JOURNAL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS EDUCATION - National ...

Indirect Giving to Nonprofit Organizations: An Emerging Model
of Student Philanthropy
Indirect Giving to Nonprofit Organizations:
An Emerging Model of Student Philanthropy
Julie Cencula Olberding
Northern Kentucky University
ABSTRACT
Student philanthropy is an experiential learning approach that provides
students with the opportunity to study social problems and nonprofit
organizations, and then make decisions about investing funds in them. The
limited literature on student philanthropy has focused on the original model,
called “direct giving,” which provides students with funds to make small grants
to nonprofit organizations. But the literature has not addressed an emerging
model, called “indirect giving,” which partners a class with a corporation or
foundation, and has students evaluate “real” grant proposals and make funding
recommendations. This article examines the impact of an indirect-giving
program on MPA students at Northern Kentucky University (NKU). A
majority of students indicated that the program helped them to become more
aware of social problems (64.8%) and nonprofit organizations (77.8%), learn
the curriculum (75.7%), apply the course principles (75.7%), and gain
academic skills or knowledge (62.1%). The article also discusses some “lessons
learned” about the indirect-giving model of student philanthropy.
INTRODUCTION
Student philanthropy has been defined as an experiential learning approach
that provides students with the opportunity to study social problems and
nonprofit organizations, and then make collective decisions about investing
funds in one or more nonprofits (Ahmed & Olberding, 2007/2008). To date,
student philanthropy has been the subject of a very limited number of scholarly
articles in public administration and nonprofit management outlets. The
existing literature has focused on one approach to student philanthropy, which
provides students in a class with funds in the range of $1,000 to $5,000.
Participating students are responsible for researching community problems and
nonprofit organizations, conducting a request for proposals (RFP) process, and
deciding which proposals to fund or not to fund (Ahmed & Olberding,
2007/2008; Irvin, 2005). This could be seen as the original model, because it
seems to be the earliest means of directly engaging students in philanthropy and
JPAE 15(4): 463–492 Journal of Public Affairs Education 463