Theresa Nelson shares how her family gives back to worthy causes.
As a philanthropy and board governance consultant, I pay a lot of attention to how organizations raise money. I’ve learned that people don’t have to be millionaires to be philanthropists and make an impact. I’ll share the approach our family uses.
Every year in the fall, we receive hundreds of letters seeking year-end gifts. For almost 25 years, our family has decided about our year-end giving together, as an after-Christmas project. Starting when our daughter was young, we’d open the envelopes together, sort them (there are a lot of duplicates), and then decide how much to give to the organizations we chose.
Eventually, we tracked them on a spreadsheet every year. As our daughter grew older, she’d read the letters and give us feedback on which letters were more compelling and which were less-interesting. We discussed how the organizations used our donations, and how to balance local, national and international causes.
We have an objective of donating a certain percentage of our income, so we’d write the gift amount on each envelope, and then start writing checks and sealing and stamping the envelopes, as a family. Sometimes one of us would read a letter out loud, to take a break from writing checks. It takes hours, but it feels thoughtful and deliberate, more so than simply clicking on a button.