Local Nonprofit Receives Four Grants AND Facilitates Magnified Giving With Their Own Program Participants

October 14, 2021 | Written by Lindsey Barta

Teachers and students from Lakota East Freshman School, one of the four schools who selected GLAD House as their grant recipient, share about their experience in the Magnified Giving program. One Lakota student who advocated for GLAD House, Alissa Pisano, courageously shares the poignant reason it was so meaningful to her that GLAD House received their grant.

Teachers and students from Lakota East Freshman School present their grant to GLAD House during a virtual Giving Ceremony. Youth from GLAD House also had the opportunity to present a grant to a local nonprofit during their own Giving Ceremony.

One local nonprofit had a special opportunity this year - their clients both gave and received Magnified Giving grant funds! At Magnified Giving, we hope to teach philanthropy to all students in our region, especially high-risk students, who have so much to gain from the empowering benefits of giving and serving. This year, we reached more high-risk students than ever through our Extension Programs, or programs hosted outside of a traditional classroom or club environment. Many agencies in our community work directly with youth every day through after-school programming, and these programs are the perfect place to integrate our philanthropy curriculum and grant-making process!

GLAD House is just one of several local nonprofits who facilitated Magnified Giving with the youth in their program. The mission of GLAD House is to improve the lives of children and their families by breaking the cycle of addiction, and they integrated the Magnified Giving curriculum into their programming with youth ages 5-12 who are impacted by a family member with an addiction. These students selected Bethany House Services as their grant recipient. But their connection with Magnified Giving didn’t end there - GLAD House was selected as the recipient of four grants selected by other Magnified Giving programs!

Our Director of Advancement, Carey Kuznar, says, “It’s such a beautiful cycle that these high-risk youth, who as participants in GLAD House programming are so often the recipients of others’ generosity, should learn that they too have time, talent, and treasure to give to others! I love that students in our program support wonderful nonprofits like GLAD House, who in turn facilitate the Magnified Giving program with their own youth and select a grant recipient themselves!”