Inspired Stories: Newsletter Volume 10, Fall 2008

Team Member Upcoming Events Resources Making Change Happen   Team Member New Inspired Legacies Associate: Sondra Shaw-Hardy Sondra Shaw-Hardy speaks, advises and writes widely about how women's philanthropy can make the world a better place. She has written, co-authored, or co-edited three books about women and philanthropy. Over the past twenty-five years Sondra has founded or co-founded numerous nonprofit groups including the Women's Philanthropy Institute as well as several giving circles. Sondra Shaw-Hardy, J. D, has been a faculty member, politician, public relations consultant, development director and manager. She is an active community volunteer and philanthropist. See also our whole team. Upcoming Events September 15-16 PNC Bank, Pittsburgh, PA 17 St. Paul Foundation, St Paul, MN 18-19 multiple events with Phil Cubeta, Seattle, WA 22-23 Boulder Community Foundation, Boulder, CO 24 Dallas Association of fund-raising Professionals, Dallas, TX 25-26 Associate Grantmakers of Boston, Boston, MA 27 Boston fund-raising, Boston, MA October 1-2 Reno Women's Foundation, Reno, NV 16-17 PNC Bank, Washington, DC 22-25 NCPG with Phil Cubeta, Denver, CO 27-28 multiple events for Social Venture Partners, Des Moines, Iowa 29-31 PNC Bank, Philadelphia, PA + Delaware Valley GLBT Fund, Philadelphia, PA November 6-9 Women Donors Network Conference, Boston, MA 11 York Community Foundation, York, PA 18 Community Foundation, Georgetown, TX 13-14 Center on Philanthropy-Women's Program, Indianapolis, IN View our calendar for more. Resources Nipun Mehta of Charity Focus interviews Tracy Gary Economic Stimulus: Inspiring Donors to Invest in Nonprofit Capacity and Change in Opportunity Knocks Inspiring Giving, Leaders & Members Making Change Happen Bioneers www.bioneers.org Changemakers (see their new curriculum for donors of color) www.changemakers.org InterfaithWorker Justice www.iwj.org Faith Trust www.faithtrustinstitute.org Season's Fund www.seasonsfund.org See our growing list of organizations making change happen. Receive other Inspired Stories! We welcome your feedback and ideas at any time! To contribute to the next issue of Inspired Stories, please submit by October 15.

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

Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and DO GOOD. ~ Minor Myers Jr.

View from the Founder

For a great leap forward in the current cultural transformation we are all about, Inspired Legacies is doing its part. Leaping frogs may come to mind, but actually, bears and bunnies seem to be the animal totems guiding our way.

Welcome back from summer and into this amazing Fall forward. My summer was greeted in June by the completion of eight months of the launch of phase one of our new book. We have gone to over 36 cites and towns and presented, between October and June, some 94 times to audiences of donors, advisors, and nonprofit leaders: 12,000 people collectively. Here's a quote from just one participant:

"I am now propelled to move myself and my family to work with our advisors and favorite nonprofits to move more money and our leadership. Thank you Tracy. Your book is simply a no foolin' way to get going. No wonder it has the title it does! Inspiring indeed! Congratulations!" Sarah Amber-Peterson, Springfield, Illinois

At June's end, we invited leaders to come and share perspectives about the donor and legacy education field. As a pilot titled, the Training of Trainers, we were the ones educated by our 35 attendees from some 14 states, about less visible and remarkable work being done. Work done for and by:
• leader and donors of color,
• advisors for middle America and small business owners
• those committed to donor advised funds, women's giving, or youth giving education, and social change and women's funds.
See our six key learnings in our Legacy Partnerships. Networks like Advisors in Philanthropy (www.advisorsinphilanthropy.org) are springing up to support this emerging field and Inspired Legacies has made plans in Texas for a similar network to launch in 2009, called Texas Philanthropic Advisors Network.

Hats off at Training of Trainers, June 2008, Houston, TX

Our thanks to Phil Cubeta, Jean Russell, Sondra Shaw-Hardy, Diana Ip and Jessica Chao for their presentations, and to each attendee for helping Inspired Legacies to build our shared field of practice.

Together we also saw the evolution shaping transformative giving and leadership. We hope to produce two similar convenings in 2009, with much wisdom and cutting edge theory and practice integrated, so let us know if you want to be included.

Read more below about how you can work with us and our partners to become transformative donor partners and what that will mean. Inspired Legacies seeks to inspire and provide tools, provisions, and maps for the journey. For more discussion about transformative leadership, send us your full address so we can send you our bi- annual report, out in mid October 2008.

Collaborations
Inspired Legacies and Bolder Giving (see Inspired Partnership below) are amidst a shared campaign for our collective capacity building and donor organizing efforts. We are each under 4 years old and leaders in growing bold and effective donors and advisors.

This Fall, we encourage you to include at least 20% of your giving budgets to grow the donor expertise and community in the giving priority areas you care about most. Funding Inspired Legacies or Bolder Giving assures that donors are networked, fast-tracked, and given shortcuts to greatness. If you want to have impact nationally, fund Inspired Legacies or Bolder Giving and see your leadership and wisdom reflected in the media and in tools to the next generation of donors.

We each hope to have an Associate Director and a shared national training coordinator by 2009 for these important leaps forward. We are not adequately staffed given demands and needs of the sector at this time to grow great donors and the partnerships they need to have with advisors and nonprofits. As you will see in our forthcoming report, we are having significant impact. Greater support will deepen and increase our reach. Few others are diligently doing the in depth work of accompanying donors and advisors on this powerful path.

Additionally we have been invited to serve as coaches to the advisory service firm, IN KNOW VISION and to work with up to twenty five of their advisors and their clients to grow their giving and legacy planning. We are very honored to work with Randy Fox and Scott Hamilton and the outstanding partners, advisors, and administrative team at In Know Vision on this important expansion of our work.

So what else happened this summer to refine our greatest capacities?

Black bear messenger

Lets call it a visitation.
My car was hit by a 300 lb black bear. No foolin! I was driving at night to go canoeing, kayaking, and sailing, between work in Minnesota and Michigan on the back roads of Wisconsin. Going just less than 50 mp hour -- I had just slowed after seeing deer cross a few miles before -- imagine my surprise when a giant black bear hit the car, setting off the airbag and landing with a body sized dent on the hood. So when the surprise and ethical dilemmas lifted, (do you go out to take care of the bear, or will she be pissed off?) I started to laugh. I was face to face with a bear on the hood of my car!

Here I was on the way to REST and PLAY, and I was gifted with this wake up: a reminder of how surprising life can be. I am grateful I had recently revised my will and trust! And had been thinking of how precious life is! Upon arrival in Bayfield Wisconsin, gateway to Lake Superior's Madeline Island and places my family has long gone to play, I googled, "black bear totem". Well can you guess it: the message was hibernation, rest, and reflection. (To you bear lovers, the bear rolled off the car and away!)

Sometimes it takes a higher power to hurl a giant bear at you to remind you to really take rest and reflect, so indeed. I followed the good advice. The end of August, and a week of yoga, silence and bear-like meditation has brought this Inspired Leader back refreshed and ready to receive my next call and angel's message, along with a busy Fall ahead.

Thank you all for patience during our growth and our leaps forward. Once you see our case for support in our bi-annual report coming this mid-October to you, we aim with your help, to have the staff and consulting team needed to better serve you in humanities leap or bear roll!

Join us in doing the bear roll and bunny leap!
Tracy Gary
Email me your story: Tracy@InspiredLegacies.org

P.S. With the outstanding leadership of Chris Grumm, CEO of the Women's Funding Network (.www.wfnet.org) and her team and Helen Hunt, Co-Chair's of Women Moving Millions (www.womenmovingmillions.org), we have helped raise now $108 million of the $150 million goal by April of 2009. Way to go all! If you have yet to pledge your million in a lifetime, multi-year or legacy gift or trust, call me today, and we will have your join this extraordinary group of women and their families who are strengthening women's funds nationally and globally. What better strategy is there to build constituencies and a base locally informed by outstanding women and girls. And what fun it is to know that part of my legacy is in the hands of five outstanding women and girls' funds.
 
 

Legacy Tools

Moving toward a more transformative philanthropy? See our tool explaining Transformative Philanthropy and check back on our site in mid-October for our bi-annual report.

Inspired Products

Inherited Wealth: Opportunities and Dilemmas
John Levy
BookSurge Publishing (June 9, 2008)

"In the Book Review section below you will see a preface, I had the honor of doing for one of my mentors, John Levy in his new book, Inherited Wealth. Don't miss it!" ~ Tracy

"John's book shines with aliveness, truth telling, compassion and hope for inheritors, their families, and advisors. Here is a guidebook for the journey of awakening to the challenges and blessings of wealth." -Tracy Gary

A Kids Guide to Giving
Freddi Zeiler
Innovative Kids (October 1, 2006)
http://www.networkforgood.org/KidsGuideToGiving

For youth grade 7 and up, this encouraging book is written by one teenager for others. Freddie Zeiler challenges her peers to make a difference through giving.

Wildlands Philanthropy: The Great American Tradition
Doug Thompkins

What a gift for your favorite environmental donor or friend! Supported by Doug Thompkins and others shares the amazing legacy of giving land.

See the VIDEO, teaser, the slideshow that is offered. It takes only 2-3 minutes. Also view the remarkable presentation at: http://www.wildlandsphilanthropy.org

Legacy Partnerships

Jule Meyer, Associate of Inspired Legacies

In July and Aug, we buckled down to form new partnerships with advisory firms and nonprofits and to affirm long time field building development coaching and consulting with several organizations (NCWR, Astraea, Women Moving Millions with the CA Women's Foundation, and In Know Vision). We affirmed our direction to add new coaches and associates to enable Inspired Legacies to extend its reach.

One of these Associates, Jule Meyer has helped set up five events for us in Seattle covering just two days. Phil Cubeta, one of our advisors and co-founders, has given Inspired Legacies a few special days of collaborating to bring more advisors and high net-worth clients together for a new level of partnership. Jule is also working with us on the Bolder Giving and Inspired Legacies collaboration.

We receive GREAT feedback on our tools, and new book and website, we are pleased to say. In short we are fully booked for 2008 and taking speaking, coaching, and family foundation advising dates for 2009 and 2010. Call us soon to discuss your needs if you are considering work with us in 2009, as we seek a balance and diversity of clients.

GIVING BOLDER AND SMARTER
In August, we worked on our new partnership with Bolder Giving. We are thrilled to report that Bolder Giving and Inspired Legacies together seek the best ways to combine our skills and development capacities. Bolder Giving and its founders, Anne and Christopher Ellinger have BOLDLY and magnificently gathered the stories of donor leaders who are giving 50% of income or assets. We aim, in this partnership, to raise for each of our new organizations (each under 3 years old) $100,000 by June of 2009 from foundations and special donors. And we seek also to have $50,000 each or $100,000 in corporate or small business sponsorships to reach our collective nearly 10,000 email members and to support their partnership with socially responsible businesses, philanthropic advisors, and wealth advisory firms. Here's a two pager for possible funders. Just call or email Tracy (Tracy@InspiredLegacies.org) if you want a full proposal.

YOUTH
We saw a few national foundations this summer, to share our proposal for a new Youth Giving Circle Curriculum pilot this fall. Our featured team member and recently joined Associate, Sondra Shaw-Hardy, has taken what Karen Payne sketched, fleshing it out into a 50 page curriculum for kids 12-18. Tracy has been getting requests to write a book on social change giving for kids for years. After working with Karen to survey the field, we realized that Learning to Give (www.learningtogive.org) was great, but not as hip and cool and the kids need now. They want to work in new ways, on line and also in diverse groups, and they want to learn and contribute their fund-raising power and excellence and gain new skills together.

With thanks to Kim Lund, Nancy Meyer and Marc Weiss, Chambers Family Fund, Lynne Rosenthal, and the greatest generosity so far, a grant of $10,000 from the Lawrence Welk Family Foundation, we are half way done with our $40,000 project. We have all 10 sessions drafted and are seeking now 4 donors at $5,000 or 8 donors at $2,500 to complete the curriculum and test it, and to get all the handouts together. Would you join us as a sponsor of our Youth Giving Circle Curriculum?

Again, contact Tracy at 415-377-9447 or Tracy@InspiredLegacies.org if you want to be named as a sponsor for this breakthrough legacy opportunity. Become one of only eight sponsors of the Inspired Legacies' Youth Giving Circle Curriculum.

We will make openly available to the public as open source curriculum in early 2009 once tested. So we will seek from national foundations, including Kellogg, Mott, Irvine and others support for marketing and getting this cutting edge and cool tool on line and in key partnerships with Youth Give, community foundations, United Ways, women's funds, churches, synagogues and Jewish foundation tzedaka groups, family foundations and others.

Diana Ip of Changemakers presented on curriculum for donors of color.

TRAINING TRAINERS
What did we learn from the leaders who attended the June, Inspired Leagacies Training conference in Houston:

1. Consultants in philanthropy need more support and a diversified client portfolio. Often consultants see donors to help with coaching or consulting and also see and support nonprofit boards with their leaders and do strategic planning and public speaking and fund-raising. It's an impressive portfolio of talent and capacities. Inspired Legacies offered to seek national money to provide trainings and more contracts or coaching requests from families and to promote the field and more donors to use philanthropic advisors and coaches.
    
2. Advisory firms seeks more exchange with donors directly. Often community foundations and others are socializing and organizing advisors but rarely ask those advisors to meetings with donors and their families. Inspired Legacies is promoting events with advisors, donors and nonprofit leaders together.
    
3. We heard from Diana IP, the Director of Programs of Changemakers who is promoting their new EDG Toolkit: a Curriculum to support donors of color. It's a 10 module curriculum and outstanding. Order it for $15.95 plus $3.00 shipping from Changemakers. In 1998, Changemakers and Tracy Gary, sponsored a similar meeting of practioners in philanthropy before the Advisors in Philanthropy national conference. Donor education materials for donors of color and those who care about social justice have not had curriculum before!
    
4. And we heard additional research on the interests of donors of color and the Cultures of Caring initiative, from Jessica Chao and Julia Parshall of the Cultures of Caring Project of Kellogg Foundation, two philanthropic and program advisors of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.
    

Tracy Gary, Phil Cubeta, and Jean Russell at Training of Trainers, June 2008, Houston, TX

5. And we heard about Women Moving Millions, Women in Philanthropy and women's giving and Inspired Legacies' nearly completed Youth Giving Circle Curriculum from Sondra Shaw-Hardy.
    
6. Philanthropic coaches met together to discuss how to grow this emerging field and expertise and Inspired Legacies shared its views on Legacy Planning and the need for local educational and networking initiatives like SPAN (Seattle Philanthropic Advisors), which will enable local philanthropic advisors to learn and collaborate.

Letters to Loved Ones

Dear Colin and Amelia,

What would you do to change the world? And what did you do today to help another person who truly needed help?

With these two questions, my dear grandson and granddaughter, I invite you to write me and to consider your future and the future of the world.

You are now 14 and 16 years old. It is time for you to give up needing things, and to roll up your sleeves to help others. Will you be takers or givers? There is no choice. Giving to others, especially those building a better world or who need a hand up, is life's greatest gift.

I offer it to you today. If this school year you volunteer at least 100 hours in one or more nonprofits, and write me by my birthday in June about what it was like, I will add $500 to each of your giving accounts. And if you contribute $100 or more to your giving accounts or directly to nonprofits or candidates you believe in, I will match what you give between now and June 19th, 2009.

Time marches on. Please tune in to the future and try for your Grand Pat to turn off your machinery just a bit more so we can have some fun helping others and listening to each other and the world.

I can't wait to see if you will step up, and give of your sweet selves. For as my favorite quote from The Prophet says,

It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

I love you. Begin it now and grow rich in heart and soul my dearies.

RSVP...and soon before you lose your hearing and minds to those little gadgets!

Love,
Grand Pat

Gratitudes

Jean Russell photo credit: Gerard Senehi

Did you know that 95% of Inspired Legacies' visuals and many of Inspired Legacies' good ideas have been created by or refined in partnership with one outstanding team member? While she was key at our Training of Trainers, don't forget Jean Russell (nurture.biz) named as our co-founder with Tracy for her steadfast and amazing nurturing, deadline keeping, and designing on four newsletters each year. Jean works about 1/3 of her time for Inspired Legacies this season, including our weaver of our advisors and Inspired Leaders wiki, our program development, our Youth Giving Circle Curriculum planning and our website. She's now working with founding staff person, Lorrie Lampson (with her new baby Isabella) on our bi-annual report due out next month. But mostly we salute Jean for her patience with our book launch and all the creativity and nurturing and expertise and cool she provides me and our team. Thank you Jean.

Thank you also Karen Payne for shaping our Youth Giving Curriculum and finalzing it after Sondra Shaw-Hardy did her magic. And for having your teenage niece, Hailey join our training of trainers. She was the hit of the conference.