If BU students can run a charitable foundation, so can we

There has been on going discussion about a community-based foundation in Allston/Brighton that would administer grants to local organizations and support projects in our neighborhood. I wrote back in September about Boston civic groups that raise and manage millions of dollars for similar improvements to their neighborhoods.

Friday's Globe writes about the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund and its "effort to nurture a future generation of philanthropists." Fidelity is giving $15,000 each to Boston University and four other schools and will "put the students in the role of real-life philanthropists." The students "will have a chance to form boards of directors, create donor guidelines, research prospective grant recipients, choose which nonprofits should get money and how much they should receive."

The $15,000 fund will be managed by a class of 24 BU management students and overseen by Kristen McCormack, faculty director of the public and nonprofit management program at BU's School of Management.

Fidelity program aims to nurture future philanthropists - The Boston Globe

This is a great opportunity for the BU students and leads directly to the suggestion that if students at BU can manage a charitable fund with help from Fidelity and BU, the residents of Allston and Brighton should be able to do the same thing with assistance from Harvard. Certainly Harvard knows more than enough about philanthropy, law, and governance to provide the technical support help prudently launch such an endeavour.

Harvard Business School - Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, Strategy for Philanthropic Organizations	Harvard Global Equity Initiative - Philanthropy	Social Enterprise in Action JFK School of Government, Harvard University
Harvard Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations: Philanthropy Classics Access Project	The Competitive Advantage of Corporate Philanthropy by Mark Kramer and Harvard Professor Michael Porter, winners of a 2002 McKinsey Award for outstanding work published in the Harvard Business Review that are likely to have a major influence on managers worldwide