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Rebooting Valentine’s Day
I want all my readers to hear first. This Monday, Valentine’s Day, is going to be rebooted as Generosity Day: one day of sharing love with everyone, of being generous to everyone, to see how it feels...
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Generosity Day
Generosity Day is here!!! We announced it on Friday, and it’s spread like wildfire over the weekend (1,000+ tweets, expecting 30-40 blog posts today at a minimum…for example on FastCompany, ABC News,...
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Gifto reducto ad infinitum
A donor with $50,000 to give faces a surprising conundrum: she knows, intellectually (and perhaps in her gut) that $50,000 is itself not enough to make lasting, large-scale change. However, we can...
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Generosity excerpt
A friend sent this in as a non-sequitur in another conversation we were having. The other day I was coming out of a coffee shop and decided to give a homeless man a $10 bill…what can you get for $1...
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Each and every dollar
If you work at a nonprofit, as I do, you might pause and consider: each and every dollar for your organization comes from a gift. Obvious at some level, but if you stop to think about this for a second...
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The thing about being generous
Is that most of the time the generosity comes right back at you, except when it doesn’t. You can lean into that rejection too. That tiny sense that someone just took advantage of you? It’s a reminder...
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Goldilocks giving
When it finally comes time to ask someone to make a philanthropic donation, how much should you as for – a little, too much, or just right? “Too little” is never right. If anything, “too little” is a...
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Better
I was having a tough day. Lots of work requiring real emotional energy. I was feeling drained. On my way home a guy is jamming on the jazz piano. Just jamming. I keep on walking. Then I stop. I turn...
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Living up to the gift
It’s December, which means that nonprofit end-of-year fundraising is in full swing. It’s an exciting time of year as checks roll in at a much faster clip – the fruits of your labor, and payoff for a...
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Generosity Day – is it about the money?
Our stories hold truths for us. One of my truths is that my journey into generosity began with an encounter with a person on the NYC subway asking for money (FOR homeless people, he was not himself...
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I am generous when…
My daughter made this poster for a project in her Kindergarten class. The assignment was to finish the sentence: “I am generous when…” In case it’s hard to read: “I am generous when I have a lot of...
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How generosity touched you
Not long ago, a group of senior executives asked me to speak to them about generosity. So I started the conversation by asking each of them to share what generosity meant to them. Perhaps I shouldn’t...
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What if he’s conning me?
“What if this story this guy is telling me isn’t true? What if he, 70 years old, scraggly hair, sitting in a wheelchair, knee brace on his left leg, with a couple of bags and a book on his lap, didn’t...
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Why I (like everyone) gave to ALS while on vacation
A friend and colleague asked me. It was personal and I didn’t want to let him down. It was (a little bit of) a challenge to how macho and bold I could be. It was public. Turning something like this...
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Walking in the Rain
I’ll admit it, I’m terrible at checking the weather. It’s just not part of my morning routine. So, even though I spend 30 minutes a day walking to and from the train and to my office, more often than...
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Walking in the Rain
I’ll admit it, I’m terrible at checking the weather. It’s just not part of my morning routine. So, even though I spend 30 minutes a day walking to and from the train and to my office, more often than...
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Walking in the Rain
I’ll admit it, I’m terrible at checking the weather. It’s just not part of my morning routine. So, even though I spend 30 minutes a day walking to and from the train and to my office, more often than...
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How philanthropists really decide where to give
The natural place to start, as a fundraiser, is at your desk. You judiciously read every webpage, article and report about a potential funder’s strategy in search of the best fit between a donor and...
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Five Dollars
Yesterday I gave $5 to Wikipedia. $5. Kind of embarrassing, right? I literally spent $4.50 yesterday on a cheese Danish from Arcade Bakery. So what’s the point? The point is that I’ve been looking at...
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The Walk-Talk Gap
“Change is hard.” “You’ve got to show up every day.” “To learn new skills, you must to push through a period of incompetence.” “Self-knowledge is hard-won.” “True acts of leadership are rarely...
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