Samuel Irvin (Chip) Baxter Jr., 17, wants to follow in his father's footsteps into the word of banking and finance. So this spring he took a course to help him better understand what his dad, a senior vice president at the Bank of America Corporation, in their hometown of Columbia, S.C., likes about his job.
And, along the way, he learned how to be a philanthropist.
A junior at Spring Valley High School, Mr. Baxter took an innovative high-school course that teaches students both how to make money and how to give it away. The experience of figuring out how to give profits to local charities, Mr. Baxter says, was fulfilling. He was able, he says, to "have a part of making a difference in people's lives."
Like Mr. Baxter, other high-school students in South Carolina are gaining lessons in philanthropy that many adults in corporate grant-making jobs must scramble to learn, thanks to the South Carolina Youth Philanthropy Partnership, which was started by two local grant makers and a Junior Achievement affiliate.
The partnership, begun in 2000, is a project that combines a Junior Achievement program — in which high-school juniors and seniors start and run a business, including making and selling a product, and attracting investors — with a specially designed curriculum that teaches personal and corporate philanthropy. The partnership was initially sponsored by the Central Carolina Community Foundation, the Lipscomb Family Foundation, and Junior Achievement of Central South Carolina, all in Columbia.
An Expanding Effort
Since the early 1990s, a growing number of efforts have aimed to teach teenagers about grant making, as organizations realized that reaching young people now means nurturing tomorrow's donors and volunteers. But this may be the first time philanthropy has been coupled with business education and taught to high-school students, they say. And the effort has gained the attention of Junior Achievement's international headquarters, which is making plans to expand the South Carolina program around the country and the world.
The one-semester course challenges students to raise a minimum of $500 through companies they create, as well as to learn about the nonprofit field by visiting charities, listening to speakers from the nonprofit world, and requesting grant proposals.
The South Carolina Youth Philanthropy Partnership matches every dollar of students' donations with $10, to provide a maximum of $5,500 available to support nonprofit groups. The students work as a team to decide which groups will receive the grants, and write rejection and acceptance letters.
Philanthropy Training
Adult employees are sometimes rewarded for strong job performance with the leadership of their employers' foundation or giving program, says Caryn Pawliger, a senior director at the Public Affairs Council, an association in Washington for public-affairs professionals that includes those involved in corporate grant making.
But as corporate giving has become more sophisticated, she adds, the need for business people to know more about charities and giving increases. Employees who find themselves working in corporate-giving offices today, she says, must often "scramble to get some sort of continuing education to learn how to do their job better."
Thus, the participants in the South Carolina Youth Philanthropy Partnership already have an advantage. "The sense of corporate philanthropy the students get will stay with them as they transition from school to the work world," says Ms. Pawliger. "And skills such as fund raising and team building will also enhance their résumés."
The first course, begun in a suburban and a rural high school in the spring of 2001, was offered as a business or economics elective in 14 schools in and near Columbia during the 2005-6 school year, according to Joan Fail Hoffman, director of grant making and programs at the Central Carolina Community Foundation. Since the program began, students at participating schools have earned $22,200 — which, coupled with matching funds from the partnership, has resulted in 170 grants totaling $226,000.
Learning About Charities
Alan Baker, now a nursing student at the University of South Carolina at Columbia, took the course last spring during his senior year at Ninety Six High School, in Ninety Six, S.C., because one of his friends was enrolled — and, Mr. Baker confesses, he and his friend thought the course would be easy. But running the company, which produced a game similar to Monopoly that was adapted to reflect Ninety Six's local landmarks, was no cinch, Mr. Baker says.
He also admits that he was surprised by what he learned during a trip to Connie Maxwell Children's Home, a shelter in Greenwood, S.C., that serves abused or neglected children.
"I didn't know how much work it took to run a charity," he says. "You'd think it would be straightforward, but it surprised me how much work it takes. I assumed they had money to take the children out, but I didn't realize they didn't have a lot of money to take kids out somewhere fun."
Besides opening his eyes to the financial needs of charities, learning about the children's home's history — it was founded by a married couple whose 7-year-old daughter succumbed to scarlet fever in 1883 — "kind of opened my eyes that all you need is a good idea to have a charity that works," he says. "One idea can potentially start a revolution."
However, his class opted to give most of its $5,500 in grants to Ninety Six High School, in recognition of the school's needs and as a reward for students' and teachers' support of the board-game company.
Mr. Baxter's class gave its $5,500 in profits to six charities, including local chapters of the American Red Cross, Ronald MacDonald House, and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, along with the Oliver Gospel Mission, Children's Hospital, and the Spring Valley High School Foundation. He appreciates that students were allowed to pick the charities to support: "They weren't just picked out for us."
'They Were Good Listeners'
Local charities are reaping the results of the students' work, as well as their newly acquired understanding of grant making.
Dream Riders, a therapeutic horse-riding program in Lexington, S.C., has received a total of $7,700 in grants since 2001 from Junior Achievement students at Gilbert High School, in Gilbert, S.C. The money was earmarked by the students to create a special one-day riding camp for children from the Epworth Children's Home, in Columbia, who would otherwise be unable to enjoy Dream Riders' services.
"When we go talk to [the students], we do a PowerPoint demonstration, which explains our program and shows the facility," says Jennifer Stoudemire, Dream Riders' head riding program instructor. "They were good listeners, asked intelligent questions, and really thought about what they wanted to do." She adds that some of the high-school students have also volunteered at Dream Riders.
Polly Davis, director of volunteer services at Connie Maxwell Children's Home, says she didn't have to do much to promote her organization because "the students have grown up knowing students who have lived here and we have been in the community for 114 years, so many already know us and what we do."
But to ensure that they were making a good decision with their funds, the students "spent some time here with us learning our ministry and how we go about doing what we do," says Ms. Davis. The students wanted to give the home's residents a special treat and asked Ms. Davis for some suggestions. In the end they specifically designated their funds to enable the home's adolescent residents to enjoy a day at a theme park.
Mary Grimball, president of Junior Achievement of Central South Carolina, says students come away from these classes thinking, "'Gosh, I helped someone else be in a better place because of my company and the contributions I've made to it.' We're teaching them that everybody — with even a small amount of money — can make a difference in someone's life."
An Accidental Partnership
The three founding members of the South Carolina Youth Philanthropy Partnership have been working for the past few years to take their program nationwide. But the partnership itself owes its life to sheer coincidence.
In 2000, both the Central Carolina Community Foundation and Guy Lipscomb, the Lipscomb Family Foundation's board president, wanted to create a local youth philanthropy program.
The community foundation had seen similar organizations realize the value of teaching youth about philanthropy and community service. Mr. Lipscomb, who made his money from a manufacturing business, had grown intrigued by what he learned at a Council on Foundations conference about a youth philanthropy project in Colorado.
The Central Carolina Community Foundation began examining youth philanthropy programs, and made inquiries at the Council of Michigan Foundations, which in 1988 began overseeing a program to create youth grant making and advisory boards at community foundations.
But, says Mac Bennett, then executive director of Central Carolina Community Foundation (and now president of the United Way of the Midlands, in Columbia, S.C.), the Carolina group was dissuaded by the amount of resources needed to start a similar effort.
The idea stalled for about 10 months, Mr. Bennett says, until he spoke to Mr. Lipscomb, then a member of the community foundation board's distribution committee. Both the committee and Mr. Lipscomb's foundation supported Junior Achievement, and a grant-making component, Mr. Bennett says, seemed a natural addition to its existing curriculum. "They already had an infrastructure for delivering the program," he says. "All we had to do was develop the philanthropy product."
The Carolina community foundation spent more than $8,000 on its initial research and on drafting the program's curriculum; Mr. Lipscomb's foundation contributed $2,000 to help with initial fund raising and research.
The resulting program relies heavily on guest speakers — such as nonprofit leaders, fund raisers, and other charity and foundation employees.
"When we went in, the kids' perspectives on the nonprofit community was that it is a 100- percent volunteer community," says Mr. Bennett. "They thought everyone who works for the nonprofit field isn't paid anything."
Wooing Grant Makers
The project now has several sponsors beyond the original three, including five family foundations and three corporate supporters: Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the health insurer; Sprint, the telecommunications company; and Sonoco, the packaging manufacturer.
Today, the community foundation's role in the partnership is to manage its finances, while the local Junior Achievement office works to recruit more schools to offer the course, and Mr. Lipscomb's family foundation works to attract more money and promote the program. The partnership also has hired a part-time grants administrator, says Ms. Hoffman.
Each course, says Ms. Grimball, costs $7,000 over three years.
The Nord Family Foundation, whose headquarters is in Amherst, Ohio, but also makes grants in the Columbia area, has helped financially support the youth philanthropy program since the beginning, and recently gave $21,000 for three years.
John J. Mullaney, executive director of Nord, says the foundation decided to support the effort because "the students' enthusiasm was contagious. They were really struggling with issues, such as giving locally versus a national program, babies versus pets. They were struggling with issues trustees struggle with."
"What was nice about this program, too," he adds, "is that this was a very balanced group of kids in terms of diversity who seemed to be working toward the same goal."
Going Global
Last spring, Mr. Bennett, Mr. Lipscomb, and Ms. Grimball traveled to Colorado Springs to the international headquarters of Junior Achievement, to promote the idea of adding philanthropy to Junior Achievement's curriculum at its 141 offices in the United States and affiliates in 100 countries.
The idea for a youth philanthropy program came at a fortuitous time, during a period when Junior Achievement is revamping its secondary-school programs, says Darrell Luzzo, senior vice president for education at the group's headquarters. Starting in July, he says, the youth philanthropy program will be added to its curriculum worldwide, with money for the effort raised locally.
"There is a lot of excitement around it," Mr. Luzzo says. "One of the benefits of the way they have created it is that it can be modified in some ways."
For example, he says, instead of donors matching the money students raise by $10 for every $1, another school could match students' grant making five-to-one, or two-to-one.
But the concept of using students' company profits for grant making has proved effective, he says, garnering enthusiastic support from youthful participants.
"The Junior Achievement company program reaches more than five million youths a year around the world, and yet only Columbia, S.C., has the youth philanthropy project right now," says Mr. Luzzo. "Its potential is huge."