Growing up in the suburbs of St. Paul, Minn., Missy Elumba says she benefited greatly by participating in the area's strong youth sports programs. As President of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) at Northeastern University, she wanted to extend that experience to others. So, instead of organizing a typical community service project, she founded the Husky Wish Gift, a philanthropic program that awards grants to Boston-area organizations working with youths in sport.
This past April, the Husky Wish Gift awarded its first six grants, ranging from $500 to $1,200. The Rope Burners of the Orchard Gardens Community Center, the Regan Youth League, the Sportsman's Tennis Club, the Hawthorn Youth Community Center, For Kids Only After School Inc., and the Roxbury Preparatory Charter School received the inaugural gifts.
The idea to start a grants program came to Elumba after taking a class that explained philanthropic theory. "In our SAAC meetings, we were brainstorming what we could do with the money in our budget and it just clicked," says Elumba, an ice hockey player who graduated this past spring. "As Northeastern student-athletes, we're required to do community service, and after seeing that the youth sports programs in Boston weren't as strong as where I grew up, this made sense."
Funding for the grants came from two places. Each year, the SAAC receives money from Northeastern's conference, the Colonial Athletic Association, but never utilizes all the funds. Second, the SAAC annually holds a Student-Athlete Date Auction, where two student-athletes from each team are auctioned off, along with a dinner that is donated by a local restaurant. This year, the fundraiser brought in more than $1,200, which went directly to the Husky Wish Gift.
With the necessary funds in hand, the SAAC set about finding organizations to award the grants to. A committee of five student-athletes, with help from an advisory group of two administrators, the assistant women's ice hockey coach, a professor, and a member of the student club NU Students4Giving, developed guidelines, a scoring rubric, and a request for proposals from interested organizations. The university advertised the program on its Web site and sent letters to some of its community partners.
The committee's biggest task was then determining which organizations deserved the money. It considered a number of criteria, including organizational strength, the group's history within the community, its budget, the practicality of the proposal, and whether the organization's mission was in line with that of the SAAC, which itself was sharpened through the process.
"A lot of it was figuring out who we were and what we believed in, because we wanted that to line up with the mission and goals of the people receiving funding," Elumba says. "We discussed the value of sports for us, including sportsmanship, teamwork, developmental growth, leadership, and self esteem."
Once the committee narrowed the initial group of approximately 18 proposals to eight finalists, it conducted on-site visits. "It was very helpful to see the organization up close," Elumba says. "Each group needed to prove to us that this small infusion of money would help so many kids for whatever amount of time. We spent hours going back and forth before deciding."
Although the student-athletes did all the leg work, they received some help along the way. "Our role as administrators was to foster the students' ideas and make sure we were in compliance with all rules that pertain to us," says Kelly Scafariello, Director of Compliance and Enrollment Services for Northeastern athletics. "For example, we explained to the students that because of NCAA rules, they couldn't give grants to a high school."
Both Elumba and Scafariello hope the Husky Wish Gift will grow from year to year. "Our goal from the beginning was to make this sustainable and reproducible," Elumba says. "A large part of my job was training and teaching the people who will be leading this next year. We want the program to continue and eventually see other schools do the same thing in their communities."
For more information visit: http://gonu.com/studentathletes/saac.htm.