Inspired Stories: Newsletter Volume 4, Spring 2007

Team Member Upcoming Events Resources Making Change Happen Team Member Tammi Wallace Organizational Development Consultant Tammi Wallace is a business consultant with both for profit and nonprofit organizations. She spent eleven years in the financial services industry working in project management, process reengineering, operations, facilitation and strategic planning. Tammi champions change as a Founding Board Member and President of the Houston Equal Rights Alliance (HERA). She has been a proud Houstonian since 1986. See our whole team. Upcoming Events March 21-24 : Donor Meetings, New York, New York. April 18-19 : PNC Bank, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. April 24-26: Advisors in Philananthropy, Chicago, Illinois. April 28-30: Women's Funding Network, Seattle, Washington. May 7-8: 2nd Annual Women & Wealth Forum, New York, New York. May 22-23: PNC Bank, Erie Community Foundation, Erie, Pennsylvania. June 14-16: Shaking the Tree donor conference, New York, New York. View our calendar for more. Resources Offset your CO2 emissions from electricity use, from heating/cooling your home, from air travel, or driving your car. Calculate your carbon footprint. This year we will offset our emissions at the offices by investing in wind energy. http://www.tacticalphilanthropy.com is a blog by Sean Stannard-Stockton that chronicles of The Second Great Wave of Philanthropy and how individual donors are taking control of their giving in new ways. Please feel free to send us links to resources that address legacy or philanthropic planning and revitalize democracy through citizen participation. Making Change Happen There are now some 1.7 million nonprofits to choose from. Each quarter we will link to nonprofits that inspire us and our readers. We urge your own due diligence of these nonprofits. Youthgive http://www.youthgive.org 50 Percent League http://www.50percentleague.org Realizing Rights http://www.realizingrights.org Project Safe Place http://www.nationalsafeplace.org/ Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice http://www.astraea.org See our growing list of organizations making change happen. Receive another Inspired Stories! We welcome your feedback and ideas at any time! To contribute to the next issue of Inspired Stories please submit by May 15.

View From the Founder
Legacy Tools
Inspired Products
Legacy Partnerships
Letters to Loved Ones
Transitions

View from the Founder

Welcome to Inspired Legacies springing forward enews. Like most of you we are busy as bunnies so below is a list of highlights. As our theme for this quarter is evolution, we ask that you consider your own changes underway as we do ours. WOW, we have taken off!

Current headlines and news:

• IL's board, staff, and advisors meet to evolve our values, vision, mission and prioritize core programs, products and partnerships
  
• IL names its five mission-based partnerships for 2007
  
• Lorrie Lampson is honored for her year of service to IL, while an expanded IL team is being prepared ably by Tammi Wallace. We plan to add an Associate Director if we can raise simply $20,000 more by June 15th.
• The updated third version of Inspired Philanthropy - Your Step by Step Guide to Creating a Giving Plan and to Leaving a Legacy; How to be an Effective Donor During Your Lifetime and Beyond will be published by Jossey-Bass in October.
  

The book will will be out in October with 100 new pages and 35 new worksheets. We will be holding trainings by phone in late summer and fall.If you want to book me as author with our new book please do so soon. Dates for late October through December 2008 will fill up six months in advance so begin your planning now. For details email us.

Looking back on 2006:

2006 year-end donations and earned revenues sustain great works:

1. IL began in January 2006 with a loan from a small inheritance. Thanks to our business model and the generosity of 25 donors in 2006, we balanced our budget and paid back our loan for start up costs. Our revenues to do our work were $180,000. In 2007 our revenues will be $310,000. Paid consultancies and work with families, advisors and nonprofits to advance their strategic giving and legacy planning will provide 60 percent of our revenue.
   
2. We are one of the only nonprofit resources of our kind in the country. So we seek to raise about $100,000 more in contributed income for the remainder of this year.
3. IL reached over 10,000 people in workshops throughout 2006 in 50 venues in 22 states.

While our work is a combination of inspirational keynotes and state of philanthropy or legacy planning events, it is also about working deeply with a small handful of donors at the highest level of assets and aspirations. We love the joy of linking families, advisors, and nonprofits who want to fulfill the dreams they have for society. We also aim to help them shape those dreams with input from the communities they serve. We love seeing intention, leadership, and money move where it can be used for the greatest good.

Here is feedback from a participant in Atlanta:

Tracy and Inspired Legacies are on to groundbreaking theory and practical tools once again. I’m leaving the keynote and workshop not just inspired but determined to complete my legacy and giving to do's. And wait until I share my new insights about changes I want my family and advisor to make. Thank you for just exactly what I needed.

And Inspired Legacies thanks you and all of our participants. See the list of workshops, keynotes and services that IL offers.

Thanks to our corporate and other mission partners who engaged our work this first year. Our leverage was expanded by many media opportunities including radio interviews, newspaper and magazine articles, and a half hour on Consuelo Mack’s Wealth Track on PBS. We are also appreciative to our founding donors, Patricia de Bary and Jean Beard for their early and continued support.

I have just returned from honoring of the work of The Nepal Women's Fund (TEWA). While there, amidst a country which has resisted and been resilient against a Maoist insurgency for the past 10 years, I wondered what makes Rita Thapa, the founder of TEWA, so exceptional? With an average yearly household income in Nepal of $360 they have raised over $600,000 (US) in ten years to build what surely will be the new center of the global women's movement. How have they done it? It was accomplished through faith, alliances and a commitment to the greater good. Here on the other side of the world, we see that America's culture of independence is leading us to create silos of competition and exhaustion. The people of Nepal know about interdependence and the joy of community building.

At IL we seek to honor all of those who care about the interconnectedness of families, communities, and the world. Please be in touch if we may be of service to you and those you care about.

Gratefully,
Tracy Gary

Email me your plan or story: Tracy at Inspired Legacies.org

Share your concerns and best practices.

Inspired Legacies Board Advance
Michael Shannessy, Phil Cubeta, Bob Belkin,
Lorrie Lampson, Marguerite Belkin,
Flora Moon, Cindy Ewing, Tracy Gary, and Tammi Wallace.
March 2007

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Legacy Tools

This self-assessment worksheet can help you evaluate where you are and begin crafting a plan for next steps.

Consider the differences between Change and Charity.

Are you an Engaged Donor? This list of questions can help you decide.

Use Policy:

We encourage you to use our materials. We would like to know that you are using them so please fill out our contact form or email your proposed use and full contact information. Feedback is encouraged. Please also make a donation to Inspired Legacies to commiserate with the value you find in it's use. This helps us cover costs and create more tools for you and the world.

We welcome your feedback and ideas at any time!

Inspired Products

Creating Change Through Family Philanthropy: The Next Generation
by Alison Goldberg, Karen Pittelman & Resource Generation, Soft Skull Press, 2007. Distributed in partnership with the National Committee for Responsive
Philanthropy.
If you want to consciously transition your family foundation to the next generation and be truly educated about transformational giving and leadership options, give this book to every member of your family. This book offers hope, humor, practical wisdom, and coaching to make giving pleasurable and purposeful for our families and the public good.

Legacy and Innovation: The New Resource for Families Interested in Funding Social Change
Changemakers and Stephanie Yang, 2007.
Practical for grantmakers at all levels, this guidebook provides tools and resources to begin conversations within the family, to deepen existing practices, and to strengthen philanthropic structures. Each section also highlights personal stories from individuals and families as a way to examine how their values of social change practically manifest in their philanthropy.

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Legacy Partnerships

Our five mission based partnership organizations:

• Reuniting America is a network of organizations, associations, and individuals engaged in transpartisan dialogue. It is guided by a national steering committee and board of advisors comprised of leaders from across the political spectrum.
• Tipping Point Network and Fund currently in formation, seeks to steward a healthy earth and catalyze a new economy that enables all to thrive.
• YouthGive is growing the next generation of donors and fostering the intergenerational transfer of wealth with breakthrough technology by offering an online giving card.
• 50 Percent League is made up of donors who have either made a commitment or are considering giving the majority of their assets and income. No website has made these role models in philanthropy more visible. The 50 Percent League and Inspired Legacies have a twenty-five year relationship sharing tools, clients, and donor and legacy strategies.
• Women Moving Millions c/o, www.wfnet.org There have been about 35 women who have made $1 million gifts to one of the 125 women's funds nationally and globally. We want to grow and inspire another $1 million donors in the next year and a half.
• Transforming Philanthropy Globally and in Houston: Inspired Legacies works locally, nationally and globally to unleash greater and more strategic generosity, while also supporting the intergenerational transfer of leadership and the intergenerational transfer of wealth. Contact our office for updates and current partnerships. They include donor and legacy education and support for staff.

We are honored to be creating more awareness for these and other good works with about 20 percent of our time.

As we meet with wealth coaches, counselors and advisors who seek to better support donors, we aim to improve the quality of delivery and service in the legacy field. If you are an advisor, donor, or nonprofit seeking a better collaboration we hope to be a catalyst for your future partnerships. Let us know your needs and we will try to serve you as philanthropic and legacy advisors.

To proactively initiate a cross-sector conversation, we convene Inspired Advisors by invitation this April. Hosted by Phil Cubeta and Tracy Gary, we plan to improve collaborations and communications between advisors, donors, and nonprofits.

Tracy honored for leadership from the
Heritage Institute's Counseling the Affluent training.
February 2007

Letters to Loved Ones

Dear Chalant and Topher,

On the occasion of your thirteen birthdays this spring, I wanted to celebrate with a gift that has been given to me and to your father. As you enter your teens next week, you will carry with you a great deal of hope for the world.

At your birth, your grandfather and I started an education fund to enable the full impact of your contribution to society. Once you graduate from high school this will allow you to go to the colleges, professional, or graduate schools of your choice.

For your thirteenth birthdays, I want you to also have the income from some other investments. It's something that meant a great deal to your grandfather. We want this to be money that you use to gift others.

Your giving account will be set up in each of your names. Initially it will have $500 in it. Annually, depending on your community service, we will add more. You should consider nonprofit groups, locally, nationally and even internationally that you feel would be good stewards of your gift between now and Thanksgiving. You may write the checks yourself. Your parents and I will show you how to keep the account and create a giving plan.

It's our hope that you will give from the heart to groups that you feel will make a difference for the world. On Thanksgiving morning we will want to have some dialogue about what you have learned.

Giving is one of life's great joys: giving of your time, of your heart and care, of your talents, and also of your treasure. With this gift and monies that you may earn during your teens and as young adults, we hope that you will join the rest of our family as we each try to give at least 10% of our income annually. May you enjoy the process of giving as much as we all have enjoyed thinking of you beginning on this giving path.

I am here to support and answer any questions you may have. I will look forward to seeing you on your birthday and handing over the checks to launch your Giving Accounts. Congratulations.

I love you,
always,

Your Nana

You can open giving accounts for the young people you care about at YouthGive.org.

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Transitions

William Fayette Taylor
Brother of well known University of Wisconsin and Women's Philanthropy Institute co-founder Martha Taylor, William Taylor, died in Berkeley, CA on October 9, 2006, at age 54. He was a passionate lifelong advocate for the poor, the disenfranchised, and the abandoned. He worked on issues related to aging, helped to draft Nursing Home Reform Legislation, and championed its successful passage in the state of Oregon. He was a pioneer in nursing home abuse litigation, resident rights issues, and many other areas affecting elders in California. He cared very deeply for the world around him and was highly empathetic to all who crossed his path. At his death, he had given almost all he had to the poor. We will remember William for his amazing generosity.

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