The Inner Workings of Philanthropy

Voices for Children

Access Youth Academy

Big Brothers Big Sisters

Skype with Meir Panim

Skype with ELEM

The most recent meeting of the Jewish Teen Foundation was momentous. We had to decide which organizations to invest in and in what amount. To help us make these decisions, my fellow board members and I conducted site visits to eleven different organizations (two of these were conducted through Skype). I personally visited the Monarch School and Voices for Children. On both visits, we asked pointed questions to help us better understand the organization so we could share with the rest of the JTF Board.

The Monarch School is a one-of-a-kind K-12 school and support center for homeless youth. During our site visit, I saw first hand what kind of facility our infrastructure-centered investment would enhance. We were given an extensive tour by Katie, the volunteer coordinator, who showed us every nook and cranny from the kindergarten classroom and nutrition center to the principal’s office and the under-construction technology center. We also learned about the history of the Monarch School and how it evolved from a one-room schoolhouse to an immense K-12 education center. She was able to answer every last question we had. By the end of the tour, we felt like we really knew the place. The only thing we had to imagine were the kids because it was a Sunday morning.

During our tour, she discussed how our investment in infrastructure could be used to:

• help train more specialized staff for the literacy center

• upgrade their website

• create a new comprehensive donor database

We were impressed by their many programs such as the party held each month for those students who increase their level of literacy (as shown on a big chart in the principal’s office). Another cool program was the store students get to shop in, every other month, to find new clothing items they may otherwise never get.

Voices for Children is a unique organization where volunteers are recruited and trained to become special court-appointed advocates and mentors for foster children. During our site visit, my fellow board members and I had the opportunity to meet with and question three representatives of their organization. Even more fortuitous, we had the chance to talk with a foster child who was currently being helped by Voices for Children who provided us with even more insight into the impact of their organization.

We were told how the CASAs (Court-Appointed Special Advocates) become very close with the foster child they are mentoring as they attempt to learn about all aspects of their life in order to aid the court in making decisions about them. This meeting gave us detailed ideas of exactly how their volunteer training process works, how their organization is facilitated throughout the country, and how they find at-risk foster youth.

Also, we learned about some of Voices for Children's programs such as Fostering Futures which helps support youth who will be aging out of the foster system,

and their court-monitoring program where Voices for Children has 6 people inside courts all around San Diego listening in on cases regarding foster youth. In addition, we saw a video documenting the amazing impact one of the organization's CASAs had on an extremely sick foster baby.

Being able to see the details of these organizations and their inner workings imparted on us a last bit of critical information before our pivotal meeting took place. I know that I was eager to hear about the other nine site visits. Even with all of this valuable information, choosing the organizations we are most interested in investing in was quite a difficult task.