So, Seth, what is the purpose of the Faiths Initiative and how did you get involved?

Seth:  It has a variety of purposes. The program was created to educate, empower, and train High School age youth in leadership skills and teach them about philanthropy and nonprofits in the San Francisco Bay Area. The participants in the program had to come from a faith-based nonprofit organization that focused on youth.

I’ve been working with a social justice youth program from a Jewish perspective, JYCA, Jewish Youth for Community Action for the past three years.  You had to be nominated to participate in the Faiths Initiative and JYCA nominated and sponsored me. We had to write a long essay and I was interviewed. I was the only Jewish kid. Most of the  youth came from Christian backgrounds but I believe there were one or two teenagers that came from a Buddhist and Islamic background. We were a group of fourteen.

What type of activities did you do in the course of the summer? What was your favorite part?

Seth: In truth, the best part was getting the $2,000 award for participating in the program.  It’s the first time I’ve ever earned  a large amount of money. In terms of what we learned, I thought going through the process of researching and then giving $15,000 in grants was both fun and informative, if at times difficult.

Before we talk more about your experience as a grantmaker, could you give a sense of what other activities were involved during the program.

Seth: About two-thirds of the time we interned with a youth-oriented nonprofit. I worked with Youth Services California. I’m not sure I got a whole lot out of that time. I was primarily doing data-entry work. I did help organize and participate in a three-day conference on youth organizing, which was worthwhile. I got a sense of what it takes to organize an event like that.

The other times we were at the San Francisco Foundation. We had a lot of presentations on the difference types of nonprofit and how they do their organizing: their programs, services, who they’re trying to help in the community. We also heard many outside speakers talk about philanthropy, what it means, how foundations work with the nonprofits and other similar topics. Most of the presentations were well done and kept us engaged. A big piece of our time was also spent in researching youth programs in the Bay Area and then giving them grants.

What was that experience like in being a grantmaker?

Seth: In the end it was rewarding, but the process we went through was often stressful and sometimes frustrating. Making decisions was hard. We had to narrow down a large number of groups into a  final grant’s list of seven organizations. We researched the groups ourselves -- they did not apply to us. There was no proposal, only our research, interviews, and then speaking on behalf of the organization in front of the group.

It was particularly hard finding groups that qualified under the Faiths Initiative’s guidelines. We were looking for Bay-Area nonprofits that operate on religious principles or out of a religious congregation with secular services provided to youth.  In most cases, the nonprofits we found were really small and had little fundraising experience. Most of these groups had never prepared a proposal and when we talked with them about their projects, they had a hard time providing us with the information we needed.  If they had actually written a proposal instead of just being interviewed by us, they would have been better prepared in answering our questions. For most of these groups this was their first grant.

We did telephone calls, site visits, and a lot of research. What pleased me is that most of the grants went to programs that were too small to get money from traditional sources.  Our grants were risky, and I liked that.

Describe the decision-making process.

Seth: Once we found organizations that met our guidelines, we had the power to make decisions. Faiths Initiative’s staff had little say. We used many different group processes to come to our decision, through group discussion and a great deal of negotiation at the end.

There were a lot of factors that went into our final decisions. I was surprised that often the most enthusiastic, well-spoken presenter received the grants. Those groups may not have  met our other criteria such as how large an impact a few grant dollars would have on their organizations, but the ability to communicate well overshadowed other factors we would consider, such as  how well the mission fit with our funding goals. One of the most important things I learned is that our grantmaking group worked well together because we knew each other and we got along. If these things hadn’t been true, making the decisions would have been much more difficult.

What skills are you going to take back to JYCA from this experience?

Seth:  I have a much better idea of what it takes to apply for a grant. I can also now have a better sense of the type of groups that are providing youth services in our area.  Certainly my group decision-making skills improved -- and I’ll use that throughout my work with JYCA and beyond.