Twenty years ago, on two different business school campuses a continent away, the seeds of social entrepreneurship were planted.
Where are we today?

This is a great article -
The Rise of Social Entrepreneurship in Universities & the new  philanthropic priority.
 #philanthropymatters @HarvardBiz 

See the article here:  http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/02/the_rise_of_social_entrepreneu.html

Fool  me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me! I’m sure you’ve hear that  before.
 
So  here is a question I’d like to pose…”Can we fundraisers, sports fans,  philanthropic donors and nonprofit leaders, etc., learn from the recent actions  of Michael Russell, Manti Te’o and Lance Armstrong?” Russell, an Indianapolis  based foundation leader, was the center of the recent scandal and pleaded guilty  to wire fraud and money laundering earlier this year. Te’o is the All American NCAA football player from Notre Dame who has been in the middle of a media  frenzy regarding his role in an apparent hoax surrounding the fictional death of  a made up “girlfriend” and Armstrong… unless you’ve been under a rock, you know  what he did.


So  what have we learned from all of this? For starters, we understand more than  ever, that trust and earned relationships should be cornerstones of forming opinions, being a fan, or supporting a person or organization. In my experience  , it’s not about perception, popularity or what we assume to be true... it’s  about developing real relationships with the organizations we  partner  with and doing our due diligence. As for us sports fans, we have to learn not  make heroes out of ordinary men and women who are carved from the same mold as  the guy sitting next to us on the bus.   Not that the guy on the bus is a bad guy, but the point is athletes,  celebrities and other high profile people, are no different or no more worthy of  our trust, interest or fanfare than anyone else until they earn it. Appearances  deceive and trust is earned through a proven relationship or through our own due  diligence.
 
Need  more proof or want the scoop? Here  goes.


According to the The Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis  prosecutors have accused Michael Russell, who founded the Russell Foundation in  2003, and two other men, that they persuaded an area dermatologist to invest  significant money in an ethanol-production company, promising a more than  tenfold return, but instead they spent the $1.7 million on sfor their own  personal “needs”in less than one month.

Lance Armstrong who has been the face of American cycling for  years, finally came clean and admitted to cheating during his notable career  which includes winning the sport’s most notable competitions (too many to name quite frankly). He strategically and thoughtfully, told the media, his fans and  the world that he won cleanly and fairly, and laughed in the face of accusers. He  vehemently told anyone who would listen, that he'd be a fool to use performance  enhancing drugs after battling cancer and being such a scrutinized international  athlete with a household name. This may be the truest words he has spoken in a  long time.

Te'o convinced the sports world and  unsuspecting fans (like me), that he had a loving girlfriend who got into an  accident, was diagnosed with leukemia dying within hours of his grandmother. All  coincidently, while he was in the front running for receiving votes for his  sport’s most prized award –the Heisman Trophy.  It’s a movie script that not even ESPN,  Disney or George Lucas could muster up. 
 
All have been proven to be liars. Russell  pleaded guilty, Armstrong admitted to Oprah that he misled the public and at the  very least Te'o, embellished a story that made him the poster boy for athletic  character inquiriesand legendary college sports  mishaps.

The bottom line is that millions  believed these men had integrity and intelligence making them people we wanted to support and believe in. As a former NCAA  athlete, a personal friend of a few professional athletes, a sports fan and a  veteran fundraiser, I think this is probably as close as you can get to the  pinnacle of lies,mis-truths and disappointment. But we can ALL learn from it.

So if that’s the case, what have we learned  as fundraisers, donors, sports fans and concerned citizens? Where is the TRUTH?  Well, this goes back to the fundamental question of who can we trust -  especially when it comes to our time, interest, feelings or philanthropic  priorities. My answer is that we can only trust a shrinking number of people and  organizations. We have to be more careful when it comes to supporting those  whom we don’t really know, understand or have a relationship with. In  reality it’s a personal journey and requires thorough individual due diligence  and even faith in some instances.

The major victim in the three cases I’ve  written about is the philanthropic public and the trusting sports fan. We all  want so badly to believe in everyday heroes (not necessarily a guy with a cape)  and we definitely want to trust our nonprofit organizations and their leaders.  We whole heartedly want to root for people (especially when we perceive them to  be winners) and we will sometimes turn a blind eye to any flaws that they may  have in order to keep the dream alive. We want to tell to our kids that these  are heroes to look up to and tell our philanthropic peers that these are  organizations that we invest in.

My advice is to admire athletes ONLY for  what he/she does on the field and to support those organizations with whom we  have a real relationship with and have researched thoroughly. Look up to sports figures for  their unique athletic abilities and their commitment to compete and support  organizations that have EARNED your dollars and PROVEN to be worthy (however you personally define worth in this case).

Remember, being great on the field does not  mean that someone is person of character and just because   you think you know an organization, you can’t base  decisions  solely on  what the Executive  Director presents in a single presentation, letter or interview. We are ALL human and we ALL want to trust, but we also ALL have flaws. Many people have  skeletons in the closet and a not so acceptable personal  agenda.

Think about it…you really don't know that  person who carries the ball for your home team or the Executive Director at your  latest philanthropic interest. So we should not put our favorite athletes on  such a pedestal or think of them as anything more than human and most  importantly we should not invest our time, talent or treasure in an organization  unless we have done our homework. Otherwise we stand to be duped again. The  choice is yours…Choose wisely