Another one gone. In my nearly seven years at this public university, I’ve seen my share of advancement colleagues come and go, and this week’s bell weather of a cookies and soda farewell was no different than the six or so others I’ve witnessed. It’s more bitter than sweet. But the average tenure for development professionals is about 24 months. And at a public institution from my observation it seems to be even less. Less than a year in this case.

It’s always confounded me, that in a business that has at its heart relationship building, the door revolves so frequently. Further, our relationship building is pretty unlike that which  earns one’s trust to purchase a new Toyota or house gutters or organic chicken. Everywhere people are developing “relationships” with us to get us to do something.

Fundraisers are no different. We want people to do something too. But our profession gives us the privilege of cultivating relationships that lead to the ultimate, helping a person leave a life legacy.

The fruit of our work might be a circle closed as a person seeks to reciprocate for what he or she received. Or it might be our role in marrying a donor’s great passion for something, with the resources of  a visionary and competent institution. And that union has more than a fighting chance to achieve an ultimate goal: end poverty, cure cancer — lift a city’s vision through public art — or extend educational opportunity to the disadvantaged.

Staying resolved while working to garner resources for a public institution takes professional acumen, persistence, and much soul. Our goals pale in comparison to private institutions. The public thinks that the government is our parent and will put the dinner on the table for us.

If you’ve been watching the budgets of public colleges and universities, you won’t be surprised that we’ve gone vegetarian, and it is a rare night when we get dessert. The mission of a public institution, so focused on building strong communities, local and beyond, graduates a legion of “greats,” but many of them are the leaders of public enterprises like law enforcement, public education, politics, health care.

Yes, we have our friends in business and entertainment, but not in the same amount as at most private institutions. Furthermore, we haven’t been around that long. As we near the big deal of a 50th anniversary, this milestone might elicit a chuckle from our fellow university on the Red Line.

But the biggest obstacle is a nearly nil philanthropic culture that recognizes that private investment in the public trust of public institutions lifts everyone’s boat, and every citizen’s life.

It is tough raising funds sometimes. The challenges lead colleagues to go where it is easier. Where the hole was dug long ago, and with the pull of gravity, philanthropic gifts are sucked quickly down to alma mater.

Shoulder to the wheel. Day in, Day out. We are pioneering a novel enterprise. It is the powerful opportunity that investing in public higher education affords. “UMass, that’s the government’s bailiwick.”  When you ask for a gift  and they say no. Shoulder to the wheel. Remember the family who embraced their daughter after she received her scholarship.

“I’ve already given my gift to x, y, z or fancy shmanzy w.” Envision the faculty member who is equally passionate about English literature as she is about the process of learning the English language. Shoulder to the wheel.  The English professor who took her Vietnamese immigrant student to Walden Pond so that she could understand poetry.

“Why should I give to a public institution?” Well . . .Shoulder to the wheel. Because  . . . Can you really put in words the tidal wave of social possibility that dominates our commencement lawn, hour after hour, year after year? It’s more than witnessing over half of the graduates who stand to be recognized as the first in their family to receive a college degree.

It is the triumph of a noble experiment born 150 years ago with the birth of this nation’s public universities, and our own UMass brethren in Amherst.

An experiment that was founded on the belief that education is for all. An experiment, that can only continue to flourish with the philanthropic investment of all who care about social progress in our Commonwealth.

To learn more about how your generosity can strengthen Boston’s public university, visit www.giving.umb.edu.

Nan Cormier is director of advancement communications

How can we understand the unfathomable evil of yesterday’s Boston Marathon tragedy? Impossible. But, still, we try to pull bits of hope from the crevices of destruction.

A few weeks ago, I experienced an occasion that strengthened my conviction that public universities inspire their students to be future leaders who will embrace similar roles that are guiding us through the aftermath.  The values and actions of Boston’s current leaders are giving us some sturdiness in the event’s wake.

Someday our students will be the physicians who amputate with single-minded focus, the elected officials who chart our community response and the resources to recover, and the criminal justice professionals who will bring justice.

I met these future leaders at the Undergraduate Student Senate Awards dinner on April 9th. The story of one of the awardees crystallized my growing admiration for UMass Boston’s  impact on  inspiring lives of service.

_________________________________________________________

January 9, 1961. Michael was a second grader. Superman and Batman were his comic book heroes. But more true than they were Michael’s living, breathing hereos: his father and uncle.

His heroes served as Massachusetts legislators. They served the public valiantly, making the Commonwealth better for its citizens.

And every now and then their service brought privilege. Michael’s father knew that something momentous was to happen at the State House that Monday evening. Nothing, nothing would stop him from ensuring that his son witness the occasion.

Problem. The eight-year-old wasn’t invited. But heroes blaze paths, heroes break rules, and they have the vision to know when to do both.

Heroes smuggle a son and nephew inside an overcoat just ahead of security guards for once-in-a-lifetime occasions.

The president-elect was visiting Beacon Hill — Massachusetts own — was coming to thank the supporters who had made his victory possible. Unbuttoning his overcoat, Michael’s father hid him under the hollow of a nearby desk.

As waves of legislators entered, the boy peered out from his little cove, taking in the crowd’s anticipation. Then, escorted by tremendous cheers, the distinguished guest entered.

As John F. Kennedy warmly greeted his supporters, Michael’s uncle, with the skill of a magician, made the young boy appear. Of course, the wide eyed boy, and only child present, was a magnet for Kennedy.

As Michael stared with awe, Kennedy confidently approached him.

Then, the soon-to-be president and the future mayor shook hands.

___________________________________________________

Fifty two years later, I had the privilege of meeting that mayor, Michael McGlynn ’76. The senior mayor of Massachusetts, Michael was honored on April 9th by the Undergraduate Student Senate at its annual Distinguished Leadership Awards event.

After receiving his award, the mayor shared the story of his moment with JFK and how it planted seeds of leadership in him. Falling asleep that January night in 1961, Michael  decided he wanted to be a mayor. And he did. Medford Mayor Michael McGlynn has the distinction of being the longest serving mayor in the Commonwealth.

Sadly, following the Boston Marathon calamity, Mayor McGlynn is showing the heroism which established its origins in the State House decades ago. Today, with religious leaders and others, he is planning  a cross-city memorial service for Krystle Marie Campbell, the 29-year-old Medford native who died in the bombing.

Krystle attended UMass Boston and her loss creates a particular void for our university. I expect Michael’s words will be a banister for the people of Medford, Arlington (where she worked), and the nation to sturdy their spiritual grip and psychological footing amidst remarkable pain.

That’s the everyday heroism a mayor must embody. When Michael offered his acceptance speech he said that UMass Boston gave him the educational scaffolding which made his boyhood dream possible.

The audience which saluted him was comprised of  dozens of enthusiastic students. Some engaged in student government, one was UMass Boston’s Board of Trustees representative, another, also a award recipient, said the university  is “where I grew into who I was supposed to be.”

A young woman talked about how hard she was working to become a physician in the developing world and last year’s Student Senate president said that the alumni students admire, help them craft their life goals.

They were radiant with pride as they took in the wide view of Boston from the 34^th floor of the UMass Club on Franklin Street. I’ve been to a lot of student events in my career, but this one, and others like it, incarnate something unique.

The room reverberated with student passion and they displayed an uncommon indebtedness for educational opportunity.  Their enthusiasm conveyed how privileged they felt to receive an excellent education that was accessible and affordable.

_____________________________________________________

Back to the Massachusetts State House in 1961. I see parallels between UMass Boston’s mission and Michael McGlynn’s special moment.

UMass Boston’s educational culture is the overcoat that smuggles our students into unforeseen social spheres where they will have power.

UMass Boston is the desk that mentors them and helps uncover their own valiance.  Our students belong in the grand halls of leadership. They are entitled to its milieu of influence.

UMass Boston provides the venue for students to peer out and see greatness, their own and the world’s, and reveals the potential avenues where they can express it.

UMass Boston’s gift of public education inspires its students to boldly shake the hand of a heroic tomorrow.

Christopher MacRae ’14, Mayor Michael McGlynn ’76, and Dr. Arindam Bandopadhyaya received Distinguished Leadership awards at a dinner on April 9 sponsored by the Undergraduate Student Senate and the Alumni Association.

If you would like to make a gift that supports UMass Boston students, contact Vanessa DiCarlo at 617.287.5328.

Nan Cormier is director of advancement communications

alumni.umb.edu

I appreciated something new yesterday while reading the Globe’s Ideas section. “The ideals behind UMass Amherst’s stained concrete:  It looks nothing like the college of your dreams — and that’s exactly why we should learn to love the state’s flagship campus”  made me understand the import behind UMass Amherst’s “colossal concrete slabs, dark subterranean spaces, vertical dormitories.” http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/03/23/the-ideals-behind-umass-amherst-stained-concrete/DsPhAdcV2FSTEv0LpsGUcP/story.html

Professor of Architecture and History Max Page’s reflections became even more visceral when I returned my son to the campus only hours later. As I viewed the “brutal” once known as “distinguished” buildings of the 60′s and 70′s, I no longer observed only an inordinate amount of cold, faceless concrete and hard angles. I witnessed originality and bold creativity. Staring at the library, it was almost unimaginable that it was once the Commonwealth’s second tallest building.

When UMass Amherst underwent rapid expansion during those decades, it embraced physical growth bravely on its own terms. The university aspired to display in architecture what it had embodied since  1862 with its birth as the Massachusetts Agricultural College.

This place embraced a new kind of higher education mission:  educational access for all. In that spirit of exercising a new model, it sought to build differently with brutal opposition to New England’s ivy clad quadrangles. The domino like U.S. campus construction of the early to mid-nineteenth century emulated distinctive old world universities and their edification of the “few” not the “many.” No, this was something different, and the buildings constructed four decades ago displayed that trail-blazing spirit.

UMass Boston’s original campus, with monolithic, brick lego-esque blocks, was designed out of the same ideals as UMass Amherst. Opinions about the quality of the campus architecture aside, the confidence with which these giant blocks arose reveal similarly inspired origins.

When I consider the boldness of the vision behind public higher education and its devotion to coining a new enterprise of democratic learning, I reflect on what – in 2013 – is needed to fuel this still bold enterprise. With decreased public support and an ever increasing market for affordable higher education, a similar brutal commitment and new vision is required.

We must courageously change  how, as a society, we support higher education in total, both private and public. Visionary philanthropists must recognize that giving to the legendary, established institutions makes these wealthy places richer. No doubt, they are improved. But that “better,” is only a relatively small, given the wealth upon which they already stand. Investing in public education, I believe, pays dramatically larger dividends for our city, our state, and the world.

Private giving to public higher education will be the only path to make a state with the nation’s finest private colleges and universities also have a public system that parallels them equally in resources.  When an individual becomes the first in a family to become college educated, he or she inspires a new level of achievement that magnetically draws in the generations that follow. Families are lifted, communities are lifted, we are all lifted.

Private gifts from alumni, but more importantly, from non-alumni citizens, will result in the generous endowment of professorships, robust scholarship aid, research funding to fuel new discoveries, and first-rate learning spaces. Only then will our Commonwealth offer prosperity for all who are qualified to achieve at the post-secondary level.

Danielle Paez ’13, a UMass Boston scholarship recipient, stands to the left of Chancellor J. Keith Motley (center). She will be the first person in her family to graduate from college in May. Danielle plans to work in psychology.

My greatest hope is that donors throughout our state and beyond — donors to hospitals, established community agencies, and private colleges and universities, — will ask themselves, whether giving more to what is already strong is their most prudent investment.

Perhaps they might mimic the bold imaginations of public campus architects and pioneer a novel focus, a new recipient for their generosity. Could they embrace the innovative brutality, the visionary thinking, needed to make educational opportunity a birthright rather than a privilege?

If you would like to learn more about supporting scholarships or other programs at UMass Boston, contact Vanessa DiCarlo at 617,287.5328.

Nan Cormier is director of advancement communications

School vacation week.  Why not take the family to the Big Apple? We did.

“They” wanted to see the blinking brilliance of Times Square and to determine whether they really could “believe” at the Ripley’s Believe it or Not Museum. I was curious to see another institution, one of America’s most venerable, just blocks from our hotel: the New York Public Library. It epitomizes the word venerable.

New York Public Library

Touring through the almost hallowed halls of this great public institution was indeed a privilege and the word venerable, not common in today’s parlance, kept rising in my thoughts. I clutched my I-Phone, torn between just being present to the beauty around me and the urge to “click” photos as mementos of the library’s grandeur — from preciously luminous marble corridors, lion-headed brass water fountains, and Sistine ceilings — to murals showcasing the chronology of the written word, beginning with Moses’ tablets, then oral tradition, Gutenberg, and the birth of books. I wondered. Will they create another mural with someone using an I-Pad?

The library’s imposing original circulation desk, with its intricately carved wooden facade, overlooks long narrow tables populated with public laptops, and people of all types — the tweedy gentleman, the homeless woman, the tattooed Gen-Y-er — intently focused on discovery.  Almost paralleling that room’s awesomeness, were the special collections along the corridors, named for the philanthropic families responsible for nurturing the library’s greatness.

Not surprising, was the enormous DeWitt-Wallace Periodical Room. But, almost equally prominent were the “Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle,” the “Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy,” the “Berg Collection of English and American Literature,” and the “Schomburg Art and Artifacts Division.”

In each case, private philanthropy was behind the creation of these resources to expand human understanding. These  philanthropists saw the importance of knowledge for the public good and their endowments perpetuate opportunities to feed the intellectually hungry.

Venerable . . . veneration — religious meanings aside, I refocused on the word — this time as a verb. Among Webster’s definitions of is “calling forth respect through character.” The philanthropists who helped create the New York Public Library venerated the intellectual character of every American. In each might might emerge the next Jasper Johns, Betty Friedan, Nelson Mandela, or Steve Jobs. Who knows the significant contributions any person might make for our nation, the world, or for humanity itself.  This ideal of the vast potential of universal opportunity was at the core of their generosity.

At UMass Boston I see our students venerated every day. And last Monday, that veneration was particularly poignant at our annual “Celebration of Support” where scholarship donors and their recipients get to meet one another. Danielle Paez ’13, one of six brothers and sisters and the first to attend college, offered a student’s perspective. In May, she will become the first person on both sides of her family to receive a college degree. “Receiving this scholarship support has had a domino effect of positivity throughout many aspects of my life,” she said.

Alumni Association President Marijo McCarthy offered a donor’s perspective. She talked about the role that  public education — through UMass Boston’s accessibility and excellence — had in shaping her life. Then she shared a story about a special Christmas gift she received this year. One of the employees in the law firm surprised her by making the most meaningful gift McCarthy could receive. It was a contribution to the
James and Joann McCarthy Student Success Fund which she established in honor of her mom and dad about a year ago.

Clearly, for McCarthy, that scholarship venerates human potential just as the great philanthropists did. While her wealth is no where close to theirs, the motivation behind her generosity is shared: a reverence for enormous potential of students, no matter from what life circumstance they come. Students like Danielle, for whom education has led to powerful “positivity.” Students, who with the support of donors, travel confidently down the marble corridors of prosperity.

Nan Cormier is director of advancement communications

umb.edu/giving

alumni.umb.edu

He is the same guy with the slightly scraggly beard, standing at the exit of the Waltham Costco. He’s one of those “checkers” who silently “ask” for the long receipt you have which quantifies the way too much  money you’ve just spent.

No one really knows why these employees study your flimsy, curling receipt and how some sort of wisdom from up above finally directs them to make their black sharpie line of approval. You are then FREE to exit with your giant cart of stuff.  Now you are liberated to fight the “everyone’s a cowboy” parking lot.

He’s the same. But he’s different too. He’s the guy in December who showed up on local newscasts with his fellow Costco lottery ticket purchaser. Their fortune came after the gigantic Power Ball that got even your most skinflinty relative to visit her local CVS as she dreamed about winning that historical bounty.

This was a “smaller” windfall.

No the bearded guy with the mysterious peer through you eyes, the one who I’ve never heard speak a word, won $25 million, (half of the 25 million he split with his colleague).

When I saw them in those perfunctory photos, I thought. Well, those guys will never again see the industrial lights or sit down at the food court for an obesity inducing over sized hot dog or “baked for a gorilla” slice of cheesy pizza.

I  was really surprised yesterday when THERE HE WAS. His sharpie poised to offer the corporation’s stamp of approval on my receipt. The newly many times a millionaire was still working at Costco!

Hmmmmmm. Should I ask him why? No, I thought Mr. Reticence wouldn’t like that. I would invade his quiet privacy. But I did take the opportunity to whisper to the returns desk clerk.  “Why is he still working?”  “He just likes working and wants to work,” she answered.

I guess I’ll never know why. And to be honest, I really don’t want to. But the whole episode inspired me to reflect about money, especially during a time during my pre New Year’s day ruminations.

Does money really change you? Can it? The happiness researchers say no.  After studying lottery winners before and after, once the public notoriety dies down, they see no difference in these people. No, they are just as happy or unhappy as they were before.

“I have seen what the investment of donors to UMass Boston has done
to the value-neutral commodity of wealth. They’ve changed it into
something with power, something that transforms . . .”

The dramatic financial windfall is just a flat proposition. Same before, same after.

But money is at the heart of everything, at least the superficial heart in terms of human fulfillment. The Fiscal Cliff is momentous and  not important too. Not that I don’t feel the pain of the economic ally insecure and what budget cuts will mean for their quality of life. Or the decrease in mental health services that might help the next Adam Lanza to reverse course, or the emergency aid that barely softens the blow (but  at least offers a tributary of hope) for victims of the nation’s most devastating hurricane.

Those things are real. But when you scrape winter’s ice with your snow shovel, even just a little, you can see your brick stairs again. And what those stairs show is human compassion and generosity, companionship, opportunity and hope. We saw it in Newtown, and in Rockaway, and is the intimate spaces of our own lives where the support of one person makes a difference.

So what does this have to do with a public university and philanthropy?

In my musings it struck me that no, money doesn’t change us. But we change it. I don’t how the Costco chap will invest or share his largess. But I have seen what the investment of donors to UMass Boston has done to the value neutral commodity of wealth. They’ve changed it into something with power, something that transforms, something that touches lives as profoundly and humanly possible. The process offers a rare glimpse of contemporary alchemy.

Gifts to UMass Boston over the past year (as seen in Celebrating Generosity: Philanthropy 2012 — and many more) have given our students purpose and direction and confidence. Scholarships have a giant impact on the difference between becoming that first person in a family to graduate with a degree or not.

And as we know, opportunity for one, sends ripples of uplift for a family and that family’s broader community. And when one person has been the recipient of generosity, that intervention becomes like a burr in his or heart. A burr that really can’t be dislodged because it hugs so tightly.

And it inspires a great will to give back to society. It cultivates an understanding that money can be value laden. And generosity, but financial and otherwise, is embedded in who these graduates are and who they will become. They will understand or the deepest level that, yes money can be used for great good.

So as we dance through these first few weeks of January may we embrace generosity in whatever form that is right for us. Maybe its taking on Ann Curry’s “26 works of goodness” encouraged to cope with the gaping hole of educators lost and their snuffed out twenty little living lanterns. Or maybe it will be something else. Maybe . . . it will be a gift to Boston’s great public university.

Nan Cormier is director of advancement communication at UMass Boston

Learn about giving opportunities at UMass Boston>

Make a Gift Now>

You know Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel painting of the Hands of God and Adam? Well I had the privilege of viewing what I thought was a “live” look in Rome about 25 years ago.  But I didn’t really see it “live” until yesterday. Right in the Campus Center terrace.

That’s where we celebrated Philanthropy Week with a special table for students to come and hand write a note to our generous donors.

Hundreds of them did! And each time, another student enthusiastically and willingly approached our table to draft their note, I saw those two hands touching again and again.

This time these hands were our donors touching the lives of our students and our students showing them the profound difference private giving makes in their lives.

It was powerful.  I only wish Michelangelo could have been there.

Read more and see some great pics of the occasion>

Nan Cormier is director of advancement communications

Visit www.umb.edu/giving to learn more about how you can touch our students’  lives.

It is hard to get your arms around one million, be it as an amount of dollars, or days, or mouse clicks — but I wanted to try. A million dollars is a life time of paychecks for some; a million days ago, was September in the year 726 B.C. (thank you Dr. Bill Hagar for your calculations).

A million is BIG.

But in a few short days, the University of Massachusetts Boston will celebrate an important million milestone that involves one million clicks.

UMass Boston’s YouTube channel is nearing one million views.

Any day now we will reach one million views on the university’s YouTube channel. At last glance our channel registered 990,241 views!

What a moment it will be.  One million clicks on our video icons will have occurred since we premiered the channel in 2009, about three and a half years ago.

The UMass Boston channel was a pipe dream back then. Since that  time there has been enormous growth of the power of YouTube in American culture, with both constructive and controversial outcomes. Online learning is booming, never has information been so accessible, and yet this venue for free speech is also having remarkable political implications.

For UMass Boston, our YouTube identity has been a very good thing. Before there was a UMass Boston YouTube we had a great collection of videos that were privately stored and, for the most part, publicly inaccessible.

The seeds for germinating the channel came when the university was celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Urban Scholars pre-collegiate program. To chronicle the program’s growth, the university advancement office worked with the program and Information Technology to set up a “talk show”  where current Urban Scholars would interview the program’s founder, Dr. Charles Desmond. What resulted was “UrbanNet” a very uplifting conversation that brought history to life and showcased UMass Boston’s commitment to educational empowerment.

But we needed a platform to showcase the video. What we needed was an official university YouTube channel. There existed a bunch of scattered channels, in fact, one of them already had taken our name youtube.com/umass boston, but there hadn’t been any posts in a few years to that channel.

Lisa Link in Information Technology did the daring thing of reaching out directly to Google to obtain a special “education channel” status, which allowed for a no advertisement platform that we could brand to the university’s standards. She also had the task of reclaiming the UMass Boston name for our channel.

Now Google is a big place. But that didn’t hinder Lisa. She pushed her way through its labyrinth, stayed persistent and energetic, and finally made her way to the professional for education at Google, named Obadiah “Obie” Greenberg. It didn’t take Obie long to hear the passion in our emails and to be convinced that this urban public student centered research university had marvelous tales to share about its impact on the world. Obie agreed and soon our “enhanced channel” was born. In fact, Obie was our very first channel subscriber.

When DeWayne Lehman and Colleen Locke arrived in the  Office of Communications and Government Relations, they championed our cause and have been stalwart advocates of bringing the highest quality and broadest reach to our university channel.

We now have videos that showcase all aspects of the university. There are student videos, and faculty teaching videos, speeches from commencement and convocation. One video takes the award for most hits. It is Dr. Edward Tronick’s video about his “Still Face” psychology experiment. Another very popular video is the Dennis Lehane commencement speech. Of course there is also President Obama’s UMass Boston graduation address. Most professionally rewarding have been my efforts to interview both donors and the beneficiaries of their generosity to share in a powerful way how transforming private giving to our university can be.

One particularly successful project  on the YouTube channel has been our “My UMass Boston” student video contest. Check out this year’s winner.

The story of that contest is another one about collaboration. I heard about the idea at a conference in Western MA and brought it back to my partner Lisa Link. Fresno State had been doing a contest for years, and their student video winners were truly inspirational and the content was loads better than anything official the university was putting out.

Lisa had been laying the “we need more video” mantra as we both worked to enrich content on the university’s web site. What an idea to generate “User Generated Content!” So we partnered with communications again and so was born the contest. I take special pride that I was the one who gave it its name:  “My UMass Boston.”

Today Crystal Bozek in the communications office organizes the My UMass Boston contest each year and through her excellent work,  its popularity is quickly growing. Perhaps, more than the monetary award that awardees receive is the remarkable recognition they are granted when the top videos are shown at commencement. The My UMass Boston videos are among the most watched on the university’s channel.

So one million clicks really means so much for UMass Boston. One million clicks means we now have a vibrant home for the voice of our university. It is a home that is complemented by the university’s web video platform, ITunes University, and other emerging technologies.

One million clicks means that when some viewer in some distant place is watching a video about a cat who can juggle, or some another arcane, overnight YouTube video sensation, that person might possibly stumble upon the intellectual and social oasis  that is www.youtube.com/umassboston. And who knows how that viewer might  be inspired to connect with UMass Boston’s mission of knowledge for public good.

Nan Cormier, M.A.  is director of advancement communications

www.umb.edu/giving

www.alumni.umb.edu

A few years ago, I visited my daughter’s fifth grade class to present on “What Do I Want to be When I Grow Up” day.  Oh god, I thought the night before. How am I going to make the job of professional fundraiser aka “asker for money” exciting?

But I  found a way.

After telling the students about the basics, I wrote four charities on the white board: A homeless shelter, a youth program, a new library, and a hospital. I divided the students into groups of 5, and with some facsimile “checks” ranging from $10,000 to $1,000,000, I instantly made each group “wealthy.”

One requirement: “You have to invest your money in one of the four charities AND you have to tell me why it is the smartest  investment for the amount of money you have.” And I asked that a spokesperson from each group serve as the fundraiser, making a pitch for why their selected charity deserved their largesse.

How thrilling to share a room with 25 bright and engaged venture philanthropists. They were savvy, passionate, and persuasive about their choices. They reinvigorated my commitment for raising money for programs that truly have tremendous social impact. They affirmed my choice to remain a development officer at UMass Boston, a place where such programs bloom as prolifically as the summer flowers adorning our ocean-side campus.

Driving to work today, somehow that presentation at the Brackett School in Arlington wafted back into my consciousness. But this time I found myself imagining I was the rich one. What would I do with my money if I could become a generous philanthropist? What UMass program would I support if I could write the check (a real one this time) today?

“This time I found myself imagining I was the rich one.”

When you pull off 93 South onto the Columbia Road exit you are greeted to your left by a series of pan handlers, beggars, there’s really no good word for them because they are so desperate. Their Sharpie marked cardboard signs say so much. “Veteran with family to feed,”  “Homeless, will work for pay,” and other messages which change given the vicissitudes of the economy or weather or other factors we cannot even comprehend.

We all drive by these guys (or women) from time to time. And they never fail to remind us of our humanity as our stomachs grow tight and our angst rises. With nervousness or embarrassment or compassion we either look away, while, say,  sipping a Starbucks, or reach into our brief cases to find a buck or two to give them. There is no one right way to respond. Whether we do or do not donate, we are ambivalent.

I would invest confidently in UMass Boston’s Center for Social Policy.

Where would I  invest my money? I would make the largest gift possible to UMass Boston’s Center for Social Policy. Because for the last two decades, the Center for Social Policy has applied people-centered research to honing the tools to fight poverty and its consequences in Boston, the Commonwealth, and beyond.

Bridging the worlds of research, policy, and practice, the center has collaborated with community members, non-profit organizations, government agencies and UMass Boston institutional partners to shape and reshape policies that address the root causes of economic hardship and social exclusion. They are making it so that the Columbia Road pan handlers may some day no longer exist.

What is most remarkable to me, and the distinctive competence of this center’s work, is that it has intentionally used a bottom up approach to engage with the many parties whose potential is limited by the burdens of poverty. They’ve widened the circle of response in addressing the vexing complexities of alleviating the conditions of poverty by including the poor themselves. People like the guys who greet me day in and out on my commute.

I’d make an endowment gift to the Center for Social Policy’s research so that their approach, which has realized the human potential of many over two decades, will continue to be a bold force in poverty alleviation in perpetuity. My gift would not be followed with the anxiety I always feel around supporting the homeless on the street. I know that my gift will make a dynamic contribution to addressing the root causes of poverty. Because of it, there will be fewer poor people tomorrow.

On October 17th the Center for Social Policy will celebrate its anniversary at Honoring Leaders in Economic and Social Justice, a special event to honor the advocacy, policy research, philanthropy, and progressive leadership of courageous visionaries—past and present—who are finding solutions to ending economic disparity and serving as the soul of our body politic.

Barney Frank will receive the Chancellor’s Award for Exemplary Service. The event will also salute a rising generation of leadership who are using creativity, strategy, and generosity to inspire social prosperity for all. If you join us on this special evening you will understand first hand about what I have written here.

The Center is seeking sponsorships for this event. I will give what I can to extend their remarkable work. I hope you will too.

Give Now>

Nan Cormier, M.A.  is director of advancement communications.

www.umb.edu/giving

Yesterday I fell in love two times — with two different people: Gabby and Robbie.

I am in good company by feeling  uplifted by the charisma, talent, resilience, and deep faith of Gabby Douglas, America’s “Flying Squirrel,” our remarkable gold medal gymnast. She makes me want to repeat the cartwheels and roundoffs I did in my suburban backyard as an eleven-year-old, emulating the great Nadia Comaneci.

While the circle of admiration around my second new love, Robbie, is much smaller, it is no less adoring. Robbie, a Dorchester 4th grader, is a participant in the university’ Camp Shiver, a month long program which culminates today.

Robbie and his counselor, Colleen Dorsey, give the 2012 Camp Shriver the thumbs up.

Camp Shriver brings children with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities together so that they have the opportunity to improve their sports skills, social skills and self-esteem, while developing positive peer relationships and making new friends.

Most camps serve kids without disabilities, some serve kids with disabilities. But ours, sponsored by our Center for Social Development and Education, serves an equal number of both.

Therein lies its dynamism. Remarkably, the camping staff are not told who is who — with or without — but are trained expertly to provide the support and attention to insure that EVERYONE thrives and leaves camp a stronger person. And that everyone has the summer of their lives.

I’ll never forget the first time I heard Center for Social Development Director Gary Siperstein, one of the saints that has been hanging around Columbia Point for decades, explain in just one sentence the essence of his research and outreach programs.

Once a kid with a disability looked him straight in the eye and told him that he had never had a friend. Since then, Siperstein, with the help of a growing roster of funders, has devoted his life to creating programs to ensure that he never hears that sentiment again.

Robbie told me he is tremendously grateful for camp. He had an uncommon eloquence for a preteen saying that camp “gives kids with disabilities the opportunity to have an equal share of freedom as  kids without disabilities.”

He continued to tell me that next fall when the campers go back to their normal lives, everyone will be more confident and that he, in particular, will have fewer tantrums because he now knows himself better. “Why does Camp Shriver make kids more confident,” I asked Robbie, as a whirl of soccer ball kicking campers flew by me.

“Because this camp teaches that everyone is created equal,” Robbie replied.

The pride in his eyes was familiar to me. I had seen it again and again in the U.S. women’s gymnastics team when they stuck landings, twisted higher than Nadia could have ever imagined in 1976, and bonded powerfully in spite of each young woman’s fierce determination to be the world’s best.

We will never have a full appreciation of the inner strength that Gabrielle Douglas relied upon to help her become one of the world’s greatest athletes. That strength came from loving family, coaches, and her religious faith. But Gabby had to cultivate the courage to access all that support, even when the challenges felt insurmountable.

Camp Shriver has been the same catalyst in Robbie’s life. For two summers it has provided a source of support and a community of people who have cultivated his courage to believe in himself. While his challenges do not encompass staying balanced on a 3.9 inch wide beam, I bet they feel equally overwhelming at times. But Camp Shriver has shown Robbie, and his 120 fellow campers, that they too, can be great.

UMass Boston is deeply grateful for our generous partners in making Camp Shriver a success:

P&G Gillette
The Bank of America Foundation
The Reebok Foundation
The Rite Aid Foundation
The Summer Fund
The MENTOR Network
The Boston Bruins Foundation
The Finish Line Youth Foundation
Massport
The Red Sox Foundation
Stop and Shop
Harvard Pilgrim Health Care
Whole Foods

Make a gift to Camp Shriver>

Nan Cormier is director fo advancement communications

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