I am happy that I did a blog about my philanthropy efforts this fall semester.  I believe that this blog will be helpful for future philanthropy chairs because of the detail I provided about my events.  I know I did not have this type of help when I started this position, so I hope that this will give future and other philanthropy chairs help when they are feeling confused or in need of direction.  I wish I was able to add a little more information about the events we did and the cancellations. By the end of the semester, there were a lot of cancellations that never had a follow-up conversation.  In the past with cancellations, the organization would try to reschedule the event but that did not happen this year.  This year was a little different because there was an attempted philanthropy event that the Panhellenic Council tried to put on, but ended up cancelling almost all activities besides the fundraising.  Huge disappointment.

My key “take-aways” from this class were the products we made, which includes the screencast-o-matic, PSA, podcast, and blogs.  These were memorable because I have never had to use these applications before.  It was a little difficult at first, but I got the hang of it, watched YouTube videos for help, and successfully submitted all assignments.  I had a really good time recording myself and interviewing my friend.  I thought it was a great way to change up the blogs and make them more interesting.  I also really liked my group members, we seemed to always be on the same page and understanding of each others concerns or problems.  Our group never fought or had any disagreements.  That was mostly because of the way the group work was assigned.  We always asked each other for help and clarification when instructions were confusing.

Overall, enjoyed the class and happy I have products to show employers.

 

 

My memes are relatable to Philanthropy chairs because of the stress that is felt when they make their initiatives happen.  Meme #1 is Batman slapping Robin in the face which represents Me slapping people who don’t believe in Philanthropy.  I think it is very funny because I sometimes feel anger when people do not believe in causes or do not want to participate. The second meme refers to our philanthropy events that involve collecting cash in exchange for a good or service.  When people say that they do not have cash, we always offer our Venmo name, and then when they say they do not have a Venmo, you stand there, awkward and in disbelief.  You usually smile and wait for them to say something or walk away.  This is a feeling that multiple girls in my sorority have and will relate too.  The last meme shows the relief  that Philanthropy Chairs feel when they reach their fundraising goal and the initiatives that have being planned for a while- sleeping, stress-free and smiling.

 

Photo Citations:

BabyCentre Medical Advisory Board. “When Can I Let My Baby Sleep Alone?” BabyCentre UK, BabyCentre Blog, http://www.babycentre.co.uk/a536773/when-can-i-let-my-baby-sleep-alone.

No. “When You Try to Pet a Dog and It Growls at You Pic.twitter.com/PNiYQE823B.” Twitter, Twitter, 15 June 2014, twitter.com/imagrumpycat/status/478024168261160960?lang=en.

“Batman Slapping Robin.” Laundry Viking Meme Generator – Imgflip, imgflip.com/i/2eals0.

All images were made on Imgflip.com.

 

This is a screencast-o-matic video of my “How to be a Successful Philanthropy Chair” presentation. This video gives guidance to future and current philanthropy chairs for those who are feeling uneasy. I was my sororities first Executive Board Philanthropy Chair and I wish I had some help when I started. I hope you enjoy!

I expect users to find my video when they are looking for motivation and encouragement.  The whole point of the video is to give sorority philanthropists advice and guidance when they are feeling lost.  The position could get confusing and discouraging at times, so I wanted to combat those feelings with my video.  They will find it worth watching because it will help them in their time of need. Wolf describes that participants use Youtube to help with their self-confidence which is what my video aims to do.  A participant says that “After watching a video … I feel confident that this was something I could do” which is how I want girls to feel after watching my video (Wolf 2018).  This video clearly describes important aspects of the job and how to successfully deal with problems which should help girls feel more comfortable in the role.  Another Wolf quote that I find inspiring is “The practice of watching videos was a way for participants to configure who they are, who they might be, and who they want to be” (Wolf 2018).  I felt when I became Philanthropy Chair of my sorority, I learned about myself, my leadership qualities, and how easily I could adapt in difficult or confusion situations.  So I hope this video gives girls confidence and ability to find out leadership qualities about themselves during their college experience.  Overall, I hope Wolf’s findings are true for my audience because I would really like to positively influence young philanthropists’ lives.

Works Cited:

Wolf, Christine T. “DIY Videos on YouTube: Identity and possibility in the age of algorithms.” First Monday. http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/6787/5517 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

This Philanthropy initiative has been a staple in my organizations philanthropy efforts throughout the years.   We have been selling T-shirt in the Fall since before 2016.  This event raises at least $10,000 for an organization of our choice.  This year, we raised our goal amount of $10,000 for the Kids in Need Foundation by selling the Official Rutgers Blackout Game T-shirt.  I am super proud that we were able to raise this money, but it did not come without difficulty.

First off, the shirts came in late.  So instead of have 2 weeks to sell 1200 shirts, we only had 10 days. Our main way of selling is to table outside our house on College Ave with a goal to sell 10 shirts per hour.  This semester I wanted to add more tactics into our selling plan because tabling is not enough.  In addition to tabling outside of our house, we did a preorder form for people to order, pay, and pick up at the house.  We went to Fraternity chapter meetings to sell the shirts which was actually surprisingly effective.  We sold an average of 7 shirts per chapter which helped spread the word of our sales and allowed us to increase our community outreach and relations. We also went to dorms on College Ave and Livingston to sell shirts and spread the word which could have increased the sales at the table.   We also sent out an email to younger girls who came to our recruitment September recruitment event to continue to spread the word and have an additional communication with girls rushing which could help during formal recruitment.   This game was also parents weekend so we sent out a letter to parents and connected an additional payment method for credit cards.

I was extremely worried throughout the whole process.  I felt very discouraged because girls did not seem interested in participating and it was clear that only a small majority of the chapter was interested.  That is a common issue that happens during this event so its important to not let it get you down.

It ended up being very successful. There was less than 200 shirts left over which is a small percentage of the total lot.  We had Smalls and Extra-Larges left over which wasn’t necessarily our fault.  The student body was just more interested in mediums and larges. We don’t survey that sizes of interest before we order; we just compare what sold from previous years and order from that those conclusions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Pre T-shirt Sales” photo by Juliana Kuzmick.  All rights reserved.

“Post T-shirt Sales” photo by Juliana Kuzmick. All rights reserved.

1. What does the header image convey about your website, and how does this relate to meeting the information needs of your target audience? My header conveys the philanthropy I am raising money for this semester. This semester, my sorority and I are raising money for the Kids In Need Foundation. This Foundation collects and donates school supplies to teachers and students in poverty stricken areas.   This will be our 3rd project through this foundation.  We donated $10,000 to this foundation last year from our T-shirt sales initiative. We also did a local backpack stuff-and-drop through this foundation for schools in New Brunswick. These backpacks were filled with a notebook, markers, pencils, and a letter from one of our sisters, wishing the students the very best at the beginning of the school year. They are getting dropped of this week!  This semester I am in charge of another T-shirt initiative that will hopefully raise $13,000 for the cause. It relates to the target audience because any philanthropist knows what they are doing it for. They know their cause pushes them to continue to fundraise and beat previous numbers.
2. Where did you find your source images? How do you know that you are allowed to reuse them?  I found my sources from pxhere.com. All these photos are free to use and have the Creative Commons license very visible. Both of my images were license CC0 meaning they are free for use.
3. Briefly address the production process. How did you make use of image editing techniques described in Manovich’s article to create a multi-layer image? The production of this photo was pretty difficult.  Photoshop is known for being really difficult and Pixlr, being almost a replica, did not make it any easier.   Even with the notes and the guidance, if your downloaded image does not fit in the dimensions, you are pretty much out of luck. I used multiple layers so it was able to separate the images and place them without regard of the other images. I know in other software, adding images could really change all the other boxes in the document. Manovich describes layering as “It redefines both how images are created and what an “image” actually means” (Manovich 51). It makes creation a lot easier and it makes the one perceived one image into many different images. From an organizational stand point, it really helps.
4. Compare your production process to that of a single-layer bitmap image of the sort that Davison describes. How is it similar or different? It was different because I did not draw any of these images with my mouse (even it looks like I might have). This images were downloaded from the internet, duplicated, and transformed to the design of my liking.  He mentions the relationship between the bitmap and the mouse which is still a very relevant problem with the Pixlr software. I tried to fill in the hearts in my image but it didn’t look good. The bit-map and mouse relationship caused jagged edges and blotches of color. “While anti-aliasing effectively ‘solves’ the problem of jaggies in bitmaps, it requires a system of sufficiently high resolution and bit-depth” Davison says about the software that is available.  I had this problem today, making me assume that this software is not as new as the recent MS Paints’. Compared to MS Paint, my process was very difficult, but for different reasons.  MS Paint is hard because you need to have a steady hand while drawing. Pixlr was difficult because there needed to be a certain way of layering and editing the images that isn’t as apart as you would think. I think Pixlr has a pretty negative User Experience because of the difficulty of finding certain functions.

Hello Everyone!

This blog will document all my experiences as Philanthropy Chair in Fall 2018.  I had this position last semester and I had a lot of challenges, so I think it might be interesting to document the problems and how I solved them for the next Philanthropy chairs to come.  I want to take pictures of our events with other organizations and talk about how they went, how people responded, and how the volunteers got people to donate. I am qualified to make this website because I have been involved in philanthropic efforts since high school. More recently in Fall 2017, I was Event Captain for a philanthropy event that (unfortunately) did not end up happening, but I still wanted to raise money during the semester.  I did not need the community event to happen to continue to raise money for those in need. I was passionate about making a difference in children’s lives and continued the philanthropy efforts for the Kids In Need Foundation. The next semester, I got elected as my sorority’s Philanthropy Executive Board position and will have this position until December 2018. I had to send in an application saying why I wanted this role, how I have demonstrated interest in the past, and how committed I will be to the position.  This was the first year that the position was on E-board and has other responsibilities into addition to philanthropic ones.  It was difficult to figure out where the position sat within the rest of e-board and which decisions were made by who. Because of my efforts in my prior position, the committee position-deciding committee thought that I would be great for the job.  I went into this position blind and I would like to help the future of this chapter as much as possible. I am very thankful for this opportunity and am excited that I can to leave a legacy in my chapter.

   

I had a hard time finding photos for this blog post.  For most searches, I did not get any relevant images that I could use.  I really don’t like changing the the settings on Advanced Search because it narrows the amount of options that are available to use. Lessig closes his argument with “What you know is that there is no way for us to kill this form of creativity. We can only criminalize it” (168).  He says we will criminalize creativity because it cannot be stopped and will not be stopped by copyright rules because there are ways around it.  I could have used other images that would be more fitting for this post, but because of the Free-to-use filter on Google, I wasn’t able to legally get the photos I wanted.  I could have used the ones I wanted without regard of the law, but I decided to pick ones that went with the assignment. So I did the opposite of what Lessig is saying and let the Law stifle my creativity.

Image sources:

“The free high-resolution photo of symbol, money, business, cash, currency, dollar, seem, many, franklin, finance, funds, bank note, financial world, forex, us dollar, dollar sign, financial crisis, money handling” by Unknown Camera is licensed under Creative Commons CC0.

“The free high-resolution photo of word, number, pool, business, brand, font, games, leadership, success, management, indoor games and sports” by Unknown iPad is licensed under Creative Commons CC0.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton