Inspired Stories: Newsletter Volume 13, Summer 2009

Team Member Kate Persons, Board Member Kate Persons has worked in fund-raising for secondary and higher education for 13 years, including her current role as Director of Alumni and Development Operations at The Hotchkiss School in CT. She has also worked with social and environmental entrepreneurs and angel investors at Investors' Circle. She received her B.A. from Harvard College and her M.B.A. in Nonprofit Management and Strategy from the Yale School of Management. See also our whole team. Upcoming Events JULY 16 Women's Equity Media Collaborative, Detroit, MI AUGUST 1 Equality Conference keynote, St. Louis, MO OCTOBER 7-8 Zonta presentations, Riverside, CA 14-16 Partnership for Philanthropic Planning, Nat. Conf, Maryland NOVEMBER 5-8 Women Donors Network, New Orleans, LA 12 Community Foundation, New Canaan, CT 18 Nonprofit Skillbuilding Day, U of Houston, Houston, TX View our calendar for more. Legacy Tools Drawing Out Donors' Dreams By Ellen Uzelac, ResearchMag.com, May 1, 2009 Through her work with advisors and their wealthy clients, Tracy Gary is creating the future. Social Graces: The Upside of the Downside By Tracy Gary, Town and Country, May 2009 Please feel free to send us links to resources that address legacy or philanthropic planning and revitalize democracy through citizen participation. Here is our handy two page resource link of key blogs and websites providing resources and supporting the field of philanthropy. Download here Bolder Giving mini-interviews with Tracy Gary, with thanks to David Ludlow and Bolder Giving • How Giving has Improved My Life (1:27 min) • Giving Plan: A Multi Pronged Strategy for Maximum Impact (3:18 min) • Estate Planning: Creating Your Legacy (4:03 min) • Evaluating Non Profits Yourself Through Direct Involvement (3:08 min) • Giving Plan, organizing to better align your giving (1:42 min) • Developing a Financial Plan (.59 min) • Appreciation for Bolder Giving (1.54 min) • What a Giving Plan is and Why it is Important (1.30 min) • Evaluating Non Profits Yourself Through Direct Involvement, A Quick Summary (.30 min) • What a Financial Plan is and Why it is Important (2.51 min) Inspired Products The Guide to Intelligent Giving: Make a Difference in the World--and in Your Own Life By Joanna L. Krotz www.amazon.com "If you have an impulse to donate your time or money, these inspiring stories, along with concrete advice about how to select the right cause for you, will help make your generosity really count." Generosity Rules!: A Guidebook to Giving by Claire Gaudiani www.amazon.com Entertaining and inspiring stories such as the ones in the larger work, The Greater Good: How Philanthropy Drives the American Economy and Can Save Capitalism, which show how philanthropy uplifts our economy and impacts so much of the world around us. Making Change Happen Berkana The Berkana Institute is a virtual organization. Lizzie Riesenberg at lizzie@berkana.org, info@berkana.org or call Phone: 1.509.835.4228 www.berkana.org The Berkana Institute connects and supports pioneering, life-affirming leaders around the world who strengthen their communities by working with the wisdom and wealth already present in its people, traditions and environment. Acumen Fund 76 Ninth Avenue, Suite 315 New York, NY 10011, USA Phone: 1.212.566.8821 www.acumenfund.org Acumen Fund is a nonprofit global venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty. We seek to prove that small amounts of philanthropic capital, combined with large doses of business acumen, can build thriving enterprises that serve vast numbers of the poor. Our investments focus on delivering affordable, critical goods and services – like health, water, housing and energy – through innovative, market-oriented approaches. National Network of Consultants to Grantmakers A Tides Center Project P.O. Box 292182 Los Angeles, CA 90029 888.589.4489 toll-free phone www.nncg.org Email: info@nncg.org The Network's mission is to increase the quality, effectiveness and capacity of grantmakers by mobilizing and strengthening the work of knowledgeable, ethical and experienced consultants. Be sure to check our next issue in October 2009! Would you like to donate to support Inspired Legacies and Inspired Stories? 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 September 1.

View from the Founder

Breaking Through! The Upside of the Downsides: The Art of Great Questions

This month I had the honor, amidst an overwhelm of work and transitions, to go for two days Disneyland with the teen sons of Martha Newall, one of our fans from Montana. Like you, I see wide swings in emotions and also in perspectives on our collective and private present and future possibilities. Managing a nonprofit is not for the gentle of mind and heart these days. Since it surely has been a wild ride, I thought the roller coasters might still me, and so it did. We soared and ducked, dipped and screamed. Renewed oxygen to the brain and a dash of courage to the heart does a soul good.

And so it is…a wild ride here for our organization, our sector and our whole global economy. I hope you are all doing okay. There has been some lift. And, June 30th becomes very, very important for many of you to know if you will have jobs or some of the nonprofits you love very much. Shared sacrifices and brilliant leadership are the call for all but mostly we all reflect and consider the question, how then shall we lead?

Like many of your organizations, our Inspired Legacies' board has been involved in strategic planning as we review how we efficiently move forward in this critical time in our nation's history. We envision some changes will be forthcoming in the next few months. For one, we will be moving our office at the end of August as our lease is up. Please take a note of our New po box for future correspondence: PO Box 66274 Houston, TX 77266-6274.

We also bid much gratitude to the services of Luis Gilberto Rivas and Jonita Fair-Payton; staff who have moved on. We have welcomed three new board members in the past year: Janet Perkins, Kate Persons (featured in this issue) and our latest addition, Jeff Stys. Jeff is a nonprofit consultant with ten years of experience at the United Way of Greater Houston, and now a consultant with Strategic Decisions Associates specializing in donor collaborations. Jeff has jumped in and, with Jonita, held a wonderful forum for donors and activists which is reported below.

We are shifting to a different structure of operations and staffing to reduce our expenses by the 20% that we are off in revenues. This will enable greater sustainability towards our goal of being a high performing organization.

We ask in this issue, for all of you who are able, to consider a gift of $100 - $1000+ made by credit card or check to help to go through the next shifts ahead. All contributions received will go to our Independence Fund, our cash reserve account. See the box below and donate for our and your investment in our independence. The more stable we are the more we stabilize the field and the more we produce for greater donor and advisor effectiveness.

Our portfolio of resources now (see our website) includes Inspired Philanthropy, our Donor Partner work, our Youth Giving Circle tools, our coaching work with donors, families and advisors, and soon, recommendations by leaders of color on what they need now for added support.

Will you join us in considering what our greatest call to service is now? May your summer give you time to reflect as you work to transform yourselves, families, organizations and our civic culture. We are with you, doing the same and working to grow greater consciousness and impactful lifetime and legacy gifts and processes. As dreams die so too do others step in. We launch our Youth Giving Circle tools in this issue. Just register and see how you can add to your impactful tool kit for leadership for the young people in your family and life.

This our 13th issue of Inspired Stories from Legacy Mentors, for our 42 month old organization, is about breakthroughs. As the Berkana Institute, and those at the Tipping Point Network Jam in March shared: while much is reorganizing and breaking down, so too much IS breaking through.

From Inspired Legacies, you will find here questions we asked local nonprofits, funders, and leaders during one of our quarterly lunches in Houston shared in our Inspired Partnerships section below.

Here's what else we see breaking through that we are part of:

1. Women Moving Millions (which we have helped) raising $180 million from 102 women, going over their $150 m goal and onto Millions Raising Billions. See www.womenmovingmillions.org and all their inspiring press. Know that women care everywhere. Kudos to the leadership of the Women's Funding Network and hundreds and thousands of women staff and board and donors that have made this movement and breakthrough possible.
    
2. Advisors in Philanthropy, In Know Vision, NYPAN.org, SPANSeattle.org, and The American College retooling and inspiring advisors, nonprofits and clients to better collaborations and focus (with our cheers and sometimes partnership). Programs like Donor Motivation are breakthroughs - and so too the use of our book – Inspired Philanthropy — in moving donors to meet with family and advisors, more clear about what they want to accomplish. A new report shows, shockingly, that less than 20% of couples are really planning their retirements together with adequate advice. Now is the time to meet extensively with your advisors and family to plan your legacy and your future. Do it now and let us help you find whom you need. I would love to put together a meeting of women philanthropic advisors as this growing segment of our sector holds such promise.
    
3. A new client, the Seasons Fund for Social Transformation, is helping to move the integration of spirit and action into more nonprofits, especially grassroots nonprofits. These are the times when so much can implode due to stresses and insecurities. Season's Fund and its funding circle partners (at $10,000-$50,000 each) welcome new funders who want to learn and also to bring solid skills to the sector now under so many transitions. Their goal is to raise $5 million for granting. They have just begun funding with support from a circle of remarkable funders and with a Ford Foundation match for $ 1 million that we hope to help them meet. At their outstanding conference this Spring, DEEP CHANGE, over 85 leaders, with the help of great and diverse national leadership, gained powerful support for their inspiring next steps.

Email me if you would like more info for how to be connected on any of these. Tracy@inspiredlegacies.org, or my cell 415-377-9447.

Tracy as Donor Diva photo credit © Research Magazine

What breakthroughs are you seeing? Try not to let the breakdowns get to you. While sad, they are part of building the cultural shift and new consciousness within and without that is needed.

There is a quote I have kept in my wallet for over thirty years: Jill Ruskelshaus speaking to a group of women leaders in the late 1970's. As I write to you, the promises of that key inspiration, have kept me sane and hopeful through the darkest and toughest of times during my otherwise very blessed life.
Here is it for you:

We are in for a very, very long haul. I am asking for everything you have to give. We will never give up. You will lose your youth, your sleep, your patience, your sense of humor, and occasionally the understanding and support of people that you love very much.

In return, I have nothing to offer you, but your pride in being a woman, and all the dreams you ever had for your daughters, and nieces, and granddaughters. Your future and the certain knowledge that at the end of your days you will be able to look back and say that once in your life you gave everything you had for justice.

May this inspire you as well to your next steps, men and women alike. Onward! And enjoy your summer, but be sure to make nonprofit gifts and lend support before and after your own rest.

Thank you!
Tracy Gary, Founder and Director, Inspired Legacies

Share your concerns and best practices.

See the services IL offers.

Tipping Point Network, mini Jam, thanks to YES and Ocean and Michelle Robins last month.

Legacy Partnerships

On May 19th, we convened an event, Unleashing Strategic Generosity in Greater Houston with Jeff Stys of Strategic Decisions, and Jonita Fair-Payton of IL. Attended by over 15 community leaders, area philanthropic leaders and private foundation representatives, Inspired Legacies hosted a discussion focused on the significant funding challenges within the Houston nonprofit community. These challenges are exasperated by the current economy and the decline of some endowment funding and individual donor giving as a result of the economic shift. In an effort to promote a rich discussion around these issues, the group was asked to consider and discuss questions such as:

• What are nonprofits seeking from donors besides money?
• What are donors expecting from nonprofits?
• What do you see as potential opportunities during these difficult economic times?
• How do we continue to lead and have the greatest impact during this recession?

We heard renewed conviction about some of our core beliefs: the value of being mission-minded and that donors be meaningful and impactful in their support and resources. We also heard about being strategic by:

Prioritizing structural support and valuing the roots

• Inspire long-term/multi-year giving
• Consider operating funds and capacity building over one-time support or event sponsorships
• Encourage donors to seek out grassroots nonprofits

Encouraging communication and collaboration

• Inspire more community involvement
• There is a need for increased open and honest communication between donors and organizations
• Seek peers as potential partners/allies not competitors
• Share resources between organizations; listen and learn, put egos aside

Fostering community

• Utilize support within the community
• Learn to accommodate volunteers: people have more than money to contribute
• Be mindful of teaching the next generation to give and lead
• An increase in the utilization of services with the faith based community

Events across the country with Inspired Legacies January - June 2009

Letters to Loved Ones

In this issue of Letters to Loved Ones, we offer what Marion Moore shared about how she approached her children. This is an extract from an article Tracy Gary wrote for the Social Graces section of Town and Country's June '09 Philanthropy issue.

"Because I knew my kids would be hearing about the economic downturn, I decided to talk to them about money to give context to the climate of fear and contraction," said Moore, whose late father was Paul Moore Jr., an Episcopal bishop and the leading liberal Christian voice for a decade in New York City. "The kids are twenty, seventeen and thirteen. I treated them as I would a board of directors. I told them how much money I had inherited and how I had changed over the years from someone living off inherited investments to someone who learned how to earn money. I shared the level of my assets and what they stand to inherit. And I told them what I think is of most value during these times: community, caring for others. The more we talk about money and our personal relationship to it, the more able we will be to identify what is important in our lives. This is what I call the upside of the downside."

Key is to help ourselves and our kids be sustainable and self sufficient and understand what really counts, community, integrity, vision and inspiring hope for the changes we can make.

Remember Meg Wheatley's quote: "Whatever the problem, community is the answer!" This summer, huddle up with your family, your tribe, your group of advisors, your mentors or elders, your community, your team, and lets make each other steady and inspire each other to shape the world and life we want.

It's time for more truthtelling and adventuring to new levels of caring. Do it now, schedule it, before the summer melts our minds.

Blessings for your summer, Inspired Legacies.

Gratitudes & Transitions

With gratitude to IL's Board and Luis Gilberto Rivas and Jonita Fair-Payton for their service and leadership.