Topic: COMMUNITY INTEREST
Giving With Purpose: A Real Life Lesson Taught By Warren and Doris Buffet
Thank you to Warren and Doris for your valuable guidance!
The name Buffett is frequently in the news, but the first name is Doris, not Warren. His older sister by three years pursued a decade-long interest by creating and sponsoring a free, online course about philanthropy. This course was launched a few years ago. It has now expanded to a full college degree course in Philanthropy in conjunction with Northwestern University.
The goal of the program, called Giving With Purpose is to teach college students — and anyone else who cares to register — how to beneficially contribute to charity. That’s not necessarily easy. There are IRS rules for giving that must be learned, and there is wayward, wasteful philanthropy to be avoided.
But for registrants who apply themselves well in this new course, the prize at the end is real Buffett money to give away.
Doris Buffett got to this stage of philanthropy by starting with small donations about 10 years ago in North Carolina, where she then lived. (Today she is a resident of Virginia). Her usual practice in those days was to aid local people who had run into bad luck — a sudden illness, for example, or even a broken-down car — and needed a few thousand dollars just to struggle along.
Her gifts earned her the name “Sunshine Lady,” and that led her to set up the Sunshine Lady Foundation.
When Warren Buffett announced in 2006 that he would begin giving his vast fortune to charity (and again, in 2010, when he joined with Melinda and Bill Gates to form the Giving, Pledge), he was inundated with letters from people asking for help. He responded by sending the pleas along to Doris, the acknowledged philanthropy expert in the Buffett family, and by also promising her money for deserving letter-writers when she needed it. Recalling those days, she remembers that the original shipment from Warren included 410 letters.
Doris thereafter applied some skills she’d learned while working years earlier in a district attorney’s office to sort out the letters between deserving and not. A small army of unpaid women — called Sunbeams — helped her in this job.
Gradually Doris broadened her giving, and the once small Sunshine Lady Foundation grew into a large force. Over the last four years, its contributions (some of the money from Warren, but most from her) have averaged $10 million annually.
The foundation still gives money to ordinary people down on their luck, but Doris has also added some special projects: educating prisoners in such places as Sing Sing, sending battered women to college, and also giving college scholarships to North Carolinians generally.
The foundation’s scholarships have some strings attached to them. Besides requiring a recipient to maintain a 3.0 grade average, they also compel the student to pledge (in a written contract) that he or she will not engage in body piercing (except ears); tattooing; the use of illegal substances, alcohol, or tobacco; carrying a credit card; and sustaining an unhealthy body weight. Says Doris, “That’s the grandma in me coming out.”
Another project that the foundation added — this is the forerunner of today’s online course — was sponsoring college courses about philanthropy, in which students actively investigated local causes to determine which deserved Sunshine Lady grants ranging up to a per-college total of $10,000. Among the 30 or so participants in the course have been University of North Carolina, University of Nebraska, and Georgetown.
The new online course lasts for six weeks and provides people over the age of 18 a chance to give away money, upon their intelligently vetting one or more local charitable causes. Doris Buffett and a second foundation she started in 2011, Learning By Giving — which she funded with $5 million — will oversee this work and distribute the contributions. The technology this program needs has meanwhile been supplied by Google, whose “course builder” enables the construction of a MOOC, which stands for Massive Open Online Course.
Two younger Buffetts are closely involved with the new online program. Doris’s grandson, Alex Buffett Rozek, 34, who manages a small Boston investment partnership, is president of the Learning by Giving foundation; Warren’s grandson, Howard Warren Buffett, 28. Rozek has served as a director of the Sunshine Lady Foundation, and the younger Buffett has worked with his father, Howard Graham Buffett, on the latter’s eponymous foundation.
The six-week course covers all of the steps that a student requires to make informed judgments about giving away money — for example, what impact does a charitable organization have on its community and what will be the impact of your money on the organization? But guest speakers having a hands-on knowledge of philanthropy will also make video appearances — among them baseball’s Cal Ripken Jr. and ice cream’s Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield.
The first of these speakers, in the opening week of the course, are Doris and Warren Buffett, who jointly discuss their philanthropic experiences — Doris white-haired and striking, Warren looking his usual avuncular self. Doris notes that she’s businesslike in her giving but has experienced “incredible joy” in carrying it out. Warren nods understandingly, adding that “helping people achieve their potential is about as good as it gets.” And as the video rolls, they peremptorily interrupt each other, just as if they kids back in Omaha.
Taking this course taught me value lessons in philanthropy. It opened my eyes on how to evaluate a non profit and asses where I should put dollars to support a non profit.
This story will teach you a valuable lesson. A lesson on where not to put your money. A non profit can have a wonderful mission statement. However, if the people running the non profit do not have the best interest of their supports on the forefront, they will eventually no longer exist as a non profit.
KaBOOM!, Inc. is a national non‑profit dedicated to giving all kids the childhood they deserve, filled with balanced and active play so they can thrive. To achieve this, KaBOOM! creates great places to play, inspires communities to promote and support
play, and works to drive the national discussion around the importance of play in fostering healthy lives.
In addition to continuing to create playspaces, KaBOOM! undertakes initiatives to spark behavior and societal‑norm change around play. Behavior change means that all kids have regular opportunities for more play. Societal‑norm change means that our culture will reinforce the expectation that all kids get the balanced and active play they need every day. Delivering on both requires that we deploy an influence strategy, because studies indicate that while parents, caregivers, and community leaders are aware play is important, this awareness does not always translate into understanding, responsibility, and action.
Kids today are playing less than any previous generation, and as playtime goes down, the issues facing our kids go up. The Stanford University School of Medicine reports that kids are spending less time playing outdoors than any previous generation. Recent studies have found that recess offers nearly half of the chances kids get to be physically active
during the school year (42%), but recess is increasingly absent from the school day.
In neighborhoods without a park or playground, the incidence of childhood obesity increases 29%. Kids with a park or playground within a half-mile are almost five times more likely to be a healthy weight than kids without playgrounds or parks nearby. Nearly one in three kids in America is overweight or obese, setting them up for a lifetime of health problems, such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. But there is a reason to be hopeful: the promise of play and kid-friendly communities.
KaBOOM has contracted Program Services & Grants totaling $25,391,106. Their CEO is paid a total of $434,365 a year.
http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2014/521/970/2014-521970904-0b753b98-9.pdf
KaBOOM! recently announced the 2016 Playful City USA communities. This year, 257 communities are getting recognition for making it easy for all kids to get balanced and active play in their neighborhoods and for pledging to integrate play as a solution to the challenges facing their communities.
In its 10th year, Playful City USA is a national recognition program that honors cities and towns for taking bold steps to create more play opportunities for all kids. It was quite shocking to learn that Hamilton, NJ, Mercer County again this year was given this designation by the Ka BOOM organization.
In September 2015, Duffy's Cultural Couture reported on a non profit embarrassment. In July of this year, Hamilton Township was awarded a designation, Playful City by the Playful City USA program. The program is sponsored by the Humana Foundation in partnership with Kaboom (a nonprofit focused on children and play).
This designation has now become a source of embarrassment for the Humana Foundation and Kaboom. As we are all aware as reported in the media, 15 of the 17 school playgrounds in Hamilton, Mercer county, since the beginning of the school year, have been shuttered due to massive safety issues. When the Foundation and Kaboom learned of this issue they were stunned. In the 10 year history of the Playful City program this has never happened. They have never ran into an issue where they gave an award to a town, only to learn that they clearly were not living up to the criteria for the award.
Virginia Judd, Executive Director of the Humana Foundation stated that they were shocked to learn of this information as it pertains to the playgrounds in Hamilton. The same shock was apparent to Sara Pinksey, Executive Director of Kaboom's Playful City Program.They were both at a lost for words and process on what to do with this issue. If they had the process, they would most likely revoke this years award to Hamilton.
Over the past 7 years Hamilton has been awarded this designation of Playful City. The Human Foundation and Kaboom quickly reviewed their records to ensure that they had not awarded any grant moneys to Hamilton this past year or ever. To have done that would have only intensified the embarrassment to the foundation. To their relief they had not awarded any grant money this year or in the past to the town of Hamilton, only the designation.
The designation of most Playful City gives towns the opportunity to compete for grants that are sponsored by the Humana Foundation win partnership with Kaboom. Hamilton will not be able to participate in grants moving forward due to the recent debacle that is occurring at the playgrounds in Hamilton. The likelihood that they will ever be awarded this Playful City designation ever again is also unlikely.
Well, the same thing happened again this year. Kaboom gave the township of Hamilton the award, most playful city. You will see the email exchanged below from the organizations and our team.
To: "info@kaboom.org" <info@kaboom.org>; "humanafoundation@humana.com" <humanafoundation@humana.com>
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2016 8:17 PM
Subject: Questionable designation given to town
Virginia Judd and Sara Pinksey,
Ladies, we spoke last year.
In July of 2015 year, Hamilton Township was awarded a designation, Playful City by the Playful City USA program. The program is sponsored by the Humana Foundation in partnership with Kaboom (a nonprofit focused on children and play).
This designation became a source of embarrassment for the Humana Foundation and Kaboom. As we are all aware as reported in the media, 15 of the 17 school playgrounds in Hamilton, Mercer county, since the beginning of the school year, have been shuttered due to massive safety issues. They are still ALL closed to date as well as many of the parks in the town were play equipment were also condemned this past year.
When I called you both last year and spoke to you, you seemed stunned that the designation was given to Hamilton with what was going on. You stated to me in the 10 year history of the Playful City program this has never happened. They have never ran into an issue where they gave an award to a town, only to learn that they clearly were not living up to the criteria for the award.
Virginia Judd, you stated that you were shocked to learn of this information as it pertains to the playgrounds in Hamilton. The same shock was apparent to Sara Pinksey, Executive Director of Kaboom's Playful City Program.You were both at a lost for words and process on what to do with this issue. If they had the process, they would most likely revoke this years award to Hamilton.
Over the past 7 years Hamilton has been awarded this designation of Playful City. The Human Foundation and Kaboom quickly reviewed their records to ensure that they had not awarded any grant moneys to Hamilton this past year or ever. To have done that would have only intensified the embarrassment to the foundation. To their relief they had not awarded any grant money this year or in the past to the town of Hamilton, only the designation.
The designation of most Playful City gives towns the opportunity to compete for grants that are sponsored by the Humana Foundation win partnership with Kaboom. Hamilton will not be able to participate in grants moving forward due to the recent debacle that is occurring at the playgrounds in Hamilton. The likelihood that they will ever be awarded this Playful City designation ever again is also unlikely.
Imagine my utter shock when I received this link below today......where your organization gave Hamilton the designation again. All of the issues still exist and I was wondering if you would like to comment on this?
http://hamiltonnj.com/news/?FeedID=1555
Ladies,
One more item. In the townships own budget they have listed the "critical status" of EVERY park. See below and attached (page 96)
I look forward to your response
On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 12:15 PM, Myeta Moon
<MMoon@kaboom.org> wrote:
Dr. Duffy,
We appreciate you reaching out regarding the 2016 Playful City USA designation given to Hamilton Township. We are focused on ensuring all kids have access to safe places to play, so we are taking the current situation in Hamilton Township very seriously.
We award cities and towns with the Playful City USA recognition that demonstrate a clear commitment to increasing access to playspaces, especially for kids that need them the most. Hamilton Township is working to build new playgrounds and playspaces within lower income neighborhoods with Community Development Block Grant funding, build new play structures at neighborhood parks and renovate existing playgrounds with new equipment, while removing obsolete or noncompliant equipment. There is also a goal in the Township’s Parks Master Plan to provide parks with recreation facilities within walking distance of residential neighborhoods. We recognize Hamilton for these are great strides, however we understand that with the closing of the School District’s playgrounds, there is still a lot of work to be done.
After hearing of your concern, I reached out to the Township to get a status update on the playgrounds as they play an important role in the community’s overall efforts to provide play opportunities for kids in the area. They informed me that they are actively assisting in efforts to reopen playgrounds, according to the School District’s requested schedule. They also recommend that you contact the School District at 609.631.4100 We encourage you to reach out to the School District – our collective efforts can show the Township that the playground closings are a serious issue that needs to be addressed. I’d also like to connect you to Sherika Brooks, Manager of Sustained Impact with KaBOOM!. Sherika works with advocates from around the country to engage their cities in increasing play opportunities. She can connect you to other play advocates so you can join efforts to increase pressure on Hamilton Township’s government so that they will follow through on their plans to reopen the playgrounds. Sherika is copied on this email.
Thank you for your dedication to this issue in Hamilton. We share your commitment to improving the lives of kids through play, and we look forward to you joining us in continued efforts to help ensure kids get the balanced and active play they need to thrive.
Best,
Myeta
Myeta M. Moon, Director, City Initiatives
(O) 202-464-6083
More correspondance...
Virginia Judd <vkjudd@humana.com> May 26 at 3:24 PM
CC
Dear Dr. Duffy,
We appreciate you reaching out regarding the 2016 Playful City USA designation given to Hamilton Township. Like you, we believe strongly that all kids deserve access to safe places to play. Our friends at KaBOOM! have assured us that they are looking into the situation in Hamilton further, and will be in touch soon, if they haven’t contacted you already.
Our team worked closely with KaBOOM! during a wonderful four-year partnership (2012-2015) building more than 50 playgrounds and multiple community gardens across the country. During this period we also sponsored the Playful City USA program. While the Humana Foundation’s partnership with KaBOOM! completed in 2015, we remain confident in KaBOOM!’s leadership and effectiveness to execute their important, mission-driven work.
If you have any ongoing or future concerns, feel free to reach out to KaBOOM! directly.
Thank you for your dedication to this issue in Hamilton. We share your commitment to improving the lives of kids through play.
Sincerely,
Virginia Judd
Virginia K. Judd
Executive Director
FROM DCC
Final correspondence
Ladies,
Thank you for your response. I found it equally as disturbing as the announcement that Hamilton made that you gave them the designation again.
As someone who donates many dollars to non profits, I find your approach radically disturbing. This is like saying, " I will give you a diploma for your college degree and as long as you say that you will go to class or walk the halls during the four years. This is what you did and what your response to me says.
There is zero due diligence evident it would appear, done by your team to assess who gets these designations. These designations allow organizations or towns to compete for grants. Anyone can send a unicorn and rainbow grant submission, its your responsibility to review it and ensure that ALL dollars that are given by donors are not wasted.
If you did any due diligence at all, this designation would/should have never been given to Hamilton. The township gave you lip service and you bought it. I would suggest you use the tool called Google, to search on what is going on in Hamilton or any other town you give this designation to.
There is NO final plan to get the playgrounds open in the schools in hamilton. The school year will end and the playgrounds will still be closed in Hamilton at the schools. I am well aware of what is going on with the schools.
The township leadership had ownership of the playgrounds, until recently. They did nothing to ensure the playgrounds were safe. They then dumped it on the schools recently and are taking no ownership for their years of neglect. There is a massive lawsuit that was launched at the township for their suboptimal behavior on these parks. There is no money to replace the condemned playgrounds. There are drugs being dealt at the playgrounds. People are finding used heroin needles in the parks. Is this the place that you gave this award to? This is beyond outrageous. The municpal parks were also hit with this same closure of the playground equipment.
Also, after the Easter holiday the schools and township installed tractor trailers on the pavement (on the only space that existed for the kids to play on being the playgrounds are still closed) to act as temporary boilers at several of the schools. The townships due diligence on the vendor they selected was radically suboptimal, that two days into this portable boiler solution, the boiler caught fire. Imagine if that happen when the kids were on the pavement. Prior to the kids coming back to school from Easter break there were letters sent to the parents to warn them of these new trailer boiler systems.
Warren Buffet and his sister Doris developed a course on how non profits should behave and attract investors. This behavior that your organization demonstrates is exactly the opposite of what is acceptable to any savvy investor. I would suggest you use the tool "google" to research how to take the course that the Buffet's developed to optimize your approach. It is a free course and could teach your organizations the right way. As an investor in non profits I would never give you money with your suboptimal approaches that exist today.
As a member of the society in Hamilton, half of my taxes goes to the schools. It is utterly despicable how the township leadership has wasted our tax dollars and put the children in the township in harms way with their lack of leadership. They spent $500,000 on a private gun range that was built on wetlands. I would rather they spend money on our children vs. a gun range.
KABOOM....you gave them an award for their despicable behavior. http://www.hamiltonnj.com/filestorage/228428/229551/229558/Adopted_Master_Plan.pdf Is a link to the master plan in Hamilton. As a marathon runner, I will not use a vast majority of the Hamilton parks. There have been numerous rapes, murders, suicides and aggravated assaults in the parks. (google those articles) . There is nothing in this plan that talks about what they are doing nor the comment they made to you on the community development.
I can only hope you view this as a learning experience and use better judgment in future designations given to towns. There are many other towns that do not have this despicable drama that Hamilton does and are more deserving of the designations to compete for the grants. It would be a consider shame.
Dr. Tammy Anne Duffy
Email:tammy.duffy@yahoo.com
Mobile:646-717-7494
One can only hope these two organizations, Humana and KaBOOM take the time to sign up for Warren and Doris Buffet's course on philanthropy.
