Week Six

-One thing I want the audience to focus on is the importance to help out good causes. Cancer research is a good cause because it affects a lot of people.

-The other thing I want the audience to focus on is how much our group got accomplished. We always hear things like "one person can make a difference", but you never really know how much of a difference you can make until you start helping.

-The last thing I want the audience to focus on how our group focused on a specific thing. Yes, we donated money to cancer research in general, but we are focusing on pediatric oncology patients. We are wanting to make their a lot better by donating bracelets. 

They Say I Say

One Pager

Most people think that any organization needs money to carry out its mission. They say that the money comes from donations by people and businesses. People think that businesses donate a lot of money to foundations because they want to help out different communities and it gives the company a better reputation. They also think that local and corporate businesses donate around the same amount of money to a given organization.

                However, Ken Stern, the author of the article “Why don’t corporations give to charity”, says that the amount that businesses have been donating has decreased over time. He states that “Over the past 30 years, corporate contributions to charities in the U.S. … have fallen precipitously, from a high of 2.1 percent at its peak in 1986 to just around 0.8 percent in 2012” (Stern). By this statement he is showing that over 26 years the amount that corporations have been donating has fallen 1.3 percent. Stern says that the people do not notice this difference because the businesses are donating a sum of money to these organizations. To the general population that sum seems like a lot of money, but in reality most are donating far less than the average percentage that should be given. Stern believes that businesses should invest in their communities because they are not only viewed on their products and stocks are doing. But not everyone thinks this way. Stern wrote about “the old Chicago economist Milton Friedman … argued that ‘corporate social responsibility was a simple taking, without authorization or business purpose, of the money of the company, shareholders, and customers … it bordered on fraud’” (Stern). Stern acknowledges that this is a view that most businesses but he thinks that they need “to accept more of the basic responsibilities of citizens” (Stern).

            Recently I have started an organization called High Schoolers Against Cancer with fellow classmates. We have been emailing and calling different businesses. Some have responded but only one local business was generous enough to donate a sum of money. We been in touch with both local and corporate businesses in Cedar Rapids, but the responses have been roughly the same. They say that we do not have enough experience, they do not donate to school organizations, or that they are no longer donating to any charities. From my experience so far I think that businesses (both local and corporate) do not donate as much money as we think. I say that businesses need to be very clear on the type of organization that they are willing to fund on their donations page on their website. I think that businesses should be required to let the communities know how much percentage of their pre-tax profits are going to organizations. I think that the communities need to know this information because then we will know if they are donating below or at average. I know that not all businesses are concerned with their own profits and are not willing to help out their communities. But I also know that the majority of businesses are less will to help out. I hope that as I continue looking for donors I will have better luck, but I have contacted most of the businesses I know in the community and have gotten a lot of rejection emails. I say that businesses could be donating some money to organizations but not nearly the amount that they should. 

Week Five

This past weekend our group was supposed to gain some field experience or find a mentor. We already had a mentor, Mr. Mallicoat. We have been keeping him updated on our project and what we have been doing. So for our field experience we sent an email to the University of Iowa Children’s Hospitals. We let them know about what a 20 time project is. Then we explained what we chose to do for our project and how it affects them. Then we asked if we could interact with the patients when we hand out the bracelets and the inspirational quotes because we feel like it would be more personal that way. We are still waiting for a response from the University, but if they don’t respond by tonight we will call them tomorrow. We had a new problem though, what if the University says we cannot interact with the patients? This hasn’t changed how we feel about the project and what we want to do. We decided that if they said no, we will try and persuade them. We will ask about getting parent consent to interact with the patients, but hopefully the University says yes to our project. The response to this email would be included our TED talk (if we get a response) because it decides what direction our project goes.