Where and How Do You Want to Interact with Charitable Giving?
In our last article, we discussed how one can determine if they can be charitable. Once you have done the analysis to determine what assets and cash flow you need to provide for your living expenses through retirement as well as the desired legacy/inheritance for your loved ones, you can turn your attention to “What do I want my Philanthropy to look like?”
First, let’s look at the difference between Charitable Giving and Philanthropy (here referred to as Discerned Giving). Charitable Giving is responding to an immediate need right now (Hurricane Katrina, fire tearing through low income housing, Midland Michigan floods). Discerned Giving is giving done after one has connected with their Aspirations regarding giving. This involves reflecting on your life at a deeper level in order to realize a more joyful, significant, and effective experience of giving and receiving gifts.
How does one go about determining their Aspirations for giving? Do you need to go on a retreat high in the mountains and contemplate your navel? You could! Or, you can carve out some time to contemplate the following:
- Is there anything I want to do that meets the true needs of others?
- Is there anything I want to do that is better done through Philanthropy (than by government)?
- Is there anything I want to do that enables me to:
- Express my gratitude for blessings I have received?
- Allow me to identify with the fate of others (homeless, orphans, cancer, etc.)?
- Increase happiness (effectiveness and influence) of myself and/or others?
- What gifts have I received from others?
- What gifts have I not received (caused or created by Silences, Hurts, Absences of gifts received)?
- What has been the impact of these gifts received and gifts not received?
- What has this prompted me to do?
- What actions have I initiated to impact others?
- What has this held me back from doing?
If you are not sure how to answer these questions, consider this exercise. Find a Sunday edition of a major city newspaper (preferably for a city near you) and read the headlines and first paragraph of several stories. Take a light green marker and highlight the headline of those articles which illicit from you the sense of “Wow, that was a great thing! I could get behind something like that!” Second, take a red/pink marker and highlight the headlines of those articles that illicit a reaction of “Wow, that’s terrible; something should be done about that!” While these are obviously not determinative of which “issue(es)” you may become involved with, it begins to give you a framework of what issues you may want to investigate.
One of Oakland’s alumni engaged in an even more simplified inquiry. Denny Pawley, class of 1982, became known in the auto industry as a lean manufacturing leader. When he retired, he thought about who approached lean manufacturing the way he did. He believed it would benefit many industries if students could learn “lean” techniques while in their undergraduate or graduate studies. He decided to collaborate with the Human Resources, Business and Engineering departments to create the Pawley Lean Learning Institute by contributing both time and financial resources as well as instructional time as a guest lecturer.
There are so many causes and issues that it may take you a while to make a decision on what to pursue. Keep pressing in because looking back and knowing that you made an impact (even if it is only for one person) is incredibly rewarding.