Non-Profits Continue to Give Back

Throughout the semester I have focused my blog on non-profit organizations.  I have spent various amount of hours researching the various research methods of non-profits, and studying the patterns of their donors.  But today I wanted to focus on something more personal and closer to me as an individual.  Rather than defining research methods and stating how non-profits could better their research efforts I am going to talk about how non-profits benefit us as a society.

I read an article today called “Young Lumbee promotes community involvement”.  This article talks about a woman named Kendra Danielle Chavis who lost her apartment and all of her belongings in a tragic fire.  She was without a place to live and without any clothes or necessities to get her through the day.  But she was able to fine hope with help from her community.  “A local charity gave Chavis an $800 Wal-Mart gift card, the clothing retailer where she worked donated several hundred dollars worth of clothing, and local community members donated a television, an entertainment center and other household items.”  (Boney 2010)

With the support from community members Kendra was able to put her tragedy in the past and move on.  But Kendra’s story is different, instead of taking the donations and going back to her normal life she decided to dedicate her entire life to helping others.  Kendra began working on a platform called “UNITY” which stands for Uniting Neighbors Initially Takes You, this platform encourages people to become involved in their communities by helping out their neighbors.  Kendra used her tragedy to help others, where she even began volunteering with the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life and Special Olympics. 

I wanted to focus my blog on this topic today because we all need to take a step back at times and realize the good non-profits and philanthropy services are for our community.  Without the constant events and services put out by these organizations there would be very little community involvement.  Non-profits bring out the good in our communities, and are essential for any community success.  I decided to write my blog on non-profits this semester because I wanted to look into the organizations that have changed our society for the better.  We get so wrapped up in our own lives sometimes, and I wanted to look into the services done all across the country.  Through all of the research discussions we have had in class, I believe that I was able to learn a lot about the importance of research in any organization, especially non-profits.  Without research these great organizations would not remain successful, and stories such as Kendra’s would not exist.