, Hephzibah Children’s Association, J. Kyle Braid Leadership Foundation and the Oak Park-River Forest Food Pantry by the pilot’s future philanthropists: Nina Rossiello, Kathryn Oldach, Anne Weinheimer, Danielle Zarbin and John Burns from OPRF; Joe Cederoth, Andrew Tonino, Ian McCullough, Eli Stirling and Jack Gallo from Fenwick; and Sarah Hasley, Maggie Sullivan, Kathleen Planek, Mary Rauh and Molly Kunkel from Trinity High School.
Seeding future good works
About four years ago, King, a board member at the foundation who has headed three different public charities, first saw a similar youth leadership education program in Michigan and was intrigued.
King says their inaugural Future Philanthropists Program is the only one of its kind in Illinois. The program supports the foundation’s Communityworks initiative, Success of All Youth., and is funded via the Communityworks Endowment Fund, he says.
“Youth leadership programs such as this one are dotted around the country, and most of them are sponsored by community foundations,” says King, who now heads a Chicago-based executive recruitment firm. “Our idea was to put high school juniors, then seniors, in key philanthropic decision-making roles where they could support worthwhile community projects in Oak Park and River Forest.”
The real learning here, says the program’s founder, involves teens having conversations and debates about the relative value of each grant application, and to compare how one program may have a stronger impact than another. I some cases, the students assess whether the costs of the program align with the community foundation’s mission and strategic goals.
From start to finish, he adds, 16 local nonprofit agencies requested in excess of $90,000 in funding. Only $25,000 was available from the Communityworks Endowment Fund, and out of this year’s applicant group, less than half of the social service groups got grants
“The students were very passionate about the organizations they believed in, but had an ability to compromise, and that was really nice to see,” said Annalynn Skipper, an author and consultant from Oak Park. “I’m sorry to say that candidates who failed to adhere to the grant application guidelines, in a way, made the selection process for the students a little easier, as did actually visiting the sites.”
Watching the student group grow into the role of Community Foundation grant-maker, Skipper added, was gratifying, and she will to be back next November when this year’s juniors will become next year’s seniors and transition into the role of being student mentors for the next crop of high school grant-makers.
Currently King is revising the philanthropy and public charity work instruction, and says the extracurricular program will be even more rigorous next time.
Mentor Jane Erickson, a former banker from River Forest, says the most rewarding element for her has been the ability to share the wealth of knowledge she has gained by working on her family’s foundation with the area students.
“These young people are getting a little bird’s-eye view of what it is like to be on the decision-making end of philanthropy, to see what is really going on out there,” Erickson says.
Even if they are possibly grooming a future Warren Buffet, Bill Gates or J.P. Morgan, King says he is content that this experience for the students could become a springboard to a future career path, as well as an early introduction to the inherent benefits and virtues of being socially responsible.
“This is a great example of what the Communityworks Endowment Fund is already doing in this community,” King says. “Personally, I would like it to be $50,000 a year, so the grants the students make to area social service agencies could make a greater impact in more places.”