Let's Get Started

Last Wednesday, January 18th, we had the wonderful opportunity to participate in a Google Hangout with Ms. Ellie Mudge and Amy Kingman from the Learning by Giving Foundation’s (LBGF) Executive Team. Serving as the kickoff to our class project, we learned a great deal about the LBGF’s background, mission, and their recent successes with other partner universities, while also getting the chance to ask some insightful questions about the expectations for our class and some potential strategies for developing the framework of our project. We left the conversation feeling very excited and thankful for the opportunity to be the first U of M class to partner with the LBGF, and we immediately got to work on determining our class values and priorities.

After breaking out into small groups, we came back together to voice the many perspectives that we had. This provided us with a diverse set of ideas, with most being centered around the idea of youth and sport. Ultimately, our values included words such as: youth, sport, recreation, education, health, fitness, empowerment, accessibility, and community. Taking these into account, we identified a priority of ours to be, “providing unique and accessible sport and recreation opportunities to youth that would not otherwise have the chance to do so.” Before leaving class, each group was tasked with coming up with a potential mission statement for Foundation 313. Thanks to the help of Professor Babiak, we were able to combine these into a mission statement that we are all proud of, which you can read below:

“Foundation 313 is a group of University of Michigan Sport Management students committed to positively impacting our community. Through a partnership with the Learning by Giving Foundation, we provide grants to support non-profit organizations in Southeast Michigan who engage and serve youth through sport, recreation and physical activity programs and initiatives. We value the power of sport to impact lives in a number of ways including through education, enhancing physical health, youth development, and community building. Our grant making efforts will reflect these values.”

Stay tuned for our next update as we being to put together our Request for Proposal!