Comments on: What I Gave and Where I Gave It: 2008 Giving Plan

By: hickory

hickory — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 02:27:30 +0000

I wonder why so many gifts to such hyper-organized organizations? I feel like these groups spend a lot of energy just making themselves “look legitimate” in the eyes of non-profits (if they aren’t non-profits themselves). Also, CR is basically run by academics, I don’t know if that’s the case for INCITE! and some of the other well-known/”famous” organizations you’ve chosen to support. Maybe you feel your money will be used in a “legitimate” fashion?

Also curious about no donations for legal fees or bail?
-Hickory

By: Tiffany

Tiffany — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:21:07 +0000

thanks so much for your transparency and exhibiting how giving can be such an accessible and thoughtful process. i hope to meet you some day because we have mutual friends, and i have a lot of questions. namely, i am thinking about how to create a giving plan that takes into account my multiple class realities. on the one hand i make a decent salary, on the other hand my family is in no position to be a financial safety net for me. i will not inherit anything, that has never been a part of our immediate family for the past few generations. we don’t own a home. i am a woman of color and single. anyhow, i feel like i 1) don’t have models for management of resources 2) don’t know how to balance my desire to see acts of inspiring generosity within my own life with the desire to have some financial stability (like owning a home) 3) don’t have a community of support that is in a similar boat to help me push myself and be real with a need to build a solid foundation.

thanks for listening.

By: Josie

Josie — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:39:15 +0000

I really respect your honesty and openness in sharing your giving plan. We live in San Antonio and love the Esperanza Center.

By: Gina

Gina — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:34:22 +0000

Wow. It’s so nice to see a young individual helping others. I live in Washington state and if you haven’t heard most of are schools are bankrupt. I am very poor and am a single mother of two teen girls. They go to Montesano Highschool in Montesano WA. Heres the issue because the school has no money it’s making the dance team and the cheerleader pay for their uniforms and camp up front. We are talking $800.00 for mke $1600.00 cause I have two girls. I feel this is terrible because now only the rich kids can participate. Both my girls are straight students and deserve a chance to play sports and participate in these kind of activities. It’s an honor to them to make the team and they are so excited. But now I don’t know how to tell them they can’t I just don’t have the funds. Before the school would fork the bill and the kids had all year to fundraise to pay the school back. But because of our economy they will no longer be able to do this. The girls have until the first week of August to come up with the full amount. So what I am asking is would you consider donating funds to the Montesano Drill team and cheerleading so my girls and others with low funds can participate. You can contact me for further info if interested.

By: Uttama

Uttama — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:01:21 +0000

Hi. I was just wondering what you thought about the following organizations: Save the Children, Amnesty International, International Wildlife Fund, Doctors without Borders, Medicin du Monde (Doctors of the World), and Greenpeace? My husband donates to three of these monthly and I wonder if we should put the money to better use? Thanks!

By: Kelsey

Kelsey — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:40:30 +0000

Someone forwarded this blog entry to me, and as development staff for a non-profit organization, I want to say thank you! Its always helpful to hear when, how and why people give. Thanks for supporting your many communities!

By: Money To Live - More on holiday giving

Money To Live - More on holiday giving — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 09:10:08 +0000

[...] this blog post last night and thought it was really interesting and that you might like it too. http://www.enoughenough.org/article/104/what-i-gave-and-where-i-gave-it-2008-giving-plan/ His considerations for who to give to match up with some of [...]

By: tyrone

tyrone — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:50:57 +0000

hi meg,

my decision to give to lots of different groups wasn’t an intentional strategic choice on my part – it was more just that i wanted to keep supporting the groups i was already giving to, as well as get input from other folks about places to give that i didn’t choose myself – so that made for a pretty big list of groups. i’ve heard a lot of people say that it’s useful to give a large amount to a single organization, ’cause it’s really hard for most social justice orgs to get a really big no-strings-attached gift and that can really free them up to do their work. if i had it to do over, i might do that instead – but choosing just a few organizations to give a huge gift to felt a lot harder at the time (and still would), and i’m glad i just went ahead and gave away the money rather than agonizing over that choice.

i also know people who choose to spread their giving out even more and give small amounts to LOTS of organizations, with the rationale that they don’t want to make contributions large enough that programming would start or stop based on their individual funding. i’m not sure i agree with that, but it does seem like it could become a kind of circular ideological question about what’s better for movements as a whole. i would love to hear more from people about what kinds of choices around giving seem to make the most sense in different circumstances and why.

By: meg

meg — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 05:53:49 +0000

Wow, this is a really great list of groups! It’s awesome to see so how much one person can help support so many parts of the social justice movement.

I’m sort of curious about your decision in general to support many groups, though, rather than to focus on a more limited number of projects. Do you know anything about whether giving smaller donations to more groups is more stabilizing/less stabilizing for their work than giving larger donations to a few groups to really shore up what they’re doing?

By: Enough » Blog Archive » A year of giving away money

Enough » Blog Archive » A year of giving away money — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 03:27:10 +0000

[...] new year, folks! I wanted to post my giving plan for the past year, as promised: here it is, with some background info and some of the thinking that went into creating [...]