Student fund managers award grants to local nonprofits

Future philanthropists get hands-on training — and community-based nonprofits receive much-needed funds — through Northeastern’s Students4Giving program. Through the program, human services students become experts in evaluating local nonprofits’ needs and decide where to award grants.

Northeastern is one of several academic institutions around the country selected in 2008 to participate in the program, which is financed by Fidelity and co-administered by Fidelity and the Campus Compact, a coalition of college and university presidents dedicated to building civic engagement, of which Northeastern's president is a member.

Under the program, Fidelity gives participating institutions $15,000 in seed funding to be managed by students involved in service learning. At Northeastern, the fund’s managers are students in a course called “Strategic Philanthropy and Nonprofit Management.”

With guidance from teachers, professional fundraisers, alumni, and community service-learning experts at Northeastern, students determine grant criteria and fundraising priorities, work to manage and grow the Students4Giving account, and identify community organizations for grant awards. They support nonprofits that address critical economic and social challenges facing the Boston neighborhoods of Roxbury, Mission Hill, Fenway, and the South End, such as affordable housing, homelessness, community development, public safety, education, youth violence, public health, and elder services.

This year, students made awards to three nonprofits: Haley House, the Hyde Square Task Force, and Urban Edge.

The Students4Giving program allows students to operate as a foundation, says Kristin Simonelli, associate director and service-learning coordinator for Northeastern’s Center of Community Service.

“They work directly with nonprofits and learn their perspective,” she says. “They learn all the steps a foundation goes through before it grants money to nonprofits.” In addition, says Simonelli, Fidelity has recognized the Northeastern students’ approach as a model for other colleges participating in the program.

“All of the things we’re talking about in the classroom have direct implications,” says Lori Gardinier, principal investigator for the program and director of Northeastern’s human services program. “The students are so jazzed.”

Says one student, “I’ll be a better nonprofit manager because now I understand how the donor’s side works.”

Long-term, the goal is for the fund to be sustained indefinitely. Gardinier supervises a student club that provides year-to-year oversight for the fund, even as students in the course come and go. This year, the students distributed just over half of their grant dollars, keeping the rest as a buffer while growing the fund.

Community organizations interested in being considered for grant funding can apply at www.humanservices.neu.edu/students4giving.