Opening a window of possibilities: USA experience of a Ukrainian fellow

By: Taras Repytskyi

Taras came to Allowance for Good from Ukraine as part of the US State Department's Professional Fellow Program. He spent 6 weeks as a fellow at Allowance for Good.


"Congratulations you have been chosen as a finalist of the Professional Fellows Program and you will be spending 6 weeks in the USA working at a NGO". A summary of the message I received on a cold winter day, which gave me even bigger goose bumps, as I knew that tremendous possibility awaits, which will broaden my horizon and open new opportunities.

Since quite a young age, I was convinced that traveling and understanding different attitudes of people is a very welcoming feature especially if you work for the sake of the community and development. I visited a lot of countries in Europe in order to see the approaches, interesting ideas and gather new knowledge, so I can build a greater society in my Ukraine.

Taras, Elizabeth, and Karin at the office on International Vyshyvanka Day.

Upon arriving here, in Washington and later Chicago and Evanston, my first feeling was, "I am in a movie." I was curious to explore each day and each second, as a lot of things indeed were different or at least as they are not usually done or made in Europe.

The first and major discovery to me was the community and civil society here. There is a huge amount of organizations and people who know a lot about charity and philanthropy and usually support different events by volunteering or donating money. It all starts with proper education and right attitude at early age throughout life. Through Allowance for Good, I was able to attend classes at Niles North High School, Northwestern University, and Loyola University to discover exciting curricula about civic engagement and community development. I made a few presentations on the political situation in Europe and Ukraine in particular. The high school students were really eager to get to know some of the aspects of social, educational, and political life there. To some of them it was a true revelation to learn about the situation in Crimea and war on the east of Ukraine.

I met bright people who are so willing to enhance their level of knowledge in these spheres. In Ukraine we seriously lack such programs and strategies for the society, and ideas written in my notebook will help me to make some of them real.

Another issue in Ukraine is that we have quite a different environment and recent history. People of Ukraine, because of living under a soviet regime which worshiped state or ruling party rather than people and communities, shaped the attitude of people towards common goals and better well-being. Now, after recent revolutions and uprisings of the nation, we can build upon that as we became much stronger, united, and passionate about social change.

My knowledge benefited a lot from the work with the incredible team of my host organization, Allowance for Good – Elizabeth, Aimee and Karin, who helped me to look upon issues of NGO work and youth programs from a different perspective and approach, which can definitely bring more results for the community. Job shadowing them was a real pleasure and I hope my fellowship will create new possibilities for them as well. For that, we started working on mutual grant proposals, so in the future our cooperation can grow stronger and our activities even more international. The first project is scheduled to be implemented this fall and will be concentrating on empowering youth from Lviv and Sykhiv districts with knowledge on social responsibility and community building. Kids will also have a chance to create and realize a social project of their interest, as well as a chance to work on identity building of their school.

My stay in the USA wouldn’t be the same if I wasn’t also lucky enough to be hosted by the Cernek family to explore the lifestyle of American households and daily life. There a lot of things about culture and cuisine I will be taking home with me, such as pancakes on weekends ☺

I would like to thank American Councils, WorldChicago, and especially Allowance for Good for an amazing opportunity to get a first-hand experience for future work I can bring to my community.

That’s would be all for now. I don’t say good-bye – I say welcome to new possibilities and Ukraine is awaiting each American to visit.

Giving for Greater Impact

By: Bella
Bella is a participant in the Emerging Leaders in Philanthropy: Changemakers class. 

A giving circle in technical terms is a form of participatory philanthropy where groups of individuals donate their own money or time to a pooled fund, decide where to give the funds away to charity or community projects and, in doing so, seek to increase their awareness of and engagement in the issues covered by the charity or community project. But a giving circle to me is a groups where you donate time, talent and money to a passion of you and your group. Giving circles can also have a greater impact on an organization, where as an individuals donation can only go so far. 

A giving circle has many benefits, the major on is a greater impact. Another benefit is having engagement with the community, friends, family and neighbors. In a giving circle engagement is key, because it is is participation. My group of AFG participants worked together and engaged together to raise money and talk about the most eye opening issues to ourselves and our passionate issues. This way we could make a difference in not only our lives but in others. 

Some of the challenges that I faced was deciding the organization that needs that most help, because one issue is not better that the other, it is where u are passionate about helping make a difference in that issue to support the solution not the problem. Another issue I faced was making my voice herd, because in a giving circle it is hard to all say an equal amount of ideas, but I found that listen is just as important as speaking and even then listen to some on can inspire even greater thoughts than u imagined. 

I am most proud of reaching our goal of 100 dollars which was matched by AFG. We raised 106 dollars and ended up to by 212 dollars, by the end. I am also proud, because I now realize how much more of a impact you/we can have on some one. With this money we decided to complete a project and donate the rest to working towards completing a project. 

Something to Talk About: GPS 2013

On Monday, June 24th, 2013, Allowance for Good launched its second annual Global Philanthropy Summit, which brings together a catalytic group of youth for intensive gatherings to advance personal understanding in and encourage collective action toward global education equity.

Zoe reflects on Day 2 of GPS, during which we heard from Crossroads Advisors, Crown Family Philanthropies, and Google.

Sometimes life decides to hit you over the head with a big foam bat. Today traveling down Wacker drive, I had a small epiphany on a big idea. We’ve been talking a lot about asking “what’s wrong?” and making sure that our services are actually helping and are actually needed. That communication is one of the necessary things for any program to work, whether in Uganda or Louisiana. The idea that there are things people don't need aid with, or that people can actually suffer from the misappropriation of aid is not something I’ve really thought of. I have to admit, and I know its sad, but its not something that's occurred to me before. I don’t like to think that good intentions can go wrong.

When I was in the 6th grade, I organized a coat drive. I knew that the shelter, Connections for the Homeless, needed to increase their amount of winter clothes they could distribute if they wished to provide for the homeless in Evanston. I gathered coats from November till January and gave them to the shelter. This worked because I had close personal connections with the shelter. It doesn’t work nearly as well when the place the donations are going to is a NGO is a developing, third world country. We don’t know what they are doing and can't infer what they need from halfway across the world like we can in our own communities. The biggest idea I’ve gathered, as to working in and with philanthropy, is Communication. Talk about ideas, talk to people, and talk with people. Create a conversation.

Communications is an important part of the world, since more people have a cellphone than access to a toilet. Companies like Google are helping to create ways to open lines of communication and connecting the world. By using their technology and going above and beyond, Google is giving in several key areas both locally and globally. As an internet company Google understands how important communication is in the modern age.

Personally, I really like what Google is doing. They are applying their skills and the skills of their “Googlers” to help the world. They have such an expansive network, and do so much to aid in the creation of communication that I feel they were the real focus today. We have so many opportunities to connect with the world these days, we need to use them. We need to apply our ability to be able to chat with people on another continent to our ideas, and combine it in a way to benefit humanity.