Archive for June, 2009

Three Critical Practices to Keep Your Family Strong

June 22, 2009

To paraphrase my friend Regg Wilson, there are three things highly successful people can pass on to their kids:

  1. Money and other financial assets
  2. Skills and habits that lead to success
  3. Environment/Infrastructure

If you could only pass on one of these three, says Regg, you would likely choose the third, raising your children in the United States instead of, say, Darfur. If you could only pass on two of these things, you would likely pass on the second and the third, so that even if they started out broke in the land of opportunity, they would have the skills that allow them to create their own successful lives.

And yet, as Jay Hughes pointed out many years ago, all of our planning tends to focus on the transfer of money from one generation to the next.  And this narrow-minded focus on the financial capital to the neglect of the human, social and intellectual capital of the next generation is what causes 70% of estate transfers to fail. That’s right–70% FAIL.

What do we mean by “fail”? It’s not the failure of money to reach the heirs (estate attorneys are effective at the technical aspects of their job), it’s that the family disintegrates and splinters, and soon dissipates the wealth and stature that it once enjoyed.  If you play that 70% out over just a few generations, you will see that grandchildren have just a 9% chance of maintaining the family wealth enjoyed by the current generation.

So what do those 9% who beat the odds have in common?  According to experts like Barb Culver,  three things:

  1. They talk about things that matter.  Not just what’s on TV this week
  2. They practice organized, regular family philanthropy, instilling a shared identity and a sense of gratitude
  3. They include the heirs in the planning. No “surprise” party on their 35th birthday that comes with the revelation that they are the beneficiaries of a $10 million trust when they’ve never learned to balance their checkbook.

Even if we’re not passing on vast sums, these seem to me like practices for healthy families of every size.

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Posted in Involving the Next Generation, Lifestyle | 2 Comments »

Angelina Jolie and World Refugee Day

June 18, 2009

UNICEF World Refugee Day is this Saturday, June 20th. In recognition of the day, they recently produced a video featuring Angelina Jolie, one of their global ambassadors and possibly the most famous woman in the world.

According to the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), the video is expecting millions of views. It will be played in airports, on television and of course on YouTube. Angelina Jolie will certainly turn heads, but once they listen to the 30-second spot, what is it that UNHCR wants us to do?

“In her new video, Jolie stresses that “Refugees are the most vulnerable people on earth. Every day they are fighting to survive. They deserve our respect.” Jolie calls on the public to “remember them on this day.”

Really, that’s it? That’s the big payoff? “Remember them”? I think UNICEF has done Ms. Jolie a dis-service here by giving her pretty thin material to work with. Surely there is a more compelling call to action for people watching this video? How about “Visit our website for details on how to press for refugee rights” or “Tell your friends about the UNHCR mission,” or

…download our widgets to bring attention to this issue through your own blog or website, or

…become a fan on Facebook to receive action alerts and event invitations, or

…sign a petition telling world leaders how you feel about this issue.

…DONATE to support the work of the UN High Commissioner on Refugees

The sad thing is, UNHCR actually developed a lot of these tools, they just aren’t connected to the video with Ms. Jolie, or to the web press release on their site announcing it.  By searching Google for “World Refugee Day ’09″ I found live feeds, twitter streams and badges here.

Or how about this: tell them “Don’t Give.”

This celebrity-filled video from Oakwood is everything that an appeal to the masses should be.  Take a minute to watch it and see if you can identify all the famous people…

I have to tell you I have no idea what or where Oakwood School is. And where I saw the video on YouTube there was no “Link below” to click and find out more. But the video uses humor instead of dread, inspiration instead guilt, draws out every possible excuse for not giving, and blows them up when we really examine them. And like every good fundraising appeal, it ends with a “Thank You.”

Drawing on our better selves and being inspired to make a difference, let’s do more than “Remember them.” On this World Refugee Day, let’s take action. Whether you give time or money or access some of your social networks to bring others to the cause, just give a little bit.

A sampling of actions from around the web:

Donate blog revenues from June 20th to UNHCR like Google Earth Blog

Visit the Humanitarian Relief page at Change.org and select one of the actions, like “Call on Investors to Stand Up for Human Rights in Darfur.”

Attend a World Refugee Day event hosted by the International Rescue Committee or join the IRC and Urge President Obama to Welcome Refugees.

Or check out the live video and live chat or find badges on http://www.refugeedaylive.org/

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Posted in Celebrity Philanthropy, Giving Money, Raising Money | 3 Comments »

The Philanthropic Family nominated as “Most Inspiring Blog”

June 17, 2009

I’m happy to say that this blog has been nominated for a BlogLuxe award in the category of “Most Inspiring Blog.” BlogLuxe recognizes women bloggers and is having a reception here in Chicago as part of the BlogHer ’09 conference in July. If you’ve found The Philanthropic Family to be inspirational when thinking about gift-giving, raising charitable children or just being more mindful of how philanthropy fits into your everyday life, I hope you’ll click here to vote.   Thanks for your many comments, suggestions and words of support over the last 15 months.

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Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Nonprofit’s Guide to Surviving a Recession

June 10, 2009

I assume you’re not spending your nonprofit’s money to hold lavish parties. (If you are, stop.) Other than that bit of wisdom, I do not have tips to cut costs for your nonprofit (join Costco?).  But that’s mostly a losing game, I think, trimming operations and trying to squeeze pennies out of the expense side of the ledger.  Suriving and thriving is, over the long term, about building a committed, passionate base of supporters, not about reducing your phone bill (try Skype?).  There is no magic shortcut and no secret handshake to get the funding you need. Instead, there is only a long-term prescription for organizational health: “Always Be Cultivating”

Your greatest source of future contributions is your current donor base. It’s possible, but unlikely, that a new $1 million donor will fall into your lap. Rather, the people who support you now with $50 or $100 will someday, with your guidance and attention, move up to give $500 or $1,000 or more. And remember, your volunteers are your donors, so make sure they are well-used and well-treated.

Your Brand is your Most Important Asset. In these times, authenticity, accountability, transparency and impact are the key words.  Of course, you can’t just throw those words around, you need to determine your own authentic identity.  My hunch is that successful nonprofits, though, are already living those words and it’s just a matter of cultivating the brand image. Great examples of brand winners include charity:water, kiva.org and Acumen Fund.

“Social Media: Brand, Don’t Sell” This post was a fantastic nugget of wisdom from Tom Megginson at Change  Marketing. What it means is that your social media presence needs to be much more than a stream of carefully crafted marketing blurbs. It should be actual thoughts from actual human beings (not to cast undue doubt on the humanity of marketing types).  It should be genuine and written by people with brand consciousness but also with personality.
Here’s an example of one of the world worst nonprofit twitter streams ever:
  • “Another matched fund up yesterday – 30 days to match $10k for the Whitechapel Gallery…”
  • “Over $25k donated today – not bad going! Orangutans in the lead…”
  • “$12k matched in the first 10 minutes”
  • “30 minutes to go til Darwin’s Natural Selection fund launches”
  • “Gearing up for the next matched funding rush on Monday!”

On the flip side, here’s a great Twitter stream from an environmental nonprofit:

  • “Goat Milk for lather, Honey for its natural sweet scent, and Oatmeal for gentle exfoliation. Soap in our shop http://is.gd/rBoI“
  • “This guy makes a solar cooker out of 2 cardboard boxes, wins 75k and may save forests. How cool…http://twurl.nl/oc3pko“
  • “New post: Why Is This Egg Different from All Other Eggs?http://is.gd/rv5n“
  • “Let the sun shine onto your outside solar lanterns. http://is.gd/rrnO“
  • “Guide for kitchen countertops. Icestone, Vetrazzo, granite or wood.http://is.gd/riVi“

My rule of thumb is that you should aim to have at least 5 tweets that are not about your organization for every one tweet that is specifically about your organization. Anything more is probably overly self-involved.

Add value to your constituents’ lives. That’s what makes the second Twitter stream great: it adds value to the lives of the people receiving those tweets.  You have to figure they follow you because they’re interested in your cause.  That doesn’t mean they are only interested in you.  So direct them to other bits of information, resources, links, organizations.

You can also add value to people’s lives by helping contribute to their holistic identity. Most of us are looking for ways to integrate and express our values not just in our monetary donations, or  even our volunteer time, but in our everyday lives. The key to a building a passionate base of supporters is to provide them with ways to express that identity.  That means actions they can take from home, badges they can add to their Facebook page, petitions they can sign, companies they can patronize or avoid, etc.

If you can provide that kind of opportunity for association and positive identity, then when you need to raise funding for a new project or to cover an operational shortfall, your passionate supporters will be more than happy to chip in.

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Posted in Governance, Great Nonprofits | 2 Comments »

Silver Spoons and Giving Back

June 2, 2009

A friend of mine once said about a mutual acquaintance of ours “she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth but she thinks she mined the silver.”

Silver spoons of privilege, of course, come in many shapes and sizes, including class, race and gender.  But in his book “Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell exposes some of the previously unconsidered forces of place and time that combine to create successful individuals like Bill Gates or John D. Rockefeller.

Rockefeller, he points out, is one of 14 Americans all born in a single decade who find themselves on the list of the 75 richest people in all of recorded history. It’s mind-blowing to think that 9 of the most wildly successful “self-made men”* in all of history just happened to be born in the same decade.  Here’s what Gladwell says:

“What’s going on here? The answer is obvious, if you think about it. In the 1860′s and 1870′s, the American economy went through perhaps the greatest transformation in its history. This was when the railways were built, and when Wall Street emerged. It was when industrial manufacturing started in earnest. It was when all the rules by which the traditional economy functioned were broken and remade. What that list says is that it really matters how old you were when that transformation happened.

“If you were born in the late 1840′s, you missed it. You were too young to take advantage of that moment. If you were born in the 1820′s, you were too old: your mindset was shaped by the pre-Civil War paradigm. But there is a particular, narrow nine-year window that was just perfect for seeing the potential that the future held. All of the 14 men and women on that list had vision and talent. But they also were given an extraordinary opportunity. . .”

Gladwell uses the story of Bill Gates extensively in “Outliers,” effectively debunking the myth of the “self-made man” by showing how a confluence of events and factors outside of Bill’s control–e.g., the fact that his school PTA purchased one of the first computers with individual workstations instead of laborious punchcards and he had unfettered access to it; the fact that he was old enough to afford one and young enough not to have taken on a desk job and a mortgage when the first personal computers were available to the public–allowed him to become the world’s most successful software mogul.

In my experience working with first generation wealth creators and entrepreneurs, they are usually the first to understand and acknowledge that the whole “self-made” thing is ridiculous.  They might not have been born with economic privilege but there were key events, key opportunities or connections or coincidences that opened the path to success before them.  This is why I think entrepreneurs seem to favor education so heavily in their giving. And this is why they are so generous in giving back–thanking the people and institutions that provided them with opportunity and trying to make sure as many people coming up behind them have similar opportunities.

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Posted in Giving Money | 1 Comment »