Informed Giving

Great post by Phil Anthropoid on the great wealth transfer boom and how philanthropy might capture a larger piece. How might advisors, donors, and nonprofits collaborate more effectively to that end? My sense, having worked towards it with some wonderful people, including Phil Anthropoid himself, The Philanthropic Initiative, Lenore Ealy, and Tracy Gary, is that we, collectively as a a nation, have many "stereotypes" and old habits to break if we are to meet as allies and fellow citizens to advance philanthropy and our communities. Values-based planning is a step in the right direction, though values are what cultural wars are made of. Raising awareness, as through Leave a Legacy via National Committee on Planned Giving is a piece. Encouraging all people to have a will is a piece. But perhaps the most important is to find the poetry, the pathos, the energy and the vision - what Tracy Gary calls the "inspiration" - that can lift the process of planning beyond the financial to the ethical, aesthetic, civic  and spiritual. People are hungry for a life of more than production and consumption. The market feeds us but not our hungry hearts. So many of us feel that, rich or poor, liberally educated, or fundamentalist. It does not matter. We all raise families, live in communities, and hunger for a life and legacy that speaks well of us, invigorates our children, and leaves or passes on what we most love. Beyond the money is huge well spring of volunteer effort and pent up desire to find a means of engaging our world's many challenges. Maybe as we reach out to one another in the blogosphere, and in the real world settings, we can create that hub or web of relationships that enable each of us to give of her or his best.  Philanthropoid - thank you for bringing the subject into focus.