"Now is the time for women donors and leaders to catalyze change for women and girls in our families, communities, businesses and government. We enrage through statistics, we inspire through leadership, and we enable through resources and community building. Join us in co-creating a world that works for everyone."
~ Eve Mahlab, Co-Founder and Chair, The Australian Women Donors Network

VIEW FROM THE FOUNDER

WOMEN DONORS
Word is out, women are now giving more than men in the US. Click here for a new study by the Women's Philanthropy Institute, just out this week.

We are amidst a tour as you read this of some 12 days and 22 workshops for the Australia Women Donors Network. After decades of women's leadership, this is inspiring progress. It is a global movement in action. And women donors and activist are leading the way.

YEAR END PLANNING
"How then can we bring mindfulness and truly intentionality to moving our leadership and money this Fall? Life seems so out of control. I want to give more to women's progress or social justice. Can you help us frame our priorities and to think through so many obligations, opportunities, and requests?"

Sound familiar? It is the cry of so many of us on the fast track, feeling our over-extension but wanting to nurture the greater goodness in and around us. Relief is ahead. It's all about taking time for reflection and balancing it with some engagement. We see a trend, more donors and advisors and nonprofits are saying, "Lets stop and do some planning. We have to refigure how and what we are doing." Inspired Legacies is there along with you. Take that time, my friends. We encourage you. Take a day, or even a half day, off to reflect and get some help from a philanthropic advisor or mentor.

It's counting time. Deadlines to the elections, Nov 2nd, loom and so too year-end giving and holidays. The pressures mount this time of year. Rest assured, you will get through it. But do get support or some way to put more time, if only in silence and try to receive "call" or think through truly what will have the most impact. I have found that daily meditation to clear the mind is essential. Then clarity of intention can have space to follow.

WOMEN ARE THE STRATEGY
Whatever happens ahead, we do need to feel we are getting the best information we can. It's clear, as I am seeing world-wide, that funding women and girls programs is seen now as not just a matter of equity or justice but of strategy. Investing in women and girls or with a gender lens is now (finally) recognized as truly impactful investing. Are you using this strategy to assure this leverage? Call us to align your giving and investing portfolio. See the 2 pager from the Women Effect Investment and support through Calvert Foundation, a donation to support us to showcase the women's investment experience and landscape.

To accelerate your learning, we suggest you attend donor network meetings and briefings such as the AU Women Donors Network or the US based, Women Donors Network to their conference or issue oriented conferences, Calls with others who inform, social networks and some media give us hope, but for the most part we feel the scales of justice and gender are under-represented.

We have a project on women's Equity Media we've been supporting. We must have decent coverage as women step up with great strategies and ideas for rebalancing the culture. If you want to help shift the scales, especially for some of the over 350 grassroots women media producers (including the largest list of women of color) join us in supporting Ariel Dougherty's leadership at The Media Equity Collaborative.

We want to raise just $60,000 for her outstanding networking between grassroots women media makers and an eventual foundation to support this powerful diverse network, who are blogging and chronicling their communities and need support. Read this proposal. Contact Tracy @ tracygary1@aol.com if you can chip in for this key women's strategy. Women media producers aren't being supported and even GRIT TV (grittv.org) and the fabulous Laura Flanders barely makes it. If you care about women, fund these feminist media makers through this initiative.

FALL COACHING OFFER
Here's encouragement to get your year-end giving moving now. We are available to help, so let us know what you need. Phone consultations are simply a flat $100 per hour this fall. Use our breadth and depth of experience at supporting big thinking and heartfelt action.

May you know your blessings and gain the joy of moving them to others. Our nonprofit sector needs us to move to the elections and beyond, not forgetting those whose long term or new leadership we cherish or will invest in. Remember as the Fall economy goes up and down that you are the key to your own and other's security as well. Keep moving your leadership and money.

You count on us to innovate, so jump to our section on resources, here in our newsletter, for some cool ones. Thanks to our communications team, Barbara Brust, Jean Russell and Tim Feder for the new look of our newsletter. We are soon to integrate the design on our site, so stay tuned and give us feedback if any @ info@inspiredlegacies.org.

May the true joy of giving be with you,

Tracy Gary, Director, Inspired Legacies
415-377-9447 cell
Inspired Legacies
40 Redwood Drive, Ross, CA 94957
Tracy@inspiredlegacies.org

P.S. Pat Tiller and Elyse Meyer and our Houston Board member, Stan McDonald continue to support our Texas clients and work. Call Pat at 281-213-4180 should you wish to speak directly to our team, while I work with our clients and community this Fall across the country.

INSPIRED PARTNERSHIPS

Here's what we've been up to and what's ahead:

In July, we gathered, for the forth time, a group of dynamic philanthropic advisors with progressive values and care about collaborating.

Here are 3 things we were excited to do together:

1. shared learning through monthly calls
2. sharing tools on what's transformative and really working with our work with individuals and families to support their leadership and intentionality in lifetime and legacy giving
3. shared outreach to tell the stories of successful families who are having breakthrough results

In August we packed up half our office and moved our principal office to Northern California where I have had a home and nonprofit giving community for 35 years. We continue to have a satellite office and staff in Houston. Monthly, I return for work with families, training donor partners and learning from nonprofit leaders. In honor of our move, we also offer a new design for our Inspired Legacies newsletter. Thanks to our team, Barbara Brust, Jean Russell and Timothy Feder for their support. If you have feedback let us know as we are rolling out more resources and our blog in the next month. We welcome your input.

In September, we connected with Women Moving Millions for a strategic planning session at Garrison Institute, a remarkable retreat center and nonprofit. While there, we met up with Robert Gaas and Akaya Winward of Rockwood Leadership Institute.

We also worked with 10 of our 25 formal donor & family clients to get a head start on their Fall grant making and education with their families about their giving.

In late September, we meet with 300 members of Communications Network in LA to support more foundations to build authentic relationships with their donors and the nonprofits they serve.

We met also with some of our Inspired Legacies board, and a few local and national advisors in our new office in Northern CA.

Inspired Legacies Board reps, and our advisors welcome Inspired Legacies to No CA.

As you read this, in October I am just completing twelve days of donor and legacy education with the Australian Women Donors Network a group inspired by The Women's Funding Network and our own Women Donors Network. As my fifth trip to Australia, I am helping to move philanthropy for women and girls and social justice giving forward there.

We also began working with Clemens Pietzner and the Triskeles Foundation, a simple remarkable integrated donor service and sustainable youth development project.

See our Making Change Happen list for others who are creating more positive change.

We are so pleased that one of our co-founders, Jean Russell, has launched her own enterprise, Thrivable.net. Thrivable is a solution-focused consulting and training network helping individuals and organizations to cultivate abundance by developing agility, resilience, and adaptability.

Take a look and consider your own thrivability strategies. Many organizations and individuals respond to change with fear. They focus on survival. The news all around us begs us to focus on being sustainable. Leading organizations and individuals strive for more: Thrivability. Thrivable.net offers skills and processes for organizations (and the individuals within them) to evolve, equipping strivers so they become thrivers.

Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy Emblem Join us for The Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy (CAP) certification at the American College. Phil Cubeta, the chair of Inspired Legacies's Advisory Board and the leader of the CAP program, invites donors and clients to learn more about helping others to create inspired legacy plans. Contact Phil @ pcubeta@sbcglobal.net and check out the registration page for a full curriculum and on-line course description

GRATITUDES AND TRANSITIONS

Maestro Charles Ansbacher, Founder of the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, has been hailed by President Clinton as "America's Classical Music Ambassador." Charles was also the husband of leading donor and co-founder of Women Moving Millions, Swanee Hunt, and a wonderful partner in the Hunt philanthropies. Charles died in September of a brain tumor and leaves a remarkable legacy. Learn more about his generosity in bringing free concerts to inner cities and villages world-wide.

Henry Dakin died in his sleep, in August, after a bout with pancreatic cancer. Henry was a member of the Threshold Foundation and a beloved and respected philanthropist and entrepreneur working in the Bay Area. Henry was an amazing citizen diplomat. He organized some of the first "spacebridges" with the Soviet Union during the cold war, determined to bring peace through citizen connectivity. He housed many cutting edge nonprofits in the 70's and 80's, putting on events and supported them financially.

We make a deep bow to these two important global leaders, their inspired legacies and to their family members.