October 30, 2009 by Sharon Schneider
I wrote earlier today about taking inventory of your assets–beyond writing checks–to support your charitable causes. (Click here to review the checklist.) I’m still playing with these concepts, but as of now I see at least five categories that comprise your power to bring about social change.
1) You are a consumer
Linking our consumer purchasing decisions with our values is one of the most powerful tools at our disposal as a community.
If you have an iphone, arm yourself to make good purchasing decisions with the free goodguide app, which will allow you to type in the bar code for products on the shelf and get back a rating that will help you understand the social and environmental impact of that product.
When you shop the Amazon catalog, do it through www.alonovo.com, which pairs the search results with corporate social responsibility ratings for the company so you can include your values in your decision-making.
2) You are an investor
The old model of screening out “evil” companies is falling by the wayside. Instead, talk to your investment advisor about finding green tech or clean tech stocks or funds. And when you get those proxy notices in the mail, instead of pitching them, look at what the corporation is going to do and use your position as a shareholder to advocate for responsible decisions. For more info on working in partnership with corporations to address environmental concerns, check out Ceres at http://www.ceres.org
3) You are a person with a reputation
Have you considered how your name as a supporter and contributor might be used to lend credibility and even a “stamp of approval” to support the charities you care about?
4) You are a person with skills and talents
If your professional expertise is accounting, have you considered how your knowledge of cash flow and accounts receivable could help the smaller charities you care about manage their money more effectively? If you are a school teacher, have you considered whether your skills as an educator might be put to use? Lots of charities need their walls painted and their envelopes stuffed. But I always find it more rewarding to use my professional expertise to help the charities I care about, because it’s something not everyone can do.
5) You are a person with a social network
Your friends and acquaintances are also more than money. If you’re not a graphic designer but you have a friend who is, you might recruit them to the cause. They could design a logo, a program for the big event, table tents, web design, etc. If you have a twitter following, can you recruit them or mobilize them to take action on behalf of your favorite organizations? Putting a badge on your Facebook page or changing your icon to the charity logo lets your friends know you are passionate. And when your favorite charity asks you to take action, pass it along to your friends to magnify your effect.
Tags: assets, charity, CSR, philanthropy
Posted in Giving Things, Giving Time, Lifestyle | 2 Comments »
October 30, 2009 by Sharon Schneider
I’m on a panel today at the Chicago Global Donor’s Network 6th annual Conference on International Philanthropy.
More than Money: Expanding Your Philanthropic Toolbox.
Many times donors think their primary contribution to the cause comes when they write a check. In fact, passionate, committed supporters bring so many more assets to the table besides their financial wealth–including their own networks, skills, reputation and so much more. In this session you will hear how different populations, including ordinary individuals, foundations, celebrities and businesses, can mobilize the full complement of resources at their disposal to bring about social change.
Scott Lazerson, founder of the Interface Foundation, and I have developed a worksheet to help Interface Celebrity Global Ambassadors think through all the many assets they can use to further their philanthropic goals.
Financial:
- Donate ____% of my gross income, or $__________ during the next twelve months
- Donate ____% of proceeds from my (book sales, speaking fees, designated product, etc.)
- Clean out my closet/basement/garage/trophy room and donate at least ___ items for auction or resale to benefit my charity; Donate gift baskets for charities to re-gift/auction
- Work with my financial advisor to ensure that my investment portfolio is aligned with my values
- Ask my sponsors/business partners/vendors to donate merchandise to benefit my charity
- Use my consumer purchasing power and give business to organizations who are helping the Millennium Development Goals, i.e. buying fair trade coffee, handcrafts, etc.
- Ask for donations in lieu of birthday/anniversary/graduation/wedding gifts
Time and Talent:
- Dedicate ___ days this year to volunteer with my charity or attend fundraising events
- Appear in Public Service Announcements, promotional videos or printed materials
- Donate my professional skills, such as writing, web development, marketing, or accounting
- Allow my charity to use my name publicly
Traditional Media:
- Mention my charity in at least ____ interviews or media appearances this year
- Wear charity clothing items/logos at ____ public appearances
- Provide a link on my website to my charity
- Take pictures and allow media access when I participate in charity events
- Include information about my charity in my personal newsletter
Social Media:
- Recruit ____friends, relatives to support my charities
- Tweet once every day/week/month about charitable projects; Tell my followers to be sure to follow my charity’s tweets.
- Blog: Write ____ posts about my charity this year
- Join a Facebook group, Ning network or other social community for my charity
- Use a charity badge as my social media icon for _____ weeks this year
- Include my charity in my email or iPhone tagline (instead of “Sent by my iPhone”)
What other assets do you have that you can use in service of your philanthropic goals? Leave me a comment to share your ideas.
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
October 27, 2009 by Sharon Schneider
According to a new study by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, differences in giving motivations can be explained by income and education. According to the press release issued last week:
- Among lower-income donors (income less than $50,000), the phrases that resonated as a motivation for giving were helping to meet basic needs or helping the poor help themselves.
- Donors with income between $50,000 and $100,000 were more likely than donors in either higher or lower income groups to say that they gave to “make the world better.”
- Among donors with income of $100,000 or more, the phrases selected as motivations for giving included “those with more should help those with less” or “making my community better.”
For me, these phrases are too short and cold to capture my feelings on why I give to charity. My motivations are more complicated.
I won the lottery of birth. Through no virtue of my own, my soul was born into a healthy body, a loving family, a democratic nation. My life has been nothing but opportunity and I recognize that others have not been so fortunate. Out of gratitude for everything I have, and a desire to help others find opportunity in their own lives, I give to charity.
Garth Brooks wrote
I hear them saying “You’ll never change things. And no matter what you do it’s still the same thing “
But it’s not the world that I am changing. I do this so this world we know never changes me.
What I do is so this world will know that it will not change me
Charity, for me, is about living up to my inner voice, about bridging the gap between the person I am today and the person I aspire to be. And that’s also why check-writing isn’t the pinnacle of charity, no matter how big the check. In fact, it’s just the first step on a journey of a million steps.
Tags: Center on Philanthropy, charity, gratitude, motivation for charity
Posted in Giving Money, Lifestyle | 1 Comment »
October 12, 2009 by Sharon Schneider
Last week I was struck by one of those unearned privileges of wealth and power: the right to be running late.
While visiting a nonprofit in downtown Chicago, I saw one of their donor relations folks in the hallway. In asking about her morning plans, she said she was rescheduling with a donor who ran into traffic and couldn’t make the meeting. We commiserated about the difficulties of navigating Chicago traffic for a bit and neither of us thought too much about it.
Later that same day, I was scheduled to give feedback to a job seeker about her interview skills and she was running late. By the time she walked into the room, I realized I already had a negative impression. “If she really wanted to make her life better,” I was thinking, “she would have found a way to get here on time.”
“Don’t be late” is one of the mantras of the interview process, especially at the lower end of the economic spectrum. Work out your child care issues, your transportation issues, whatever. Just don’t be late because it makes you seem unreliable, not serious, not a good team member. No excuses.
The double standard in our flexibility and mindset about overcoming everyday obstacles was glaring and uncomfortable. People in power are given leeway, presumably because whatever makes them late for the meeting, the lunch date, the deadline, is so important that we must understand the situation (especially if we need something from them). But the job seekers, the powerless folks who are hoping for that job, that chance at a better life, if they run into traffic or the bus is late, it just shows how irresponsible they are. Clearly, they should have planned to take an earlier bus but it’s okay if the wealthy donor didn’t expect to run into heavy traffic.
In my own journey to live an integrated life, I am confronting these uncharitable attitudes–my greatest obstacles– and trying to recognize them and name them out loud. It’s not that I want you to start being late for our lunch date, or that I won’t try so hard to be on time. But I am hoping to slow my rush to judgment.
Tags: charity, judgment, power
Posted in Lifestyle | Leave a Comment »
October 8, 2009 by Sharon Schneider
Studying and teaching about happiness is, as I understand it, a relatively new field of positive psychology. The new definition of “healthy” is not a neutral state marked by the absence of mental or physical illness (surviving), but a positive state of productivity and satisfaction (thriving).
There is a web community called Big Think that brings thought leaders across disciplines together to share big ideas. This week, they featured a video conversation from Tal Ben-Shahar, a Harvard University lecturer on happiness on the topic of “Five Ways to Become Happier Today.”
According to Ben-Shahar, one of the key emotions correlating to happiness is gratitude. We often forget to be grateful until we experience loss or the possibility of loss–we’re grateful for our health after we’ve been sick, or we’re grateful for our jobs when we see others losing them. But cultivating our gratitude everyday helps us focus on everyday moments of happiness.
So How Do I Do It?
His big recommendation is to start keeping a gratitude journal. Each night before you go to bed, take a minute to write down five things you are grateful for, big or small. With my kids (who are 3 and 5), my approach is to ask them each night when I tuck them in to tell me three good things that happened to them today, or three things they are thankful for. When the answers tend toward “dessert,” I try to gently ask them about playing with their cousins after school or doing a puzzle with Daddy before dinner. They quickly catch on.
Gratitude Leads to Generosity
Ben-Shahar doesn’t go into what happens when you are more grateful and happier, but in my experience, gratitude leads you to realize just how much you already have, and that in turn make you realize just how much you have to give. Grateful people are generous people. Grateful people are philanthropic. If you want your children to grow up to be charitable, teach them empathy and gratitude by modeling empathy and gratitude.
Learn More
To learn about the other 4 things Ben-Shahar recommends in order to be happier, watch the full video by clicking here.
Tags: gratitude, happiness, positive psychology, raising charitable children, Tal Ben-Shahar
Posted in Involving the Next Generation, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
September 19, 2009 by Sharon Schneider
Issues like homelessness and poverty are serious. But the truth is, people like to have fun. I thought this was a great idea to get maximum public participation in a simple fundraising event by making it fun. Congratulations to the clever folks at the Oshkosh Community Foundation for a great, attention-getting and fun-for-all-ages event.
Next week, the Oshkosh Area Community Foundation (click here for more details) will attempt to set the Guinness World Record for tallest toilet paper pyramid.
The public is encouraged to participate by bringing packaged rolls of toilet paper to the Oshkosh Convention Center on Thursday, September 24, 2009 from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
“We are told that personal hygiene products are among the highest needs at local food pantries,” says Eileen Connolly-Keesler, Oshkosh Area Community Foundation President and CEO. “This is a unique way to assist with food pantry demand, and draw more attention to basic needs in our community.”
The pyramid will be constructed throughout the day on September 24, with the final rolls being placed at the Oshkosh Area Community Foundation’s Donor Appreciation event later that evening. The pyramid will then be measured and submitted for approval by Guinness World Records Limited.
What are some of the fun and unique fundraisers that you’ve created, participated in or heard about?
Tags: fun, fundraiser, Oshkosh, pantry, toilet paper
Posted in Giving Things | Leave a Comment »
September 17, 2009 by Sharon Schneider
Gloria Steinem turned 75 this year (!), and she’s been making a lot of speeches to celebrate her birthday. Good thing, because her birthday speech made for a phenomenal last-minute replacement for Maya Angelou at the Chicago Foundation for Women 24th Annual Luncheon today. (Dr. Angelou was taken to the hospital late yesterday but I have no further information about her condition.) I am grateful to my friends at Shorebank for inviting me as their guest to this fantastic gathering of over 2,000 women from every community around Chicago.
Here are some of the things Gloria wished for (I hope I captured the spirit of what she said, if not the exact phrasing):
- A world where any two adults could get married if they want to as long as they don’t hit each other.
- A world where magazine racks are filled with erotica but missing pornography
- A world where the child care providers and educators had the budget of the US Military, while the military had the budget of those who care for our children. And they should only be allowed to use it for peace keeping
- A nightly news broadcast that talks about everything that went right that day
- An episode of Oprah on men trying to successfully combine work and family
- A global understanding that you can’t reach peaceful ends through violent means
Gloria Steinem is doing more than wishing. She’s working every day to break down traditional hierarchical thinking, thinking which damages both men and women. What a phenomenal hero and role model for all who aspire to bring about important social changes. It takes a lot of bravery to challenge the status quo and yet she makes it look so simple, so easy and so common sense. My sincere thanks to Gloria Steinem for taking the years of name-calling that come to trailblazers and pioneers on behalf of all women.
Tags: birthday wishes, Chicago Foundation for Women, Gloria Steinem
Posted in Lifestyle | 1 Comment »
September 10, 2009 by Sharon Schneider
Here’s an interesting take on the growing trend of letting consumers choose where corporate donations are directed. From an article on examiner.com:
The Bank of America Chicago Marathon launched its first-ever digital fundraising program called Footprints for Charity. You can customize a digital running shoe tread with a personal image and tailored message at www.chicagomarathon.com/footprint. For each submission, Bank of America will donate $1 to your choice of one of 22 charities, up to a maximum total contribution of $50,000. Then, on October 11 (race day), the final results of the fundraising effort will be announced and an additional $10,000 will be awarded to the charity that received the most submissions on its behalf.
You can register and create a footprint here.
Here’s my take on these kinds of “fundraising contests”: it’s not fundraising. Bank of America has presumably committed the funds. Rather, it’s a marketing effort by Bank of America to get people to see and acknowledge its charitable donations by giving them the sense that they’re earning it.
“Design your digital footprint and help make a difference!”
This line plays to the worst kind of slacktivism, where people click a few times on their computer and get a gold star for being philanthropic. Actually donating or raising money for these causes through the Chicago Marathon would be philanthropic. Creating a digital shoe print is not.
I don’t know why this aggravates me. Maybe because these efforts come across as so transparently marketing-driven instead of genuinely altruistic. Maybe I should just be glad they’re giving money to charity and leave them alone. But what I always fear is that members of the charitably-minded public, facing a dearth of good information about corporate social responsibility, will erect a shiny halo around these companies based on highly-publicized if proportionately minuscule contributions to charity.
I’m not suggesting Bank of America is not a fantastic corporate social citizen. Maybe they are, I have no idea. But that’s my point. Savvy consumers need to look at these efforts as an advanced marketing tactic that’s designed to get past our normal critical defenses by pushing the “charity” button in our brain.
Tags: Chicago Marathon, corporate social reponsibility
Posted in corporate philanthropy | Leave a Comment »
September 8, 2009 by Sharon Schneider
Last year, in an effort to turn the day of my birthday (9/11) from something horrible to something worth celebrating, I participated in the “Born in September” campaign, where you ask friends and family to donate an amount equal to your age toward building wells in lieu of birthday presents. I was able to raise $750 dollars from friends and family and it made September 11th a very happy day in my household. charity:water is doing the same campaign this year, if you’re a September baby looking for a cause. (Read my post from last year here)
Here are a few other philanthropic birthday options for all of you searching for 9/11 birthday ideas:
- This year, I’m having friends and family over for a BBQ. In lieu of birthday presents, I’ve asked everyone to bring either gently-used work clothing that I can take to the Cara Program here in Chicago (which helps people who are homeless develop job skills, interview skills and life skills to move them onto a long-term career track and into a stable environment) or some canned goods that we’ll take to the local food pantry.
- Got Fuse? If you have Fuse TV (check here) watch Jay-Z in a special benefit concert on September 11th. Proceeds from ticket sales will benefit the The New York Police and Fire Widows’ and Children’s Fund. According to the information posted by this charity on Guidestar, they distribute $25,000 immediately following the death of a safety worker and provide an annual distribution to each family of around $13,000 every year after that.
- Perhaps you want to make your own donation to the Widows’ and Children’s Fund or to your favorite charity in celebration of the many gifts in your life. You can easily find a reputable, vetted projects through Global Giving, such as the Safer World Fund. “Created by family and friends of 9/11 victims, the Safer World Fund supports education and health care in poor communities vulnerable to extremism and terrorism. Give now – donations are being matched 50%!”
- Is your child having a birthday party? One of my favorite funny moms on Twitter, Kelly Phillips Erb, said that for her girls’ last party, they had other kids bring books to donate to the school library. You could also have them bring stuffed animals for the hospital or art supplies for an after-school project, etc.
- If you need a project to keep children busy during the party, set up a table where they can make pictures of their homes and their lives to send to children in some other part of the world. Maybe make thank-you notes to send to local police or fire departments? These don’t have to be heavy conversations and depressing subjects, at younger ages just raising awareness, instilling a sense of gratitude and making connections among kids who live differently from them is a pre-cursor to later involvement. (Note that for security reasons you need to be a friend or family member to send care packages and mail to service members overseas.)
- How about celebrating your birthday with a day of service? What better way to express your gratitude for life and liberty than working to provide someone else with those same blessings.
Other ideas and suggestions? Please share them!
Tags: Answer the Call, birthday, celebration, charity, Jay-Z, philanthropy, september
Posted in Giving Money, Giving Things | 2 Comments »
September 4, 2009 by Sharon Schneider
I’m excited to have just found a helpful, practical resource for philanthropically-minded souls who care about labor rights, conservation and environmental stewardship and generally speaking, social justice via economic empowerment. It’s a blog called “Adventures of the Engaged Consumer.”
The title of this post “Where are you wearing?” is not a typo. It is the question author Kelsey Timmerman asks us to consider. This question is part of a larger stream of consciousness about the things that pass through our everyday lives; Where (geographically) do these things come from? What are they made from and who makes them? How do they get into our hands or our houses and where will they go after we don’t want them or need them anymore? Being a conscious consumer means taking a moment to consider the answers and make informed buying decisions.
Here’s an excerpt from his latest post on Fair Fashion, which provides some “quick and dirty” guidance to buying clothing:
1) Avoid department store labels. I would rather go with an established brand like Levi’s than JCPenney’s signature label or Wal-Marts ironic label Faded Glory.
2) Nothing from Wal-Mart or Wal-Mart-like stores unless it’s a T-shirt and it’s hilarious (I have my weaknesses).
3) If given a choice between something made in China or somewhere else, go with somewhere else. What’s [considered by the government to be] right in China is what grows the nation’s economy and for the most part this makes labor rights wrong. It’s okay to buy shoes made in China because it’s tough to find any that are made elsewhere and going barefoot stinks. (I’m not calling for a boycott of China, it’s just how I feel.)
4) Reference the pocket-sized book The Better World Shopping Guide by Ellis Jones. The guide grades products, retailers, and brands on their social and environmental practices. Patagonia gets an A but none of their products are found at our mall. But Levi’s, GAP, and Eddie Bauer get Bs and are.
In a pinch, these are my quick and dirty standards. They aren’t perfect. What I would really like to see are the major retailers providing ethical options that cost a little more. We have organic/natural aisles in all of our local grocery stores, so why can’t we have a few racks of socially and environmentally conscious clothing?
(Take a few minutes and write to your favorite retailer and ask for an ethical option.)
Thanks, Kelsey, for doing the hard work for us by teaching us how to be engaged consumers. Here’s are links to reach some of Chicago’s most popular retailers to share your support (I recommend the corporate office because individual stores may have little incentive to pass on your suggestion):
Target
Macy’s
JC Penney
Nordstrom
Neiman Marcus
Tags: apparel, conscious consumer, CSR, philanthropy, Wal-Mart
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