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What’s the title of that old book? Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, I think tells us men and women have different communication styles and ways of expressing love, etc. No doubt, I could stand to read it…. However… I learned last week in our own little I Live Here, I Give Here Petri dish (the chemist in me loved it) that men and women seem to react to philanthropy mentoring in the same way- enthusiastically. After hosting eight See Jane Give! dinners with very positive feed-back and good results, this team of I Live Here, I Give Here women, along with a few very good men volunteers (THANK YOU Kyle Parks and Chris Steiner), gingerly embarked on our first Give Back Jack! mentoring dinner for young professional men. Evaluations were plentiful and overwhelmingly positive. So, what does that tell us? We are a caring community here in Central Texas. But that’s not news. The news is that we just need a jump-start for philanthropy. We have a community of “latent givers” just needing a catalyst to produce a very productive reaction. I didn’t get that degree in Chemistry for nothing!!
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It’s that time of year again (already!). The mornings are cooling off, the days are getting shorter, and the department stores are beginning to fill with holiday décor. And for many of us, our thoughts begin to turn to charity. We start scouting for volunteer opportunities at soup kitchens, the holiday solicitations from charities start filling up our mailboxes, and we start calculating how much we can share from the holiday budget. Hamilton Wright Mabie may have said it best, “Blessed is the season which unites the whole world in a conspiracy of love.”
So, how do you give back during the holidays? Do you give your spare change to the Salvation Army’s bell ringers? Do you send in checks in response to the mailers from needy charities? Do you volunteer your time to serve Thanksgiving dinner to the less fortunate or wrap presents for a giving tree? All of those are beautiful things that serve both our community and our own personal sense of community. It’s that warm fuzzy feeling that we’re after and all of those things certainly accomplish the goal.
But this year, why not be more intentional with your giving – really make a difference. It’s not that the things I listed above don’t help – they most certainly do. But I’m talking about really helping your community to work toward long-term change. And it’s not as hard as it sounds. It seems daunting, but it can be done in just a few easy steps. Start by deciding what the issues are that are most important to you – is it children, education, homelessness, literacy, animals or something else? Next, go to our home page and use our handy Connect With What You Care About widget to find your passion and research an agency that you can truly stand behind. Once you have an agency or two in mind, you can put into action a personal giving plan. Decide how much you can give per year – there’s another handy tool on our Learning to Give page that helps you calculate different percentages from your annual salary. From there, it’s easy to figure out how much you can give per month. Most agencies have the capacity to charge a credit card monthly. Make the phone call and get your future as a year-round philanthropist started! If you want more information on how to create your very own personal giving plan, click here. It really is that easy!
So this year, as the holidays approach and your thoughts turn to the less fortunate among us, I hope you still volunteer your time and that you give your change to the bell ringers. But most of all, I challenge you to become proactive, rather than reactive with your giving. Happy Holidays!
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Meet Mackenzie, Director of Community Education and Special Events.
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Meet Patsy, our Founder and Executive Director.
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