Academy of Educational Development
in the country of Jordan Bringing the First-Ever Philanthropic Studies to JordanU.S. financial aid goes to many countries annually and one of those countries, Jordan, has a history of charitable support due, in part, to the understanding of this need by the monarchs of the country. In an effort to broaden the base of funding for the non governmental agencies (ngo's - non profit organizations), they began a search for a U.S. firm to come to Jordan and teach the ngo organizations how to raise "gift income" for charitable causes. We responded to this request for fundraising training and provision of counsel to the nonprofit (NGO) organizations in the country of Jordan for our new client, the Academy of Educational Development located in Washington. In preparation for our trip, we developed a training manual and complete curriculum to use in workshops and training sessions with individual organizations. We provided ten days intense training for 9 organizations and held a public workshop that attracted 140 people!
Ongoing Consulting to Provide Infrastructure of Philanthropy in Jordan University Connection between U.S. and Jordan After returning to the US, we continued to provide guidance to these agencies and in an effort to build on a communication base, developed an ongoing e-philanthropy newsletter to the non-governmental agencies there. The next effort that we began when we returned to the U.S., was to begin to pursue a relationship for non profit management studies in the universities in Jordan. The University of Jordan was the selected university and we did a search of the most logical connection to a university stateside. The most obvious choice, due to our connections to the Fund Raising School, was Indiana University located at Indianapolis, Indiana. After conference calls, personal meetings and e-mail communication back and forth, we WERE able to connect these two great universities. The first teaching of the Fundamentals of Fund Raising will occur in early 2004. Fund Raising Day in AmmanFollowing the U.S. lead of hosting all nonprofit organizations annually on a day certain, we began to explore having this event happen in Amman early in 2004. Seeking corporate sponsorship and organizing the staff on site was our first task and that work continues. Association of Fund Raising Professionals (AFP) Partnership Working with the national office of the AFP, we suggested the development of a AFP Chapter in Amman. This chapter development would assure the non profit organizations in Jordan the vehicle through which to "grow philanthropy" on their own. The chapter paperwork is now being developed and we hope to be able to announce this chapter in 2004. | 
