The pandemic has consumed most of our free moments while engulfing our brains on what we should be doing next.
It has been one sea of events after another. At the Boys &Girls Club, serving our members is one of the biggest highlights of our jobs. But when it is in unison with serving the community, we can feel the impact in our hearts.
Being a corporate nonprofit is a complicated process.
You require the “know how” of running a successful business, but your market is in people, specifically youth, and some who have faced much adversity in their lives.
A “successful” nonprofit business plan includes the “heart component,” which is your member, and a “financial component,” usually a stakeholder or contribution made for a specific purpose.
On a rare occasion, you have a community contributor who sees the value in your work and wants to invest in your heart, unconditionally.
When you find those people to support your work, you are able to build resources beyond your dreams and care for others unconditionally, which drives success to the people you serve.
In today’s world, nonprofits require adaptable income that is not heavily loaded with reporting, additional tasks not in line with our mission, and overloaded with data collection.
Available services and resources need to be directly funneled to the people who are most in need and described in your 501 (c) 3, which triggers the immediate community support.
Most nonprofits are barely able to keep their head above water, employing just a couple of employees who run program, fundraise and report out on their services. The exhaustive cycle is what hampers their ability to be productive in a situation such as a global pandemic.
For the last four years, Dr. Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, though the Chan Zuckerberg Kaua‘i Community Fund of Hawai‘i Community Foundation, have invested considerable amounts of funding in the youth of Kaua‘i through the BGCH-Kaua‘i clubs.
These contributions have literally kept our program doors open, provided scholarships, extended spaces, expanded capacity, provided leadership programs, invested in Out of School programs, Afterschool program, sports, gardening, STEM, the arts, career development and evidence-based curriculum, as well as kept staff working throughout the pandemic.
Sometimes in turbulent seas, it is really difficult to find the time, the right moment, the right words, to give credit where it is truly deserved. However, today is not one of those days. The Boys &Girls Club of Hawai‘i wants to recognize Dr. Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg though the Chan Zuckerberg Kaua‘i Community Fund of HCF for the steadfast investment in some of the most-deserving youth in the world.
Contributions made were definitely to support our financial operations, but the outcome was investment in the heart.
The mixture of corporate and nonprofit can be a winning combination to meet the needs of our community and providing direct resources to members in times of distress. Thank you for being willing to share your resources with the many deserving families on Kaua‘i.
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Tina Albao is the Kaua‘i director of operations and development for the Kaua‘i Boys &Girls Club of Hawai‘i.
They absolutely deserve credit for contributing to Kauai. Of course it’s a mixed bag when wealth holders buy up our precious land but Chan and Zuckerberg have been about as good as we can expect in most regards.
Can you please explain to me why it is bad for Zuckerberg to buy land on Kauai? Would it be better if the same land Zuckerberg bought was instead bought by a New York investment firm who then seeks to develop that land and build more condos and high end homes like another Princeville? I don’t understand how Zuckerberg’s preserving a large tract of land and avoiding development is a bad thing. Please explain.
Boys and Girls Clubs’ doors were open. Unfortunately, public school doors were closed. Thanks to the Chan Zuckerberg’s major donation (at least $150,000) and partnership in Kauai’s distance learning project last June, our county had zero incentive to reopen public schools for in-person learning despite no COVID outbreaks in August/September 2020. Instead, project investors openly “hoped” distance learning would “continue” as they spent that money and more training teachers and procuring equipment just for distance learning, then summarily imposed distance learning for all students for almost half a year, and it still continues today — with no reasonable accommodation or adjustment for students who desire full-time, in-person learning, and no sign of returning to it either. I don’t want my tax dollars paying for kids to stare at a screen for 10 hours a day allegedly doing school work from home; but big donor dollars have made “full-time distance learning” the sad reality for so many of our kids (particularly middle and high school) from now on, regardless of COVID. Donations always costs the community “something,” and sometimes, it’s a devil’s bargain. I wish the Boys and Girls Club so well; just hope to see less Big Tech dollars and more old-fashioned grassroots support for such a great cause. Mahalo.
Mahalo nui loa Zuckerbergs and Kauai Community Fund for your generous donation to Kapaa Skatepark
For someone who hates taking money with “reporting” requirements, you sure wasted a lot of time and words just to say “Mahalo”.
Trust me … The Zuck will make 1000X more in Hawaiian real estate investment than he will ever donate to the common good. One puhi (eel) eats ten fish every night in the river…
Let me get this straight, now does this excuse him & her from the way he bought his home here, and the Kuleana Lands he stole from all who were a part of the ownership of those lands ?
Or, does he get half excused, because he only paid someone to do the actually footwork, of cheating, sneaking and lying to the owners for him.
Bottom line, being I am one of those that got robbed & cheated by this Mr. & Mrs. …Both in my opinion, are nothing more then a common liar & thief. This money has someone else’s blood sweat & tears on it. Someone who worked every day of their life for the money, just to have it t stolen away.
Don’t get me wrong now, it’s great that the Boys & Girls club has been awarded some funds.
This couple does not deserve anymore, least of all an open arms welcome, and singing of praises. Would you welcome a liar & thief into your home?
Thank you oh supreme leader zuckerburger. We are so thankful For you using your ungodly wealth to sprinkle a few crumbs out of 1300 acre ivory tower estate. These people are buying influence and the people of kauai will lose In the end. This billionaire and most powerful company in the world is not good for kauai or anywhere. They are not good people.
Awww, feel good supreme Zuckerberg’s. But, your 50, 000 share foot compound, building illegal walls, no shame in stealing Kuleana Lands will not go away so cheaply. The amount you have donated to Kauai is like a 10 dollar bill in your economy. Probably what you spend to secure your compound weekly, not including the private jets that wait you departure orders, on and on. It is how you have ignored the Hawaiian people that will catch up with you. Not a threat, just common sense. No respect cannot be bought, stay safe!
Say what you will about Zuckerberg and other billionaires who buy large tracts of property here on Kauai. However, I’d much rather have them buy and keep large tracts of land intact rather than have those lands developed into dense housing projects like Princeville and the like bringing more cars, people and problems. I see it as a win/win.
this is basically an influence campaign to make their latest purchase more palatable. BGC is an unwitting pawn in that. it’s a drop in the bucket for someone worth 114 billion and whose company probably pays little or no taxes. Kauaians have a right to expect more than this. don’t sell yourselves out for the .0001%, for whom it is not enough to vacation here. they have to own beauty, which means that they don’t deserve it.
James. I suspect you have no clue to what Kuleana Lands are. Or, the meaning of a family !!! (now broken )….
I also suspect that you do not have one ounce, or drop of Hawaiian blood. Hence making you no different from any other of those ( Princeville resident’s ) as you refer to Princeville as a point of reference. Those little pieces of Kuleana Lands were stolen, yet again. Stolen by the Zuckerbergs. As I am sure some other pieces were also stolen within the newly acquired property.
In addition, to the stealing of land, Zuckerberg, has turned family members, for a little money, into someone, just like himself, and for for a little money, pennies to the Zuckerbergs, they are now also nothing but liars & thieves….With one exception… that they not only broke the hearts, of family members in the process of the deceit and thievery for and of the almighty Face Book Thief.
I pray for anyone who thinks this is Right. Right or Better is just another way of saying, “lesser of two evils.”.
I also pray you, or for anyone else, that they will never have to experience, and know what this feels like. Ever.
Stolen is a big word. In fact, saying someone stole something implies a criminal offense was committed, and legally, can subject the accuser to a lawsuit for defamation. My understanding of the facts is that Zuckerberg legally acquired the lands through our legal system without resorting to theft. If someone chooses to sell land to Zuckerberg for a sum of money, who are you to question their right to do so? Did you own title to this land? If so, you have a right not to sell to Zuckerberg. If not, why is it your place to criticize your neighbor’s decision to sell land to him? The issue of Hawaiian blood is a red herring. These are just real estate transactions, the type that occur every day in the US. We all have choices in life and each person is responsible for their own choices. It sounds like your major beef is with your kin who sold their land to Zuckerberg, not Zuckerberg himself.
James…spoken like a true know it all….that knows nothing, absolutely nothing at all.
and here I need to ask….???
What did anyone of these descendants have, (in the form of proof ) and that form of proof, would ever make it into the courts in this case. You are clueless, that anyone stood a chance against this thief. This is not a defamation, I am not committing any crime here. It is the truth. Like I said, personal interest, not guessing or speculating, proof is in the pudding.