Students in Professor Joy Anderson’s Money and Social Change course have been hard at work all semester developing their Theories of Change and deciding which local non-profits would receive a portion of their Learning by Giving grant. The recipients will be announced at the 2014 Grantee Party on Monday, December 1 from 5:00 to 7:30 PM. Details to come! In the meantime, here’s another update from Catherine Alvarado ’16:

Deciding on the final three organizations to give money to was a difficult process. The class needed two extended class sessions to review non-profits even after our all day Saturday class session. It was difficult to make a class of sixteen students agree on three non-profits that provided the most benefit for the community.  During these two extended days, Joy helped us acknowledge the group consensus problems we were having and lead us to explore possible solutions to make the entire class agree. Some of the disagreements we were having stemmed from having a better understanding and connection to certain organization because we already met them in class. In order to bring the class together and to come to a solution, many students proposed different strategies to make a final decision. We voted several times on the organizations to eliminate and to keep. At the end of our second class we decided to choose organizations that focused on community building and in systems change. Making a final decision was a great bonding experience because as a class we were able to work together and take in everyone’s viewpoint on social change.