Giving Opportunities to Others - Boston

GOTO started in 2001 in New York as a group of young professionals in their mid-twenties with the energy and resources to give back doing so on their own. It was about doing good for our community, a community that included the disadvantaged among us. It was about learning for ourselves what it takes to assume a leading role in creating the kinds of change we wanted to see in the world.

The mission of the group is to select middle school youth from low income families to send to arts camp for three consecutive summers (following 6th, 7th, and 8th grades). We work to identify the most apt group of scholars we can find who would not otherwise be able to have the experience and raise the necessary resources from our community of enthusiastic supporters and friends through both a direct donation campaign and through extremely fun, big events.

GOTO is split into the following committees:

• Scholarship - Primary liaison among schools, students, and our summer camp partner. Negotiates contract with the camp and selects students for scholarships.
• Development - Leads the charge on our annual fundraising campaign.
• Events - Designs and executes our two big events each year in addition to our smaller happy hours.
• Marketing - Works across committees to come up with promotional material for both events and our development campaign.

The commitment varies, and in most cases it peaks around specific times (e.g., the days leading up to an event or an application deadline), but generally speaking, the GOTO volunteer opportunity is one that you can take and make your own.

We do not spend a significant amount of time with our scholars, because we believe that the key relationships that they have from their scholarship should come from camp itself, although we do get together with the kids a couple times each year.