Like the birds and the bees and the 123s, philanthropy should be taught early and often.

By Katherine Falk , Janet R. Wakefield and Nancy Swanson

Middle-school students singing carols at a retirement home. Teenagers delivering meals to shut-ins or walking to raise money to fight cancer. Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts and Brownies picking up trash at a city park.

Opportunities abound for young people to learn the value of giving — whether it’s time, talent or money. And nonprofit organizations are finding that it’s never too early to start grooming children, teens and young adults to become supporters in the not-so-distant future.

Here, three women who are heavily involved with youth in philanthropy share their insights.

Youth in Philanthropy: The Beginnings of a Movement
By Katherine Falk

“I thought I was the only one teaching children about philanthropy,” a woman told me recently during a session on youth and philanthropy at the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ International Conference on Fundraising in Baltimore.

She’s a mother, loves children and has brought her passion to her children’s school. She was amazed to learn about the Youth in Philanthropy movement in our country today, as well as the myriad opportunities to help children reach their philanthropic potential.

More than 15 years ago, members of the fundraising community started to worry about the future of philanthropy, namely how America’s baby boomers would handle the impending intergenerational transfer of wealth from their parents.

There was concern then about whether the philanthropic values with which boomers’ parents were raised had been passed down, and if such values would be passed to their children and future generations. An innate sense, backed by research, led fundraisers to conclude that children needed to be taught philanthropic values just as they were taught how to say “please” and “thank you” — and that the best way to teach is to model behavior.

AFP’s early involvement
By the end of the 1980s, the AFP, then known as the National Society of Fundraising Executives, created Youth in Philanthropy, an initiative that encouraged young people to choose a cause and raise $1,000 — which NSFRE would match dollar for dollar. Since then, numerous creative programs have been launched all over the country.

Four years ago, YIP became a strategic priority of AFP International, as the association called on members and experts in youth philanthropy to help further its educational and cultivation efforts.

Today, YIP is focusing its work on the design of an online toolbox and information service for www.afpnet.org to help AFP chapters and fundraisers involve youth in philanthropy. (Roughly one-third of AFP chapters currently are engaged in YIP.)

But YIP is not just about the future. The fundraising prowess of our nation’s youth is inspiring more nonprofits to cultivate young volunteers. Universities and schools, among other institutions, raise

millions of dollars each year through the work of young people.

According to “Making Change for the Better: The Importance of Youth Giving,” a publication of the Center for Youth as Resources and the National Endowment for Financial Education, an estimated 13.3 million teens volunteer an average of three hours a week, which adds up to 2.4 billion hours annually.

Cultivation starts locally
The New Jersey chapter of AFP — with the support of Bank of America; ETHICON, a Johnson & Johnson company; and Johnson & Johnson itself — launched a YIP program in 1994 to introduce elementary-school educators and their students to the benefits of volunteering their “time, talent and treasure for the common good.” More than 32,000 students have participated and helped hundreds of nonprofits.

The program was created as a contest for fourth-grade students in New Jersey to share their ideas about philanthropy in a poster or essay. We started with fourth-graders because they were old enough to read and write, and young enough to be enthusiastic about such a program. What we found was that students understood the concepts of kindness and giving, but most had no idea about what constitutes “philanthropy.”

We eliminated the contest component in 1996, became purely educational and expanded the program for all elementary students in kindergarten through eighth grades.

We created a Resource Guide that would offer information but give teachers the freedom to use it as they wished. The guide contains a brief history of American philanthropy from inception to the present, methods and activities for teaching philanthropic and fundraising ethics, information on how AFP’s New Jersey chapter operates, and more.

At Washington Elementary in Union, N.J., for example, the ethic of the school is to incorporate philanthropy into everyday work. Grades kindergarten through fourth coordinate 32 community-based projects a year and have raised roughly $100,000 over the last five years for the American Cancer Society.

It’s incumbent on us to encourage, facilitate and teach these young people all we can about philanthropy.

Fundraisers, Welcome to the 21st Century
By Janet R. Wakefield
While shopping recently, my teenage daughter said to me, with a smile, “C’mon, Mom. Come into the 21st century.”

That’s the same encouragement I would give anyone considering a youth-philanthropy program.

Seven countries and more than 30 U.S. states have youth-grantmaking councils that exist where young people raise, or are given, dollars to meet identified needs of a community. A pioneering example is the Council of Michigan Foundation’s Youth Advisory Councils associated with their Kellogg-supported statewide community foundation network. These advisory councils have governed more than $40 million in endowed funds over the past decade.

Dollars addressing real needs such as feeding the hungry, preserving the environment or taking on much larger community issues, such as city revitalization or improvement in education, all have been raised by young people.

Getting kids involved
Families, churches, nonprofit organizations, schools and foundations can be intentional about promoting young people as philanthropists. “Effective learning occurs when a child witnesses a primary caregiver or other influential adult, such as a teacher or religious leader, modeling behavior that is intended to help others,” a 1996 Bentley-Nissan study suggested. So it’s true that it does take a village to raise a child.

Look for ways to cultivate, support or recognize young people as philanthropists. Some ideas include:

Awards or recognition programs;

Mentoring programs, where adults serve as philanthropic role models;

Educational programs provided by the school or community;

Community-service initiatives, where a child can “try on” the role of philanthropist;

Funding for young people to serve as grantmakers; and

Involving children in fundraising initiatives.

Building involvement
Community Partnerships with Youth, an Indiana-based training and resource-development organization that promotes an increased youth voice in institutions, has two key programs to promote children’s involvement in philanthropy: The Word for Me is Philanthropy, geared toward young people ages 6 to 11; and Youth as Philanthropist, geared toward ages 12 to 20.

Key concepts in building the capacity for young people to become philanthropists include:

Defining what is meant by philanthropy;

Reviewing the history of philanthropy in the United States;

Exploring individual philanthropic values and “habits of the heart”; and

Determining ways children can take philanthropic action.

Voices of Youth in Fundraising: A Case Study
By Nancy Swanson

Too often when we picture young people fundraising, we think of raffle tickets, bake sales and pancake breakfasts — activities that are adult-driven but require young people to serve as the “sales force.” Children are given the task of raising money but seldom are empowered to participate in deciding how those funds will be used.

The 4-H Power of Youth in Philanthropic Fundraising is a national 4-H Council initiative and the title of a soon-to-be released curriculum. (It’s arguably the first curriculum developed that specifically teaches young people about philanthropic fundraising while utilizing youth-development principles.) It’s also the story of how one national youth organization engaged its young people in the fundraising process.

It’s not about involving young people in product sales, “-thons” or car washes. It’s also not about episodic fundraising, where the cause is immediately compelling, such as helping pay a classmate’s urgent medical expenses or responding to a natural disaster.

It’s about helping young people understand the importance of organizational stewardship, the value of building donor relationships and the joy of personal solicitation.

Since 4-H is a community-based, youth-development program, the community becomes a learning laboratory. The real-life experiences take young people through the entire fundraising cycle, from needs identification to writing a case statement, from donor identification and relationship building to personal solicitation, fund allocation and donor stewardship.

Young people learn the importance of being good organizational stewards, practicing ethical fundraising and honoring donor intent.

The result, however, is youth empowerment. Young people who are able to raise their own resources will be able to influence the agenda of their own youth groups and be agents of change in their communities.

Does this really work?
For 12 years, the South Dakota 4-H Foundation has involved 300 to 400 young people annually who volunteer and raise thousands of dollars for the organization. They do this through community calling programs for smaller gifts and even face-to-face solicitation for larger donations.

Here are some of the youths’ personal responses:

“I’ve learned how to communicate more effectively with donors.”

“It’s fun to tell someone why 4-H is so important to me.”

“Our 4-H Teen Council was able to build a handicapped accessible ramp to our 4-H building with the funds we raised.”

“It’s exciting to raise money so our programs can help more kids.”

In the end, it’s not as much about raising money as it is nurturing young people’s philanthropic spirit as they engage donors in the mission of their organizations.

Katherine Falk is principal of the Pennsylvania-based nonprofit development consultancy Falk Associates. She serves as chair of the International AFP Youth in Philan-thropy Task Force and the New Jersey chapter’s Youth in Philanthropy program. Contact her at kfalk@voicenet.com.

Janet R. Wakefield is co-founder and executive director of Community Partnerships with Youth Inc., an Indiana-based national training and resource development organization.

Nancy Swanson is the executive director of the South Dakota 4-H Foundation. The national 4-H program involves more than 6.8 million young people ages 5 to 19 in educational youth development. She can be reached at Nancy.Swanson@SDSTATE.EDU.