Inspired Stories: Newsletter Volume 11, Winter 2008

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"We have to figure out how to keep the balance in the tension we feel between living within our means and living to fulfill our dreams."
~ Tracy Gary

COUNTING OUR BLESSINGS

This Thanksgiving season, we offer The Gratitude Tree as a way to remind you to keep moving your money to benefit others. We wish you calm of course for these nerve-wracking times and also faith that living to fulfill the dreams of society and others is also part of our collective work to build the future and our joy.

To you, our readers and donors, we say one enormous thank you for all you do.

Please take time this week to (as the Gratitude Tree we designed says) Talk to your Turkey Table (or Vegan Table!) Take time to strategize how your family, in all it's forms and shapes, will be part of the solution as we build and rebuild the world we want and need.

I just got off the phone with a new inheritor. He wants to be part of changing the world immediately. The last two months, I have mostly heard from donors, advisors, nonprofit leaders, and investors freaked out about their losses and fragile financial lives. Naturally, it was wonderful to be reminded that there are many stepping up to help.

Each year Inspired Legacies reaches out to about 50,000 people through our events, and website and publications. Next year we want to double that. It's a small piece of making the world a better place, but it's our way of leveraging what we have and training new people in our work.

Growing great donors and their leadership.

This is our purpose, our change strategy, and our honor. What's yours?

Here are 8 things you can do to have more impact:

1. Sit down with your advisor and family to rework your plans. It's a great time to transfer low valued assets to your heirs and update your estate plans. Don't forget your 3-5 favorite charities! There is so much advisors can help with now. This is a key time to get in sync.
2. If you have lost 10-50%, give less but also waste less. Give 10-40% less but keep giving so you stay connected and hopeful. You may find in saving more you can give more.
3. Let organizations and leaders know if you will be supporting them: how much and when. Thus they can plan and not lay off staff or move offices unnecessarily. Or let them know asap if you will NOT be funding if you have been giving at $500+ so they can focus attention on who can give.
4. If you have or are part of a family foundation, consider giving more from principle now instead of giving only 4-5% of income. What if you considered not having a foundation that lasts forever, but move your money now, when it's truly needed. Consider it.
5. Volunteer more and get more skilled as a donor, a donor partner and a board member. (We will be training more donor partners in 2009, so let us know if you want more training.)
6. Name the leaders and organizations that you know you must keep supporting with your time, talent or treasure and figure out how (use this worksheet to think it through.)
7. Fund community loan funds so you can get interest while helping others. To find places that will cherish your money and put it to work, like RSF Finances or Northern California Community Loan Fund, or Shorebank that pay 1-3% interest on your money while the lend it carefully to community based organizations (and have remarkable success as does micro finance at their loan success.) just Google your state, and loan fund or see the National Community Redevelopment Association (link below for some 600 listings) http://www.ncrc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=57&Itemid=121 and even better, The Social Investment Forum through Co-Op America.
8. And lastly remember, we will get through this. We are on the edge of a new paradigm. We are part of building a new weave, a new culture and a new way. We have to nurture and help each other and those in greatest need to get through it. Have faith and be part of the solution by rethinking and changing how you spend, save, work, love, give and lead. Could you make a change to help others be more sustainable or to live with dignity? If so, do it now.

Martha Newell and Tracy Gary discuss the Women Moving Millions Campaign during a donor education conference.

So stay tuned for more tools and support. And please remember, we exist through your generosity. We are a $450,000 organization, earning 50% of our revenues. We have only 75 donors as a 2 year start-up nonprofit. We still have $45,000 to raise by the end of December. We are a catalyst for giving. Please give to us now so we can leverage and unleash MILLIONS needed for our collective transformation. Your $50-$250-$500-$1000 gift enables our being fully present for donors, advisors and nonprofits and their dreams and dreamaking.

Please put us in your YES list with a gift by credit card or check to us directly today.

Fall 08 Inspired Legacies Staff and Board

PS. View our recently published bi-annual report.
See also our invitation to transformational leaders.
(Large files. Take 3 deep breathes, but DO await great tools.)

In this year we've done workshops for donors and advisors and nonprofit leaders reaching 50,000 in hundreds of events in about half our countries' states and some 48 cities or towns and have loved, believe it or not, every minute.

Legacy Tools

Shaping the Community We Want

With so many issues facing us and needing solution and new levels of education and advocacy, and with more people facing poverty than ever…how do we decide when and how much to give now? Click here