Ready to Go!

What happens when a young adult is ready to move out and find his or her own way? What did you do? Maybe you moved on to college after high school. Maybe you worked and went to school at night. Maybe you worked, traveled, lived with friends, did a year of service or followed your favorite band.

It’s no different when young adults age out of programs for foster youth. They take many different routes, too. Like young adults of all backgrounds, they sometimes just need a hand. On the Benevolent site, we’ve had many needs posted in which we hear from a high school grad who’s about to head off to college and needs a laptop, bus or train fare to get to college, or basic dorm room furnishings -- sheets, towels and the like. 

My goal is to graduate college,
join the army, and be independent. 
I would like to attend a university
and work in the health field.

Today, though, we’ve got a need posted to the site that’s new for us. Lemia is ready to make the move from the group home she’s been living in with other older youth in the child welfare system. She’s getting her own place and she’ll live independently while she’s in school studying for a career in health care. On the Benevolent site, Lemia’s asking for help with the funds necessary to get herself situated in her new place.

Lemia doesn’t have a family basement or closet to raid for towels or kitchenware, or a folding table to borrow while she works her way towards more “real” furniture and slowly accumulates the things that make an apartment a home. I have no doubt she’ll make her place into a warm and peaceful home, but it’ll take some time and some help.

That’s where we come in. We can step in where family would have handed down the folding table from the hall closet, where the lamp no one was using would have been pulled from a box of old things and where a parent or uncle would have joined in a trip to the store and footed the bill for a few essential pieces.

We can do this for Lemia who has already beaten the odds simply by graduating high school. The stakes are even higher now. While she is one of the 70% of former foster youth with a desire to attend college, barely 5% wind up completing either a two-or four-year degree.

Some sobering facts: 50% of “aged out” foster youth are homeless within 18 months of emancipation, 25% are incarcerated within two years, 60% of these young women become mothers themselves within four years. Lemia’s got clear and impressive dreams and they bear no resemblance to those difficult statistics.

I spent a few years running group homes in Chicago and I can’t tell you how incredible each of those kids was. Every one of them had been through many foster care homes and each one had lived through situations that no child should experience. That’s where their similarities ended. They were as different from one another as kids should be and their gifts, strengths and dreams were inspiring.

I have no idea what Lemia’s seen or what she’s had to overcome to thrive. What I know is that she’s ready for what’s next and eager to get started. She’s generous enough to share her story with us, and she’s hoping we’ll believe in her. Let’s.

- megan kashner

  founder & ceo

  Benevolent

 www.benevolent.net

Happy 2nd B'Day to the Benevolent Idea

The earliest visual depiction
of the Benevolent concept

Can you believe it’s been two years since I woke up with the idea for Benevolent? Yep. It was February 13^th, 2011. Hard to believe that a half-formed idea that was born on a random Sunday morning in a sleepy-headed state has blossomed into today’s Benevolent.

When I look back on my early thoughts and sketches (I really can’t draw, so I used comic software to create storyboards), I am amazed at what it’s taken to get here, what the road ahead looks like, and how many people have been and continue to be a part of Benevolent’s infancy and youth.

So today, I’d like to take a moment and pause to say “thank you.”

• Thank you to those who believed in this idea in its earliest days and encouraged me to pursue it.
• Thank you to my amazing team of staff, volunteers, pro bono do-ers and advisors, Benevolent’s board, advisory board, kitchen cabinets, and friends.
• Thank you to those visionary and trusting nonprofit partners who took a chance on this new idea when we had no track record and nothing to prove we could deliver.
• Thank you to those who have stepped up to support Benevolent’s birth and development.
• Thank you to those who came forward, eager to help someone else in this new way; and a special thanks to those who took an additional step and sent a note of encouragement to the people you were choosing to help.
• Thank you to the bravest of the brave, the determined people who shared their stories, their challenges, and their dreams with us and invited us in to be a part of their progress.

You may have noticed that we can’t seem to keep needs posted to the site these days. People out there in the world can’t believe that we’re actually in a situation where the desire of people to give is out-stripping the pace at which we can get needs up onto the site. We post them; people keep coming back to check the site and contribute; and the needs are filled. It’s a great problem to have because it shows clearly that this is a way that people are excited to give and engage. You all are pioneers in this new-fangled way of lifting our neighbors toward their goals.

Now we on the Benevolent team get to do the work necessary to get more and more needs up on the site; engage more nonprofit partners to let their clients know the help is available; and expand the model to more cities.

So what are we actually doing back here behind the Benevolent curtain? We’re working on expanding to three new cities in an intensive way over the coming months. When we expand, we’ll be focusing on forging partnerships with excellent nonprofits, learning as we go, and improving what we do so that it’s easier and easier for everyone to engage – nonprofits, people who are facing challenges, and people who want to give.

For now, then, know that we’re here in the Chicago area, working on hiring excellent people, raising essential money, and making critical improvements so that we can achieve our dream of becoming national and providing a resource to allow people to connect, give and get help in ways that they couldn’t before.

Thanks for believing in us and thanks to all those who have been a part of making the first two years of the Benevolent concept so groundbreaking and thrilling.

- megan kashner, founder & ceo

  Benevolent

  www.benevolent.net

Bugged

Ever wonder why we post needs for furniture on the Benevolent site? If you’re anything like me, when you moved into your first apartment, you made several trips to local thrift stores to find things like upholstered chairs, recliners, padded kitchen chairs, and couches. It might not have looked like a million dollars, but it served the purpose and it made our apartments feel like home.

Maria “has been sharing a two-bedroom mobile house with her two sisters, their five children, her stepfather and her mother,” says Sizzy West, Maria’s Home Visitor.  Now this young mom has succeeded in moving herself and her daughter into their own apartment and seeks our help in getting the funds she needs to buy furniture for her first-ever living room.  We might wonder why she needs to buy it new, rather than at a thrift store.

There is one simple answer: the reality of bed bugs. No, Maria does NOT have bed bugs, but they are the reason she can’t buy upholstered furniture from a thrift store.

Chicago has been one of the nation’s top cities in bed bug infestation in the last few years – not an honor we relish. Whenever we hear news stories or read articles about how to protect ourselves from bed bugs, they inevitably contain a sentence like this one from Dateline on NBC:

“Do not buy used furniture (especially bedding items or upholstered items), or at least do not bring them into your home until you, or a competent expert, have inspected them carefully for any signs of bed bugs.”

For a struggling earner, this turns the furnishing of a new apartment into a significant expense. It’s no longer a safe option for someone in a situation like Maria’s to purchase a couch from the local thrift store or to accept a contributed or hand-me-down mattress or padded chair.

Nonprofits that might once have accepted donations of furniture to help their newly-housed clients settle in have entirely stopped accepting these contributions. One news story reported: “Most agencies no longer accept donated beds or mattresses to resell or provide to clients in need.” So for Maria new furniture is not a luxury; it’s a necessity.

It would be easy for us to misunderstand someone who, like Maria, asks for help with furniture, and to quietly doubt the validity of her need without speaking up and questioning it. Things have really changed since I bought those tattered green armchairs and that well-worn brown couch back in the 1990s.

This is yet another example of the ways in which the small things can make a big difference.

- megan kashner

  founder & ceo

  Benevolent

  www.benevolent.net

More than the Monetary Value

“I really appreciate your help from the bottom of my heart. It is nice to know there are kind people still out there in the world.”	“The Benevolent Community has shown me overwhelming generosity. It has renewed my faith in humanity.”
“…it warms my heart to know that there are generous people out there…I say to others don't ever give up on your dreams and goals.”	“…more than the monetary value, I so greatly appreciate the thought behind the gift. Having a need is a burden, but your action has really lightened the load.”

When I conceived of the Benevolent concept a little over a year ago, I imagined that those who chose to contribute to meet the needs of the individuals on the site would be moved by their experience. I hoped that by allowing for a one-to-one connection between those with needs and those who could help, I would succeed in opening the eyes of donors to the realities of the circumstances faced by low-income adults every day as they strove toward their goals.

What I didn’t anticipate with the same clarity is how moved those who receive help through the Benevolent site would be by the support of those who contributed to their needs. Now I see it clearly. Our recipients are telling us that getting their need supported through Benevolent has been significant not only in a practical way, but also in a much deeper, much more personal way.

“The Benevolent Community has shown me overwhelming generosity. It has renewed my faith in humanity,” Bridgette tells us. She was helped by nine supporters who read her story of striving to complete her college education after having survived cancer.

When I read this and the responses of other recipients who were happily surprised to discover that there were people in the world who would choose to care about and help them – I saw clearly how those who have been trying as hard as they could for as many years as they can remember might easily lose sight of the humanity and kindness in their community and in others.

I know now that Benevolent is delivering more value than I had anticipated.

When we give to those with needs posted to Benevolent’s site, we’re gifting hope and inspiration, and delivering it with respect and humanity. This could seem trite to some, but imagine how impersonal the process of applying for and maintaining one’s unemployment eligibility, paying one’s tuition and rent, filling out papers for children’s school and for special services and supports and job programs can be.

In traditional applications for support or services, people are asked to fill out pages and pages of forms to prove that they’re worthy and not trying to bilk the system. On the Benevolent site, we’re asking questions like “What is particularly challenging about your situation? What is the toughest thing you face?” and “Why will meeting this need now move you towards your future goals?” and “Talk about what it will mean to you if you get your need met.”

These are questions that presume, up front, that the person who comes to Benevolent with a need is human, striving, and has feelings, reactions, and insight. The very uniqueness of this kind of respect and of the willingness of strangers to help out – the way it surprises and touches recipients -- demonstrates the deeply-ingrained impact of the ways we frame and treat need in our country and in our systems of support.

As we continue to meet people’s needs, we now know that we also get to restore their faith in humanity and let them know that there are generous, kind people in their community. Most importantly, we get to let people know that we see them, hear them, and hope they will succeed. That, in itself, is a gift.

- megan kashner, founder & ceo

Why These Needs?

Some of the needs on the Benevolent site don’t seem to conform to the over-a-hurdle type of need, like a tuxedo to enable someone to work as a banquet waiter or a sewing machine for a seamstress. Where do needs like beds, clothes, and school uniforms fit in?

Time after time, I’ve seen people forced to make decisions that impede their own progress towards greater sustainability because they need to meet basic needs of their households.

We know, for example, that Anne would have continued to purchase one cheap air mattress after another as they popped over and over, because that was all she could afford with her cash flow. Her goal, however, is to save up so that she and her son can get their own apartment. She was spending more on air mattresses over the course of a year than what it took to get her a bed through Benevolent. Staying with a friend while she gets back on her feet, now Anne is in a better position to reach for her goal and save the money to get her own place.

Facing basic need challenges while pursuing the next level of sustainability has the power to derail someone completely.

Monique is an interesting example of this potential. She is working and in college and asking for help with school uniforms and school supplies. The uniform is a good example of something that pops up in someone's life and can actually derail her. Monique bought her son a uniform for this school year in August, but by December he had outgrown it - something she didn't foresee or save up for.

I've seen mothers in this situation do one of several things…

• go to a payday loan store with catastrophic results
• borrow money from someone unscrupulous,
• get a second job and have to quit school,
• have sex or stay in a relationship for money,
• move into an unsafe or unhealthy place to save on rent.

These are things have happened in the lives of people I’ve worked with across a variety of settings. I’ve also seen (this was back in 1991) a mother who could afford only one school uniform for each of her children and so, like Anne buying air mattress after air mattress, this mom went to the laundromat every school night to wash her kids’ school uniforms.

Over time, of course, the things people do to meet basic needs or their skipping critical needs like vision-care can cost more than an up-front investment to meet the need would cost, but without taking one of the drastic steps above, how would the low-income adult get access to the liquid funds to pay the up-front cost?

That’s where we come in. That’s where we get to be a part of the story and to bring dignity and self-determination back into reach for those who invite us in.

Will our helping Monique with this unforeseen school uniform expense help keep her in college and on an upward path? We can’t know for sure. What we can know is that the person who knows her and validated her need has faith that Monique knows what she’s doing, what she needs help with, and how essential this help is to her ability to stay on her path. Our faith in Monique’s determination of her own most pressing needs might be the key to her continued success towards her goals.

- megan kashner, founder & ceo

The word to spread is...

If you’re wanting to spread the word about Benevolent, here’s the word to spread:

“Starting in mid-November, you and I will have the opportunity to connect directly with individuals who are facing hurdles, opportunities and challenges, and who are open to receiving our help as they strive to overcome and succeed. There will be a new platform, www.benevolent.net and it will be our chance to make a difference, one to one.”

Here’s how we’re getting there…

Next week, the Benevolent team will start our work in nonprofits across the Chicago community, talking with staff members and clients of local social service organizations. We’ll be listening to the stories of individuals living on very low incomes, each one facing a hurdle on his or her path to stability and greater success. We’re looking forward to sharing some of these stories in future blogs and on the pilot of our website.

In these initial weeks of our work in the “field,” we’ll be capturing the stories of people at a moment of need or opportunity in their lives, through our partners at the Cara Program, the Community Counseling Centers of Chicago (C-4), Family Focus, and Bethel New Life. As our work unfolds, we’ll extend to other nonprofits in other neighborhoods across our area. We’re aiming to get our site up, with several dozen individuals represented and ready for help, by mid-November. When that happens, our members’ stories will speak for themselves.

Why here? We chose Chicago as our pilot site for many reasons, the first of which is that Chicago is our home – both professionally and personally. We’ve built strong partnerships with these first few organizations and their staffs, people who believe in our mission and the work we are gearing up to do. At Bethel, for example, the leaders and staff would happily have helped us fuel the pilot site with the needs of fifty, one hundred, two hundred clients and families currently served by their various programs.

This tells us a great deal. That the need is great and immediate: individuals living on very low incomes are striving for more for themselves and their families, and they need their community – us – to help them realize their goals and dreams. That the nonprofits who know their communities’ needs in the greatest depth are excited to introduce a new resource into the mix, one which will help their clients voice their own stories. That people are seeking connection, affirmation and dignity in their work and in their lives.

What we’ll find out in the coming weeks is how best to provide a meeting ground between people who need help surmounting specific obstacles and others who want to help steady them on their paths, in a way that is within their reach to do. We will find out what resonates and what doesn’t; what the snags are, and how we can overcome them. We’ll come closer to our goal of getting help and support to people at critical moments in their lives.

We’re glad to have you along with us for this journey and to explore these new steps together. As we do, we hope you’ll start to spread the word about this pilot across your networks.

- Megan Kashner, Founder & CEO

Aunt Pearl – Benevolent Giving at its Best

When my Aunt Pearl lost her husband, Murray, she was devastated. She sat on her recliner in front of the TV for too many hours each day and she became very close with the ladies of QVC. In the few years following Murray’s death, my Aunt Pearl spent far too much on her QVC purchases. She bought knick-knacks and clothing, but mostly jewelry. Soon, her jewelry box filled with gemstone rings and necklaces.

We were all relieved when Aunt Pearl came out of mourning after a few years and stopped treating her pain with TV purchases. Pearl had had her share of trouble. Born with a twisted leg and later afflicted by polio, she was a mama’s girl through-and-through. Her first marriage didn’t go well. In her world, it was unheard of for a young couple to divorce, but Pearl had enough self respect not to be taken advantage of by a man who turned out to be first of all, mean-spirited, and secondly, gay and using her for cover.

When Aunt Pearl married for the second and final time, it was for love – the kind of love that sends you into years of mourning and ridiculous TV shopping when you lose your partner. Murray was ornery and picky, but man did he love my Aunt Pearl, and she him. They never had children. Instead they treated all their nieces and nephews, including my mother, as their own, and all of us kids as cherished grandchildren.

Here’s where the link to Benevolent comes in (thanks for bearing with me)… As Pearl neared the end of her life, she was confined to her home more and more. She required home health care and had a series of women who came in and out of her house to care for her. Throughout it all, Aunt Pearl was completely in control – mentally and emotionally. Slowly, though, things started to disappear from her home. First we noticed that her jewelry was disappearing, piece by piece, then that her kitchen was more and more empty of pots and pans and such, then that a small TV was no longer in the kitchen, and then that Pearl’s money was slipping through her fingers at a higher rate than we would have thought likely.

We worried that someone was stealing from Pearl, that her caretakers were pocketing grocery money and making off with her possessions. Or perhaps that it was the medical transit drivers, or the grocery delivery people, or anyone else who might have come into or out of her home. With each realization, we (ok, my mom) asked Aunt Pearl if she knew where her possessions had gone.

Time and time again, Pearl would light up at this question and share a story of woe or opportunity that one of her caretakers or one of her caretakers’ children or spouses had faced. She would explain one woman’s desire to become a nurse, another’s problem with an overdue bill for a car repair, another one’s problem with school clothes for her daughter. Each time, Pearl explained how she had decided to help the person out in the particular situation they were facing. Sometimes, she was giving her money away, other times, things she owned – when she thought that her gifts could make a difference, make someone happy, make progress possible.

Years later, when Pearl was finally in her last days, it all came back to her as Claudette– the woman who wanted to become a nurse and needed help paying the nursing school tuition – now an experienced nurse, helped Pearl and my mom navigate through the hospitals, doctors, and decisions facing them. In the hospital stays, she came to Pearl’s side every day when her shift ended. Claudette, to whom Pearl had given direct help, brought Pearl’s gift full circle as she helped Pearl exit her life with dignity and with as little stress as possible.

I’ve learned a great deal about the power of personal connection and the right help at the right time over the course of my life and my career, but perhaps no one taught me more than Aunt Pearl. At Benevolent, we’ll strive to live up to Pearl’s legacy every day and introduce others to opportunities to give and share the way Pearl did.

- megan kashner, Benevolent Founder & CEO

We imagine that which we cannot see and believe that which we can.

At Benevolent, we understand that many people imagine those who live in low-income situations through their own subjective, narrative lenses. We might imagine dirtiness, drugs, laziness, desolation, sadness, negligence, illiteracy, fault, violence, anger, resentment or more. We draw on what we’ve heard and seen on the news, in movies, and in life – sometimes it’s as extreme as what I’ve sketched out here, sometimes less so.

There’s something about the human connection -- seeing and hearing someone tell his or her own story that is so immediately moving and captivating. There’s something, too, of finding our own connection to the narratives of others. Yesterday, on the 10th anniversary of September 11th, my family and I spent the morning listening, watching, and reading. The New York Times did an incredibly good job on their entire section on the anniversary. NPR and the TV news were a bit sappier, but perhaps we needed that. Perhaps we needed to hear the voices, see the people impacted, mourning, hurting, striving, struggling.

When I think of the morning of September 11th, I am immediately transported back to my own intense fear. By phone I had reached my very close friends whose apartment was only one block from the towers. They were ok – safe in their apartment. The first tower had fallen and they were thinking they needed to get uptown, away from the devastation and danger. When we hung up, I had an image in my mind of them – a couple of bags in hand, cat in her carrier, walking down the building stairwell and out to the street-- headed away.

Then the second tower fell. That is the moment I remember – the moment that gives me chills – any time I think of that day. In my mind’s eye, Gavin and Jen were on the sidewalk, outside their building, headed uptown, just at the moment when a new barrage of building, cement, rubble, and steel came crashing down on everyone around. I was petrified beyond the ability to speak. It was hours before we got word that Gavin and Jen had not, in fact, left their apartment yet when the second tower fell. They had decided to wait a few minutes more.

So while my personal story of that day is not very dramatic or of much import really—after all, I was thousands of miles away-- it speaks loudly to the power of visualization. I was afraid of what I had envisioned to be true, in the absence of access to the real narrative. We imagine that which we cannot see and believe that which we can.

Interestingly, it’s easy to evaporate the long-held images we create, those that we have harbored for such a long time - simply by adding new narrative and images. At Benevolent, we hope to change these preconceived and sometimes deeply embedded images held in our mind’s eye –pictures of those struggling in low-income situations-- by bringing to the fore hundreds of stories, photos and videos from individuals striving to fight their own uphill battles –pushing towards a higher ground of stability and sustainability for themselves and their families.

Once the Benevolent.net site is launched, it will become readily apparent that the “needs” listed by individuals are, in fact, narratives - authentically offered in the 1st person – written and spoken by the individuals themselves. We believe the potency of these narratives and images will successfully crowd out the negative, misconceived notions we hold in our collective consciousness—supplanting them with real images of real individuals who seek our help as they move themselves forward.