Genuine curiosity, not charity, is the prerequisite.
principle — attributed to Lisa Belzberg
Belzberg's filter for PENCIL participants was sharp. CEOs who arrived thinking they were coming to help out the poor public schools were a problem. CEOs who arrived thinking they needed to learn what was happening in the classrooms because they needed to understand it for their business and for the city's tax base produced mutually beneficial relationships. The reframe matters because it determines whether the encounter is extractive or reciprocal. Curiosity preserves the dignity of the principal and the students. Charity collapses the relationship into giver and receiver, which neither side wants to repeat. The discipline is to recruit for curiosity and to gently re-frame the volunteer who arrived with the wrong posture.
For program leaders running cross-sector or cross-class engagement programs. The principle is most useful as a recruitment filter at the front end, before the relationships have to absorb misaligned motivations.
curiosity, mutuality, charity-frame, authentic-interest