But most of all, I think we love LADO because through LADO, we get to see the real American Dream unfolding before us, and the chance to play our small part in making sure that dream never dies.

This year, LADO awarded eighteen $1,000 scholarships to Latino college students from Rhode Island. It’s not a lot of money – unless you need a stethoscope for your nursing classes, like Marissa Laghana, who spoke at last night’s dinner. Or money for books or for travel home. It makes a difference – often it makes the vital difference between staying or leaving.

Marissa’s parents came to Rhode Island from Guatemala. Marissa was her family’s first high school graduate – and she’ll be their first college graduate, too. She knows what her parents struggled through to give her this chance and now she’s going to make their sacrifices worthwhile.

These 18 young men and women are talented, determined, directed. From this point onward they travel their separate paths to destinies they may only guess at today. For most, that future will include reaching back to help those coming along behind.

What strikes me now is the shared road they’ve traveled with their families to arrive at this night. For the families of our LADO scholars, that road starts somewhere in Latin America and travels through Pawtucket, Providence, Central Falls or Woonsocket, Rhode Island, but it’s a road Americans have traveled from every corner of the earth. For Gayle’s grandparents, that journey began in Portugal’s Azores Islands and led through the textile mills of New Bedford. My grandfather left Quebec before he was 13 years old to work in mills in Maine.

And for nearly every LADO scholar, as for our families, that path includes an education in the public schools that prepares them for college. We all know what’s very wrong with public schools, or think we do. But you only have to meet a LADO scholar to realize that there are some very good things – things essential to our democracy – happening in public schools, too. Maybe we should figure out what that is and bottle it.

And now the road approaches its reward – the completed destiny of the first child to graduate from college. The first child who will become not what they must be, but what they can dream of becoming – a teacher, an artist, a doctor – maybe the President of the United States. If this is a cliché, we need more clichés.

After a LADO dinner I’m farther than ever from understanding America’s anti-immigrant, anti-urban, anti-education anger. America needs these young men and women. We can’t afford for them not to realize their dreams – our dreams – the American Dream.

P.S. for Maritza Gomez, “our” Cause & Effect LADO scholar. We’re sorry your studies took you back to the University of Rochester before we could meet you. Best of luck with your studies and your ambition to help bilingual students.

You can find out more about LADO – and make a donation – at their website.

When my kids asked this year -”what do you want for Christmas?” – I truly didn’t want one more thing that fell into the “stuff” category.  Just having them home together, sharing conversation over lovely dinners and time together, that is enough to make me extremely happy.

I wish I could say I’m immune to stuff, but I can’t. I did my share of Christmas shopping, tempered by the desire to shop local and buy things people would ordinarily consume, like foodstuffs. I didn’t always succeed.

Tuesday afternoon, I had a short discussion about the difference between a recruiting an event sponsor and recruiting a philanthropic donor. I was making the point that the sponsorship exchange weighs heavily onto the side of tangible benefits–  like size of logo, number of impressions, size of audience. Relationships matter, absolutely, but the tangible benefits the sponsors receive usually close the sale.

Stuff again.

This morning I went to the memorial service for a fundraising colleague of mine Steve Sorin. The rabbi spoke of Steve’s enthusiasm for life, his love of family and music, and his belief in his work. And how much the measure of a life isn’t about the stuff that we accumulate, but of the memories we leave, the impact we have on each other and the world around us.

As I sat to write, I couldn’t help thinking about so many conversations I’ve had with volunteer fundraisers or with fundraisers new to the profession. How often they’ve expressed the need to have stuff to give before they could possibly interact with a potential donor. Stuff like a beautiful printed brochure or a tangible reward for giving. The idea that a donor would give without getting personal stuff back was just an incomprehensible concept.

Sadly, too often in fundraising the desire to give or get stuff gets in the way of us having deep conversations with donors about change, about possibility, about human need and personal aspirations. About the “love of humankind” that is at the root core of philanthropy.

We really don’t need as much stuff as we have. Not in our lives, and not in our interactions with our donors.

(If you haven’t seen it yet, take a look at The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard).

“Many nonprofits with strong programs and great results fail to thrive. One reason is the way the sector is currently financed. Nonprofits are rewarded for keeping margins tight, and few have access to the type of capital needed to explore better business models, scale impact, and create lasting change. In contrast to the money needed to fund “business as usual,” philanthropic equity can radically improve our ability to address society’s critical needs.”

What’s philanthropic equity? It’s big high stakes, high risk “investments” which are designed to enable nonprofits to make significant leaps forward in their program delivery and/or their business model. The report calls these kinds of investors “Builders.”

The report distinguishes Builders from “Buyers”  who support the ongoing programs or operations of a nonprofit. As I read the report, Builders understand that there are no guarantees, that they are taking a risk to help the organization undertake significant change. The payoff, if it arrives, is vastly scaled or improved program impact and sustainable growth.

The Nonprofit Finance Fund was able to collect multiyear data on nine organizations. The payoff:  program delivery grew 3.1x  and business model revenues grew by 2.0x in the organizations that received this philanthropic equity.

Here’s my layperson’s take on the report.

If you pump a lot of money (underscore “a lot”) into nonprofits over a few years, and they use it to make smart investments in transforming programs or business models, you might just get a big payoff in social impact and revenue enhancement.

To everyone thinking about replicating this out there, note that the amount of philanthropic equity invested in these organizations was pretty significant, ranging from a low of $3 million to upwards of $22 million (though not all of that money was spent by the receiving organizations at the time of the report).

For nonprofits: Here’s  a great report to help you justify a growth campaign to prospective Builders that will radically improve your business model and/or transform your social impact.

For institutional funders: If you want to see significant increases in an organization’s philanthropic revenues, you’ve got to think at a much larger  scale. Funding just one development director, with no other support, doesn’t really help organizations make the big leaps, in my opinion. But funding an entire staff in development, that would be a great take-away from this study.

I know that their story is not unique, that each day there are millions, probably billions, of philanthropic acts across the globe.

But what made me smile over my morning tea was the way that Ram described his philanthropy:

“I get so much satisfaction, so much pleasure out of this — I can’t tell you in words. You have to experience this. This is full of life.”

Demonstrating again the principle of “giving till you feel good” that my departed colleague, Herb Kaplan, always espoused.

Timothy A. Wise reminds us that “aid is power” in his 2005 blog posting Humanitarian Crises: What is a Progressive to Do? A lot of American aid power goes, intentionally or unintentionally, to helping entrench American businesses and exports at the expense of local products and producers. Food aid often winds up driving local produce and producers out of business. Reconstruction contracts with international construction firms undercut local professionals, builders and workers. Wise advises sticking with agencies which were present before the crisis and will stick around later and those with clear strategies to build local capacity.

Taking stock

Before the year draws to an end, I review my all my charitable contributions to see how I’m doing and to be sure I’ve haven’t forgotten any of my favorite causes.

I can do this pretty quickly because throughout the year as I make gifts I’ve been recording them on my “Contributions” spreadsheet. That way, I can see at a glance who I remembered and who I forgot.  I find this a lot easier than my old system of searching through my canceled checks and credit card statements. The spreadsheet also helps me remember when I receive a new appeal if I’ve already reached my giving target for that organization.  And it has really helped speed up my tax preparation.

Giving schedules

The end of year is a real cash crunch for me as our house insurance, car insurance, life insurance are all due. There are also holiday gifts and plane tickets to get my sons back from college. So it’s not a great time for me to be making donations.

I’ve been trying to spread my giving out throughout the year. Larger gifts I’ve been doing in installments or at times that I’m feeling more cash flush. I really don’t love putting gifts on credit cards as I’d rather all my giving went to the organizations I support.

But at the end of the year, if I’ve missed an important cause, out comes the credit card.

Giving Benchmarks

One of my speculations about giving is that people would be more generous if they had better benchmarks.

A few days ago my daughter shared that she was going to set a person tithing formula for her giving. Many faiths have a “tithing requirement” that sets a benchmark for personal support. States that have high percentages of their population in faiths that tithe seem to report higher overall giving. Yet most of us don’t view our charitable giving in this way.

In 1987 Independent Sector launched a campaign to Give Five, encouraging individuals to give 5% of their income and five hours a week to the causes they cared about.

Today, the average US donor gives to charity in these amounts:

• Low income households give about 4.5% of their income
• Middle class households give about 2.5%
• Higher income households give about 3%

So how does our household compare?

If I look at tax-deductible gifts, our total contributions are just over4% of our adjusted gross income. When I include the non-tax deductible gifts we make by supporting charitable events, that puts our total contributions to public charities and membership in advocacy organizations at 5.8% of our adjusted gross income.

I never feel like I’m giving enough (here I default to a typical excuse: Tuition payments for two sons in college). Yet, my giving looks decent compared to the national averages.

The Inventory

The top tier

Because I strongly believe that board members should make leadership gifts, it’s not surprising that the organizations on whose boards I sit are at the top of my giving. They include:

• Latino Dollars for Scholars Foundation of RI. I’m on the advisory council and am just passionate about these exciting and promising future leaders of my Community and Country. While I’m not really a big scholarship person, we sponsor a scholarship because we’ve both been so moved by the personal testimony of what a supportive community means to these students.

• Blackstone Academy Charter School. I pay this gift in two installments. Just over a year ago I asked to join the the board of this compelling public charter high school and former client that serves kids from neighboring Pawtucket and Central Falls. I thought I could make a difference. I am a huge supporter of public education and diverse student bodies. All my kids attended public schools and they continue to thrive. Yet, I’ve also seen first hand the incredible difference that small schools make, especially in the societal, social and emotional development of their students, and especially for kids who didn’t start with the same privileges as mine. All public school kids deserve public charters.

• Rhode Island Council for the Humanities. Though I rotated off the board about two years ago, I’m still passionate about the role of the public humanities in enabling us to find meaning in our life and to better understand our communities and world. In the world of charities, state humanities councils are a bit of a underdog that need our support. I pay this charitable gift in two installments and through an event sponsorship of the annual celebration.

Added up, that’s about a third of my giving.

Level two

• ACLU and AIUSA. Because protecting civil liberties and human rights at home and abroad is absolutely essential to a free society, I’m a member of the American Civil Liberties Union (not tax-deductible) and Amnesty International USA (tax-deductible). I have been very privileged to work with their local affiliates first hand. I also  make tax-deductible gifts to both the national and RI ACLU affiliates through the ACLU Foundation. I give an annual gift to AIUSA Group 49 in Providence during the annual Write-a-Thon for Human Rights.

• WaterFire Providence. I have such profound respect for the genius and generosity of its artist creator Barnaby Evans and WaterFire’s critical role in rejuvenating my hometown, Providence, that I give to this one-of-a-kind arts and community building hybrid.

• WRNI. What can I say. My kids could be in the ad that’s running about how NPR was always on the radio at home growing up. I admit that I’m a lifelong junkie of its brilliant news and talk shows. Every day I find a new connection to my life and work. And they’ve convinced me that my gift should at least be as much as the subscription to my daily newspaper. (Besides, I’d hate if one of my kids turned me in for not giving thus triggering an embarrassing phone call from Ira Glass.)

• Save The Bay and Audubon Society of RI. My environmental donations used to be spread among more organizations, but now they go exclusively locally. I worked at Save The Bay for five years and hike the properties of ASRI.

Flotsam and jetsam

• Colleges. I personally think that private colleges consume way too much of US charitable giving and serve a largely privileged class of people. But I also appreciate the role that college played in moving this blue collar girl up the societal ladder, so I can’t leave off  my undergrad alma mater Clark University and my grad alma mater Antioch University New England. But please, children’s colleges, stop calling me for gifts. I’m not going to give to you. You are their colleges and they can give to you when and if they desire.
• Women’s and Reproductive Rights Organizations. While I’m still an strong feminist and pro choice advocate, there are fewer organizations on this list. But it’s not as if I’m ignoring them entirely as AIUSA and the ACLU are strong international and national advocates for women’s rights.
• Disease organizations. Not my giving thing. The only gifts I make here are from time to time to honor special friends who ask. So if you work at a disease organization, it’s really fruitless to solicit me directly.
• Peace and Justice. While near and dear to my heart, I’ve also largely moved away from some of the national organizations and sublimated with my above mentioned human and civil rights orgs.
• Clients. We support a number of current clients with smaller gifts, usually in the form of non-tax deductible ad books, event tickets and raffles.
• Inkind. We donate our usual share of used clothing and household items to different organizations, and used books to our local library branch. (Jon does the cash donation to the library)
• Professional associations. I give a small annual gift to the local endowment of the Association of Fundraising Professionals to honor my departed colleague Herb Kaplan for whom this endowment is now named. The endowment helps provide training scholarships to local folks starting out in the profession. I only give a tiny gift to the national Foundation of AFP. It was more but I dropped the amount after their PAC contributed to a right wing, homophobic Senate candidate that I didn’t think met the values espoused by the organization even if he supported the CARE Act. I still give a small gift so I can repeat my protest each year.

Pet Peeve: Gayle’s giving is not Jon’s giving

So, just because I use the joint checking account doesn’t mean that Jon is making the charitable gift.  Rule of thumb: if I’m signing, it’s my gift unless I tell you otherwise. If you don’t know, please ask.

Second Pet Peeve: Taking me for granted

I used to give to my local alternative fund. They stopped asking me or thanking me. I stopped giving. Ditto other gifts that have been reduced over the years or eliminated entirely.

Volunteering

Let’s save that for another day or I’ll never finish this blog.

Quick Analysis

I’m recognizing that more and more of my giving is going to local organizations. That’s a 180 from my giving 20 years ago.

What’s a bit shocking about this is that I’ve always been very interested in national and global issues. So it’s pretty amazing to see my giving pattern assume the identity of  most Americans… predominately local, backyard giving. I’d attribute the switch to my personal involvement and readier accessibility to the need and the work.

I also have been consciously trying to move away from my historical pattern of lots of small gifts to many organizations in favor of larger gifts to fewer organizations. Breaks my heart to say no to any organization I care about, but I think the bigger gifts have more impact and reduce the cost of administering to me.

So that’s what I’m thinking as I give. What do you do? What else would you like to know?

Herb taught me the word “tzedakah,” the Hebrew word for the acts we call charity. The root of tzedakah means righteousness, justice or fairness. Herb and I shared that belief in the power and obligation of philanthropy.

“Give until it feels good” was Herb’s answer to anyone who asked him “how much should I give?”

He loved young people and chose to mentor them, including young fundraising professionals.

The Association of Fundraising Professionals, Rhode Island Chapter, honored Herb by naming its endowment fund at the Rhode Island Foundation for him. Herb championed the growth of this endowment so that its earnings would fuel the professional development of more young fundraisers.

Thank you, Herb, for your life, your good works and your lessons.

The pros and cons of the discussion are centered around whether the colleges are spending enough of their endowments to lower tuition … and the colleges are responding with all kinds of statistics about their contributions to the local economy.

But the question I haven’t seen posed yet to the Harvards of the world is the one I asked above: How much is enough?

A few years ago I was facilitating a strategic planning process with a community center in a small oceanside community. Overall, the townsfolk were pretty well-off financially (with the exception of the service folk and farmers whose families had lived in this community forever). The community center was fortunate to have a small endowment that helped supplement their annual operating expenses.

During the course of our conversation, one of the board members posed the question: If someone wanted to leave us a million dollars, should we take it? I was floored… in my 20 plus years of nonprofit life, I had never heard a board member actively raise such a question.

This board member wasn’t posing a question about a gift with strings. His was a question about whether or not the money could be better used to meet other needs in the town. He felt that the community center was in good shape and had adequate resources to meet the needs of the community.

Last week’s Chronicle of Philanthropy published a report by the Urban Institute that showed the distribution of revenue by charities. Those that had expenses of $10 million or more represented 82.7% of charities by budget size but represented just 3.7% of the total number of US based charities.

We frequently work with small to medium-sized nonprofits. They include community based environmental organizations, charter schools serving urban kids from low-income households, community arts or humanities organizations, afterschool programs, food pantries, diaper banks, advocacy and civil rights organizations, ESL programs — you name it. All are struggling for funding. They are lucky if they have one development director — nothing like the hundreds of development professionals and support staff engaged in fulltime fundraising at major universities.

Virtually all of them serve individuals living below or just above the poverty line. The “wealthiest” of them might have budgets slightly over $1 million, but more likely, they have budgets between $25,000-$500,000. All of them could do so much more with more funding.

So how much is enough? Nearly half of Boston’s high school students fail to graduate from high school in four years. Most of those drop outs were black and Latino boys. Harvard has $35 billion — yes billion, in its endowment and continues to accumulate more donations and more land well beyond its Cambridge campus. Yes, it’s great that they are now offering free tuition to low and middle income families so that a Harvard education isn’t out of their reach, but do they have enough wealth already? And it’s not just Harvard. The “Boldly Brown” campaign just raised over $1 billion. The public high school graduation rate in Providence? A shameful 62%.

What do you think?

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