Inspired Stories: Newsletter Volume 17, Summer 2010

TEAM MEMBERS LIsa Parker, Board Member Lisa Parker has over 25 years in youth and family philanthropy and has been the President and Executive Director of the Lawrence Welk Family Foundation since 1997. She launched the Foundation's youth philanthropy initiative in 2003 and helped seed a broader youth giving movement. In 2009 she founded Family Circle Advisors helping families, schools, foundations and corporations more deeply engage youth in meaningful giving experiences. Ms. Parker's work has included managing nonprofit organizations and consulting with both corporate and family foundations and she has spoken extensively on issues related to youth and family philanthropy. As a mother of two, she is particularly passionate about helping families nurture the philanthropic impulse in future generations. Jeff Stys, Board Member Jeff has been President of Strategic Decision Associates, a Houston-based consulting practice, since June 2008. He focuses on organizational strategic planning, development of high-performing collaboratives, evaluation and community planning. He also has an expertise in non profit roles in preparedness planning and long-term recovery after disasters. Since starting Strategic Decision Associates, Jeff has been working with Galveston philanthropic, government and non-profit organizations in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. Jeff spent over ten years at the United Way of Greater Houston where he oversaw the development and execution of community initiatives such as Operation Thrive and coordination of the social service efforts after Hurricanes Rita/Katrina and Tropical Storm Allison. Born and raised in upstate New York, Jeff has been a Houstonian for over 20 years and has a Masters' Degree from the LBJ School of Public Affairs in Austin. (http://sdaconsultants.com/JeffStys.html) See our whole team.   UPCOMING EVENTS JUNE 5 Board Meeting, Houston, TX 6-7 Fundraising, Los Angeles, CA 7-8 Grantmakers without Borders, 10th Anniversary, Just Giving Conference, San Francisco, CA 8-11 Youth Giving Circle work, Monterey and Santa Cruz, CA 13-15 Office reorganization, Houston, TX 18-20 Unitarian Universalist of Dallas, Dallas, TX 24-27 donor visits, Minneapolis & Wisconsin JULY 1-5 family and donor visits, New Hampshire 7-10 Inspired Legacies Associates: Co-Creating the Future of Progressive Philanthropic Advising, hosted by The Philadelphia Foundation, Philadelphia, PA AUGUST 2-6 Tracy Gary reopens office in Ross, CA, and maintains Houston, TX team 24-26 IL Associate, Ginni Galiciano & Tracy, collaborate on programs for donors, advisors and nonprofit leaders, Aspen, CO 28 Depart for Melbourne, AU SEPTEMBER 1-8 donors/nonprofits, Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney, AU 29-30 The Communications Network Conference, Los Angeles, CA Click here for updated and extended calendar We welcome your feedback and ideas at any time! To contribute to the next issue of Inspired Stories, please submit by August 15.   LEGACY TOOLS Inspired Legacies Videos Long time mentor and friend, Phil Cubeta and I had a chance to exchange ideas last month, about passing wealth to the next generation. Hear our ideas and share yours. Also he asked how the book we did is doing. We welcome your feedback. Do sit down as a family this summer and let us know if we can be helpful. • Tracy Gary and Phil Cubeta about Inspired Philanthropy's intended audiences. Phil Cubeta and Tracy Gary dialogue about inspiring the next generation (2 short clips) • Families working with Advisors • Philanthropy for Inheritors as Counterbalance & Perspective Bolder Giving Take the Bolder Giving Challenge and move ahead with your own giving goals. We offer a form to help you consider your Next Steps after reading this newsletter and the many ways your process for making change is informed. Advancing Our Leadership questionnaire Think About This: Deepak's Four Questions Deepak Chopra appeared as a featured guest on EnlightenNext's virtual seminar, The Evolutionary Worldview. Speaking with EnlightenNext's founder Andrew Cohen about what it takes to be a true evolutionary leader, Chopra challenged listeners throughout the world to answer four questions about their visions for the future. Write your answers on www.enlightennext.org blog or email me (tracy@inspiredlegacies.org) your ideas and we will post them in early September on our new Inspired Legacies' blog: 1. What kind of world do you want to live in and what kind of world do you want your children and grandchildren to live in? 2. What is your role in bringing this about? 3. Regarding the organizations that you're part of, what kind of team do you want to have and what kind of relationship do you want to have with this team? 4. What do you see as the primary need in our current cultural moment?   INSPIRED PRODUCTS The New Good Life: by John Robbins www.amazon.com The New Good Life provides a philosophical and prescriptive path from conspicuous consumption to conscious consumption. A passionate manifesto on finding meaning beyond money and status, this book delivers a sound blueprint for living well on less. Discover how to: create your own definition of success based on your deepest beliefs and life experience alleviate depression, lower blood pressure, and stay fit with inexpensive alternatives for high-cost medications develop a diet that promotes better health, and saves you money plan for, and protect yourself from, future economic catastrophes cut down on your housing and transportation costs live frugally without deprivation follow in the footsteps of real people who have effectively forged new financial identities The New Good Life provides much-needed hope and comfort in a time of fear and uncertainty. Here is everything you need to develop high-joy, low-cost solutions to life's challenges. Practical and inspiring, this book equips you with the skills needed not only to survive but to thrive in these challenging times.   RESOURCES Legacy Cards http://www.2164.net/ Picture Your Legacy Deciding on an approach to funding is a critical task; in philanthropy, one must consider where the soul meets the business plan. This deck contains 52 colorful images designed to spark discussion among funders of any generation, facilitating greater understanding of an individual and groups' philanthropic identity and aspirations. See also the Picture Your Legacy iPhone app. A companion piece to the printed deck of images, the iPhone app is designed for users to search the image database, tag chosen images with keywords and notes, and send their choices to others. Need ideas for kids and giving: Consider our great tool, Inspiring Youth to Bring About Change....Get your 12-18 year olds and their community connecting this summer: It's FREE and it's really cool (169 pages worth! in 3 parts) www.inspiredlegacies.org/youthgiving Join Bolder Giving monthly calls: (Add details) Just do events for June-Aug. http://boldergiving.org/site/events/ Get inspired, read Thrivability: A Collaborative Sketch (curated by our co-founder, Jean Russell). Try just a page each day as meditation at Thrivable.org   Please feel free to send us links to resources that address legacy or philanthropic planning and revitalize democracy through citizen participation.   MAKING CHANGE HAPPEN The Gulf Coast Oil Spill Fund of the New Orleans Community Foundations Greater New Orleans Foundation 1055 St. Charles Ave, Ste 100 New Orleans, LA 70130 Greenpeace Defenders of Wildlife The Southern Environmental Law Center   Be sure to check our next issue in September 2010! We welcome your feedback and ideas at any time! To contribute to the next issue of Inspired Stories, please submit by August 15. Would you like to donate to support Inspired Legacies and Inspired Stories?   Planning Youth Giving Activities? Use our tools. They are free and downloadable, with thanks to our donors. Share your concerns and best practices. Tracy Gary Presentations and Workshops See the services Inspired Legacies offers. Read about workshops and keynotes we do. Inspired Legacies Program Chart

VIEW FROM THE FOUNDER

"Take it that you have died today, and your life's story is ended; and henceforward regard what future time may be given you as an uncovenanted surplus, and live it out in harmony with nature." (and through the nonprofits and leaders you love…we add.)
~ Marcus Aurelius from Meditation

U R MAD: Making a Difference Before Vacation or Graduation?
HEY we have a catastrophe of meta level proportions going on!
Lets get BP OUT of the clean up business AND change our lifestyles.

We've had a very busy Spring Inspired Legacies season supporting our sector!

• Denver's Women's Funding Network's Conference with some 161 women's funds world-wide (see www.wfnet.org)
• Singapore and work with 250 wealth holders of Asia for UBS Bank
  
  Tracy with UBS's Peter Chung
• West Chester, PA with The Chester County Fund for Women and Girls
• Staunton, Virginia for the commencement address for the Class of 2010 at Mary Baldwin College. Mary Baldwin Commencement, May 2010

People care everywhere. And we are deeply concerned and reaching for solutions, while expressing our leadership as never before! Wait until you see the number of partnerships that we have formed. Let's hold fast and get through these times. There are breakthroughs but still some breakdowns. You can help.

With so many changes and people's challenges to consider, how is your heart faring? We are all a bit nuts this time of year: barrel racing to graduations, family weddings, staffing transitions, and hopefully summer vacations. Meanwhile, new and old nonprofit leaders do everything imaginable to get through cash flow crunches (the third year for many). Please be sure you do all you can to make contributions to organizations and leaders you care about (including Inspired Legacies!) We, like many, still have to have dollars to make changes happen. Toss those checks in the mail or make those internet donations before you go relax with those you care about. See our appeal and offer below. It's a promise that actually benefits you personally as well as your family and community.

Let the beauty of what you love, be what you do.
                                        ~ RUMI

Living is not so simple any more. We are overwhelmed by a lifestyle we can't support, oil drilling that's wrecking us and daily decisions that fry our minds. It's hard to figure out our priorities. (That's why we wrote our book on strategic giving to help you.)

We are all so disconcerted that torrents of oil gush into the Gulf of Mexico casting devastation beyond our wildest nightmares. This is an unprecedented disaster. Oddly, we have yet to organize as fully as we must on this!!! Earth to our hearts: WAKE UP!

Show your outrage and WeAddUp donates $10 to nonprofits working to clean up the Gulf. www.weaddup.com/oilspillshirts

A local New Orleans Gulf Coast leader said to me: "We must demand accountability and reparations, and think about how this spill relates to unchecked consumerism and unsustainable ways." IS THIS THE GIFT here? We have to arrest the flow. Isn't this when angels or the government has GOT to step in! We've got to move! Get thee and all who care to take action to get this thing STOPPED! And then help the South rework its economic and species recovery. OUR South, OUR jobs, OUR people, OUR species, OUR water, OUR planet. This one can't wait.

Are you water-skiing through life or deep diving with those you love and cherish? Imagine deep diving in the South now? Imagine a hurricane and what can happen if this oil gets into our food system. 70% of the shell fish we eat comes from the Gulf. Economic recovery set WAY back. Watch out, open wide the heart, and consider HOW much is escalating and why.

Can we decelerate and rethink this model? John Robbin's new book in our book reviews below will show us how. So too the Bolder Giving monthly calls. Last month, Molly Stranahan's call was filled with innovation, joy and courage. Join them.

Meanwhile the spirit of endings and new beginnings, given to us through the ritual of commencement and the addresses that inspire us, tilt our sails for what we hope are calmer waters ahead.

YES, rest some this summer to restore, but DO all you can before you go, please.

Give us our youth and stand with them to consider anew the world we want.

And your inner voice said, "I really should step up and stop our addiction to oil," or "hey I am doing nothing to help with kids or young adults." Do it now. It's up to us. Add that homeless person YOU KNOW, to your "Friends and Family" phone line and put them in your guest room for a month while they get their bearings. Break out from your OLD views of trust and decide to invest in moving someone who needs your help. These are the ways we will thrive. For more inspiration, see under Resources the link to Thrivable.org.

Call your favorite environmental leader or organization and ask what can be done! Send prayers, send money, send your kids sitting at home for service. Lets turn the tide on a new wave of compassion and solutions and STOP WAITING FOR THE POWERS THAT BE TO DO SOMETHING! Take charge my friends and give money and time!

It's summer time and the time to circle up and go barefooted and remember slower times and silliness and family. But before you go, let's support our local women's funds and foundations, our public foundations (social justice, glbtq, and those headed by leaders of color.) Also see our Making Change Happen environmental groups and remember us as well.

Stay tuned to hear about our Houston program called Inspiring Our Communities. Read about it on our website soon. We thank Ruquayya Gibson and Jeff Stys, our donor partners and nonprofit leaders of color, who seek to learn and collaborate together. Here again, is change making.

May the true joy of giving be with you,

Tracy Gary, Director, Inspired Legacies
P.O. Box 1693
40 Redwood Drive
Ross, CA 94957

Phone: 415.377.9447
tracy@inspiredlegacies.org

A Guide for Wealth Management and Living Legacies

INSPIRED PARTNERSHIPS

Give to them and support them all please; for here is how we LIFT and weave for a stronger sector and world.

Partners and Constituents

Click on image above for downloadable copy

As you can see from our 2009 Partners and the new 2010 Program map, IL has two new partners and some key projects we invite you to learn about and support:

Criterion Ventures: Women Effect Investments
    Work with us map the field of investments with a
    gender lens
    Donations via Calvert Foundation mark for WE Investments
    Still to raise: $30,000 of $110,000
    Women Effect Investments
Funders of LGBTQ Issues

    Mapping the status of the LGBTQ public funds
    Building their Capacity Building
    To raise: $50,000 more to launch pre-campaign
    work needed
The Seasons Fund for Social Transformation
    Building transformational leaders and practice while
    creating a field of emerging leaders using these
    practices and the capacities of their organizations
    $250,000 in gift and pledges needed by June 30 ideally.
    Join our call Wednesday June 2, 3:30-5pm EST
    Download flyer
    Download pledge form
Thrivable.org
    Launch of new tool happened.
    $10,000 more for education projects on thrivability
Bolder Giving
    $100,000 for sponsorships for IL and BG for
    website updates and donor education programs
    (50k each general operating)
    Ask about our sponsorship packages, or coaching
    this summer! Grow great and bold donors and leverage
    your dollars by millions!
    Contact: Tracy Gary, 415.377.9447 or
    Bolder Giving at 781.646.1705
Tools on Nonprofit Turnarounds
    Call Tracy Gary for details
    (available this Fall with training)
    $15,000 left to raise
Women's Media Equity Collaborate
    Building the feminist media movement and supporting its
    leaders and organizations. Support Ariel Doughterty,
    feminist media advocate, to strengthen this powerful
    field and to assure that feminist voices are expressed
    on all issues and in varied medium.
    $60,000 to raise
    Donations notation: for WMEquity Collaboration
    https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=378
Miscellaneous others: ask us about GREAT PROJECTS. We dive for pearls.

Contact Tracy about any of the above.
415.377.9447
tracy@inspiredlegacies.org

IL Program Map, 2010

Click on image above for downloadable copy

GRATITUDES & TRANSITIONS

Gratitude to:

To Sara Gould, President of the Ms. Foundation, Kavita Ramdass, President of the Global Fund for Women and to Katherine Acey, President, of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, whose outstanding leadership has lifted our sights and hopes and field forever. May you know truly how much you impact us all and take time now to mentor others to do that remarkable fundraising, travel and leadership, that shall go unsurpassed for quite a spell. Thank you!

To Elaine Dallman, our Valentine's Day poet whose legacy will always be remembered for her passion for poetry and beauty.

And to Dr. Henry Jordan, co-founder of the Chester County Community Foundation and family partner to Barbara Jordan. Henry cared that we democratize philanthropy and worked to that end. And I loved to tell him that The Chester County Fund for Women and Girls would outshine his community foundation. Henry, didn't Barbara and Heidi and their team do a great job! We will miss you and will always be grateful for your respectful ear for your family and community.