College students help local nonprofit

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College students help local nonprofit

County News

Friday, 07 January 2011 13:05

GKTW03_010511-copy

News-Gazette Photos/Andrew Sullivan
Print materials, like that shown above and intended for both public viewing and fundraising purposes, for Give Kids the World were scrutinized by college students attending the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance conference this week.

By Fallan Patterson
Staff Writer
Kissimmee-based nonprofit Give Kids the World Village was the only organization in Osceola County to receive assistance from national college students working toward their certification in nonprofit leadership.
More than 600 college students from around the nation converged on the annual Nonprofit Leadership Alliance conference this week and more than 450 students spent Wednesday aiding local nonprofit agencies with specific case studies hoping their ideas help the organizations.
Students from universities in Washington D.C., Texas and Louisiana toured Give Kids the World, a unique resort for terminally ill children with Central Florida-based wishes, and tackled ways to quantify and measure how granting wishes helps the children. Measurement data aids in writing proposals to companies and corporations seeking funding partnerships.
“We view it as a contribution to the community,” Alliance President Wayne Branch said. “It provides the opportunity for the students to put into practice what they have been learning.”
Village President Pamela Landwirth designed the case study for the 20 students who visited the resort.

GKTW04_010511

College students attending the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance conference this week were at Give Kids the World in Osceola County working on their certificates of nonprofit leadership. The students, from all over the country, looked for ways to optimize and improve printed promotional and informational material distributed by Give Kids the World.

“More corporations are asking for nonprofits to provide a measurable return on investments of their donations, measuring social impacts through metrics, not just anecdotal,” the case study project application stated. “What metrics can be used to measure the impact of a wish on the wish child and the entire family?”
“Times are tough and we’re trying to find ways to promote ourselves to corporations,” Brandon Delpriore, assistant manager of operations for village, said.
Conference chaperone and alliance employee Ariel Green said the issue behind the case study lies with finding a system for measuring more than 104,000 stories of the children who visited the village since its inception in 1986.
“Does it have potential health benefits or extend the life of visitors? At this point, those kinds of statements cannot be said,” she said.
For most of the students, the conference provided the first case studies they have worked on, one of the final steps to be certified by the alliance.
“Research tells us that experience is an absolute qualifier in the nonprofit sector, even more so than the for-profit sector,” Branch said.
Kate Hatfield, 20, an undergrad at William Jewell College in Missouri, was one of a group of four students brainstorming ways GKTW can effectively lobby for more funding. Hatfield said with economic challenges being faced, nonprofit organizations need to have statistics to stay competitive.
“Businesses are wanting nonprofits to be more business-minded,” Katya Muller, 25, of Louisiana State University Shreveport, said.
Give Kids the World was one of 16 nonprofit organizations that benefited from the college student’s case studies.