YP Journal
How the Uncommon Giving Conversation Will Spark Your Giving
If I say $3.99 or $4.05, you already know what I'm talking about – the fast-rising cost of gas at the pumps. It's suddenly such a common conversation that most folks can quote the exact gas price on their daily route within pennies. My husband and I needed to stop for...
Why Small Organizations Matter Just as Much as Large Organizations
Early this year, I set a goal to make at least one charitable gift every month. As I thought about the year, I realized it would be easy to give in April, thanks to East Texas Giving Day. So, I was not disappointed when I sat down to look through the list of...
How Place-Based Philanthropy Benefits Local Communities
Guest Blog: Margie Boyd, Executive Vice President, Your Philanthropy When I first moved to East Texas over 20 years ago, I remember jumping online and visiting the local chamber of commerce community calendar to see what was happening in our area in the coming months....
Why Social Media Likes and Shares Aren’t Enough for Donors
Not too long ago, just a decade or so, action required considerable movement by using large muscle groups like glutes, quads, and hamstrings; we got out of the recliner and off the couch. Action burned calories; it was substantial, even consequential. Now we burn...
What Giving Style Is at the Heart of Your Philanthropy?
News flash: Nonprofit organizations seldom have concrete goals, measurable outcomes or a precise strategic plan which can be relied upon by the donor to make safe, highly impactful and targeted gifts. Only the tiniest percentage of donors can be sure their charitable...
How to Decide the Best Way to Help Ukraine Now and Later
Tears filled my eyes Wednesday morning, March 9, reading accounts of now 2 million refugees fleeing Ukraine. My heart aches from the images and stories. War is not an unfamiliar experience for me. Like many children in the last nineteen years who waved goodbye to...
How To Turn Your Next Special Event Into Impact-Driven Opportunity
If you’re a glass-half-full sort of person, then a room full of donors might be just the opportunity you’re looking for. In October of 2019, I wrote about special event fundraisers and the hidden potential of a room full of donors. Several readers liked the idea of...
How Helping Someone Is Another Way of Giving
Have you helped a stranger today? Helping a stranger is immediate warm glow generosity. You feel it all over when you’ve helped simply because you could. Held the door open for a stranger carrying an armful of grocery bags Picked up the keys for someone slow to bend...
The Politics of Generosity: Reclaiming Our Nation’s Misspent Vocabulary
YPJ Note: After reading Cathy's article in our local newspaper, we thought she asked some very interesting questions. As we have shared many times in the YP Journal, learning to ask questions can make us better givers. Be sure to let us know your thoughts about...
How to Be Successful with Family Resolutions and Change Everyone
Now, two weeks into the new year, we're back into our routines, meeting daily demands and business as usual. If you're the resolution type, you've either already fallen off that wagon or fallen behind on the goals you set a few weeks ago. I applaud the tiny percent of...
How to Find the Warm Glow and Give to Make a Difference
It had already been a busy day, but I kept checking the clock on my desk so I wouldn’t be late for one more obligation. Bell Ringing! I signed up for a Salvation Army bell ringing shift several weeks before. I didn’t think much about it. Pick a time, make sure I get...
Christmas Tree Cakes or Zebra Cakes, Why Does It Matter to Your Giving?
Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cakes arrived on shelves on time this year. Move over Zebra Cakes for those golden cake layers, smooth crème, classic white frosting with red stripes, and red and green sprinkles. Hardcore Little Debbie Cakes lovers might argue there is...
How One Cow Plus a Flock of Chickens Made a Gift of Love
Catalog shopping is a finely-honed skill. I know this comes as no surprise because most of us have kicked it up a notch as we weathered the shutdown of 2020 and dealt with the loss of some of the mom-and-pop shops we frequented. We may need special assistance at our...
How a Few Minutes a Day Can Change the World
Can you change the world in a few minutes a day? A common question asked by teachers, writers, philanthropy advisors, and so on is, “if money is no object, what would you do to change the world?” It sounds like an innocent enough question, straightforward in purpose....
How Your Philanthropy Ripples into Greater Change
Sunflowers, zinnias and gerbera daisies have overtaken the rose bushes. A shallow garden running the length of our backyard fence is full of colorful flowers tumbling over each other as if escaping into the yard. As the flowers fade and fall arrives, I become a little...
How the Storytellers in Your Life Help Bring Your Legacy to Life
On the first Friday in October, the Nobel Prize Committee will announce the winner of the Peace Prize as well as prizes in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and the economic sciences. Laureate nominees are not made public by the Norwegian Nobel Committee or...
How a Philanthropy Filter Easily Improves Giving
How does it feel to be a philanthropist today? It might be tempting to assume that question only applies to the wealthy donor who can write large checks year after year. When in fact, the question is for you. Comparing ourselves against others who give more or less...
Tips for How One in a Row Can Remake Your Philanthropy
"She's a bookworm," a frequent description used to explain why I didn't hear my mother announce dinner or remind me of chores. As a teen, I occasionally found myself in a waiting room with magazines strewn around on subjects of no interest. However, I was drawn to...
How to Make Nonprofits Jump Up and Down and Shout for Joy
Water, lights, toilet paper, batteries, rent, copy paper, staples, pens, printer cartridges – what do the items on this list have in common? They can all be found somewhere in the budget of practically any nonprofit organization you support. Oh, did I forget the...
One Family’s Story of the Work and Reward of Multi-Generational Giving
How did you spend your weekend? Vacation, staycation, trip to the grandparents, just another weekend in July? Some families make time to give together, often at least one weekend in the summer. I spent my last weekend surrounded by a giving family sorting important...
How to Build Lasting Partnerships with the Greatest Impact
This past weekend I had some extra time to read a book that has been patiently waiting for me to pay it some attention…Accidental Philanthropist - A Journey Towards Intentional Generosity by Steve Perry. A respected Facebook friend recommended it so I headed over to...
How Honoring a Graduate Models Generosity
Graduations are upon us. They are celebrations for what is ending and for many what’s finally finished. They are a threshold event with doors opening and paths disappearing into foggy futures. They are a pivot moment for many graduates as they find their way into the...
How Simplified Giving Makes You a Better Giver
If I could be queen of a certain land, it would be the land of Intentional. We would welcome all who love the exploration of ideas to the point of purpose, to be closely followed by a plan. My preparation to be queen of Intentional started at an early age. Moving...
Will You Learn to be a Better Giver Over Time?
My childhood memory of the Big Eddy Bridge, now under Lake Palestine, is not accurate. But the memory is real. My brother and I would convince my dad to drive over the old, rickety bridge every chance we got. Every board in the old wooden bridge slapped the...
How the Rising Generation Will Revolutionize, then Conflate Philanthropy
A few years ago, we called them the Next Generation. Now, they are the Rising Generation. They are no longer simply waiting their turn; they are rising to the occasion, and it is changing philanthropy. It is a revolution of sorts with a bullet blender effect. The...
Why It’s Important to Get the Answers You Need Before You Give
Walking into Mr. Anderson’s eighth-grade physical science class on the first day of school, I expected it to be like all the other classes. New teachers, lots of new kids, books, class rules, etc. But Mr. Anderson wasn’t like the other teachers. Mr. Anderson joined...
Why Your Giving Needs to Support Change Today
Do you need a laptop, notebook or tablet? That was the question Sid asked when helping me sort out what kind of computer replacement I needed for my work. Gone are the days when all I needed was a Big Chief tablet, freshly sharpened #2 pencils and a three-ring...
Six Ways to Identify Where to Give in Unfamiliar Locations
Unprecedented. Unparalleled. 100-year event. Words and phrases used to describe the plunging temperatures across Texas and the deep south as a polar vortex of arctic air settled in for more than a week. As temperatures plunge and power outages occur, our response...
How to Love Your Favorite Nonprofit Organization this Month
School-age memories are often etched into our psyche. For me, these memories are either clear and colorful or vague and foggy. One of the clear, colorful memories from elementary school came on February 14. Eleven years old, I was excited about the upcoming...
Like Dr. Seuss, Care a Whole Awful Lot
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” That’s sage advice from one of the most popular children’s authors of all time, Dr. Seuss. This isn’t the first time I’ve started a blog with Dr. Seuss. But it seems his...
How the Goldilocks Rule Makes Your Giving “Just Right”
A bowl of oatmeal with steam dancing above is just right in my opinion. Goldilocks would disagree and declare my bowl of oatmeal “too hot.” Like Goldilocks’ preference for baby bear’s “just right” porridge, donors have a just right style of giving. Because each of us...
How to Become Santa for Someone this Year
In the late sixties, my family moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming. My brother and I arrived at our new school in the middle of an outbreak of strep throat, also known as streptococcus. The outbreak was severe. They began weekly throat cultures on every student and sending...
Helpers Can Make Year-End Giving More Meaningful
Helpers come in all sizes and forms. It has been such an odd year. I can't imagine what things might be like at the North Pole. What would Santa Claus do without his helpers, elves in green suits with pointy toes, to prepare for the all-important worldwide delivery of...
How to Join the Donation Crowd and Avoid Fear of the Unknown
Are you feeling down about the future? Join the crowd. Let’s create our own crowd – let’s hang together and give together so that others, including our families and friends, will find help when it is needed. I’m sure you’ll fit right in. Giving is different this year,...
Online Gifts: How to Better Reach Your Giving Goals
Have you made a gift online this year? Chances are the answer is yes. A growing number of donors respond to a Facebook post or a Tweet to give but ask few questions about the group or nonprofit making the ask. A few clicks and it's done. Gift made. Endorphins surge....
Daring to Risk Failure Leads to Greater Success
After reading Dawn’s blog last week, I accepted the challenge and read Suzanne Smith’s article, “The Social Sector’s F-Word — Failure”. As a former Founder/Executive Director of a local nonprofit, many of Smith’s points brought back memories and lessons learned. It...
Overcoming Fear of Failure Can Change the World
A nonprofit sector strategist I follow writes a blog called Socialtrend Spotter. Suzanne Smith, author, founder and CEO of Social Impact Architects, often provides excellent insight and suggestions for her readers. She speaks directly into the most immediate struggles...
How Life Stories Become the Legacy You Leave
The everyday life you live is the legacy you leave. Yes, the stories of our lives become our legacy. We have no choice in the matter. Others look at the trail we walked, the life journey we are on and see a legacy. The very nature of a legacy is storytelling....
Why a Gift Now Is as Important as One That Changes the Future
The first bicycle I attempted to ride lacked training wheels and was a bit large for me. My cousin was eighteen months older, taller and already had long legs. She made riding look effortless. Only six at the time, I was in between. Not quite big enough for big kid...
How Your Small Donation Will Make You the Best Donor
Five years ago, a funny-sounding start-up company called Silidog caught my attention. Researching crowdfunding, I stumbled across Mickey Lickstein’s project on Kickstarter, a web-based platform used by creatives to find financial backers willing to invest in tiny...
You See What They’re Doing. Join Me in Applause.
Ladies and Gentlemen, may I direct your attention to the gallery? We are joined today by a phenomenal group of nonprofit leaders, staff, and volunteers. You may not recognize all the faces, but I’m sure many are familiar. I assure you that they have all been working...
How to Raise Kids to Make, Save, and Give Money
The PARADE Magazine has been a part of my Sunday newspaper reading for more years than I can remember. Tucked in the largest paper of the week with advertisements and the comics, it was my earliest introduction to many things cultural. Started in 1941, PARADE magazine...
How to Help Teens Change the World Now
As a kid, summertime meant more time to read the stack of books I brought home from the library each week, swimming with my grandmother early in the morning, horseback riding and westerns at the drive-in movies. My parents didn’t seem to work all that hard to keep me...
How Nonprofits Make Great Lemonade Out of Lemons
It is a big day when the home you’ve had on the market for eleven months finally sells. In fact, for days leading up to the closing and the hours and minutes before, I was afraid to let myself get excited in case something, anything unexpected, went wrong. It did...
16 Ways to Give and a Challenge for You!
No fluff, no story, no long explanations. I have a challenge for you. Think about ways to give to your favorite charity. I am sure several ideas came to mind. I first came up with six simple and obvious ideas. Then I started thinking about what’s unexpected. And then...
How to be a Fan and Encourage Important Work
Four hundred unopened emails waiting for me to read, respond, or delete. Every day I try to reduce the number through quick deletions and one-line responses. But it bothers me that I have so little time to read the important information coming to me from countless...
Make Plans to Give Now and Again Later This Year
Most email I read now begins with, “I hope this email finds you and your family safe.” Early on, I was comforted by these statements. Today they feel repetitive. I realize the writer doesn’t have any idea how to start the email or the letter right now. All the rules...
3 Insights From Leadership Forged in a Crisis
What will the great nonprofit leaders of today look like? What actions will they take that encourages us to look forward to a new future? Right now, all over this country, we are among nonprofit leaders being made – not born. To truly understand what to look for in...
What This Moment Requires is Guts – Let’s Accept the Challenge!
Amid the most unusual and unexpected event of our lifetime, I find myself struggling for words. No story seems appropriate, no example relevant. I’m bombarded by hard, rough around the edges news, like the text I received a few minutes ago with a story from the local...
How to Ensure Your Kids Catch Heartfelt Generosity
Right now, our attention is on the small acts that reduce our chances of catching any kind of crud going around. It could be a cold, flu, or today’s new bug, the coronavirus. But I have a surprise, some things are worth catching. And when it’s right and it goes viral,...
When Nonprofits Need to Make Changes, So Can You
The conversation went something like this: “I’m sure you’ve heard they have a new Executive Director. What do you think is happening over there? Do you think they will survive?” The answer is yes, they will survive. In fact, my guess is they’ll still be going strong...
Take a Risk to Be Part of Something Great
How do nonprofit organizations you support get better at what they are doing? How do they learn their way into new, better, or improved services? The big question is how do you help them change the world? Can you expand your services? A state agency asked the local...
How You Can Be Their Best Role Model
The question is, who is watching and listening to you? No, I don’t mean in the way that Alexa or Google Assistant is tracking your words and making suggestions. I don’t mean how a drone tracks you down and finds your address to deliver the Amazon package to your front...
How Your Role Models Make You a Greater Philanthropist
The email was short and said, “If you don’t have this, I wanted to send it to you.” Thirty-plus years of memories raced through my mind when I saw the attached picture. It’s a collection of memories that have not faded with time and are relevant to the work I do...
How to Prepare for Life’s Untimely Events
While sitting at a stoplight, I answered a phone call expecting one voice but hearing another. The voice I expected was the founder of a family foundation that I had worked with for several years. We had been preparing for a meeting two weeks away. The voice I...
How to Forge Stronger Relationships with Your Favorite Nonprofits
The world of private philanthropy is often an enigma in the eyes of nonprofit leaders. We create confusion and frustration for nonprofit organizations. We are a puzzle. We speak in riddles and leave breadcrumb trails of paradox. Nonprofit staff spends countless hours...
Philanthropy Made Easy… After 40 Years of Lessons Learned!
It started this way, “The questions that loom large as you navigate a college education are: What’s next? What career, what advanced degrees, where to start?” That was the opening paragraph of a very short piece I contributed to my alma mater for A Patriot’s Guide to...
How Family Giving Adds Joy to the Holidays
Will the next generation give as much as their grandparents and parents? And which generation is “the next generation”? Well, of course, the answer is relative. Every generation wonders about the one that follows. Baby Boomers have been wondering about Generation X,...
How to Make the Most of Your Time at Fundraising Events
How many special event fundraisers have you attended – this year, last year, the last decade? I’ve been to so many that it would take all the fingers and toes of a roomful of friends to count them all. None stand out; they blend together in my...
Do You Know the True Cost of Success for Your Favorite Nonprofit?
What keeps you reading when you open the envelope and find a fundraising letter? Do you scan for the client numbers – people served, sheltered or fed? Do you look for program costs – how much the program costs per client? Or do your eyes catch the story and pictures?...
Pondering Philanthropy Questions from a “Little Old Lady”
Sometimes when I sit down to write the YP Journal, a philanthropy issue is on my mind. But today there was no such burning issue, so in the spirit of hunting for inspiration, I started looking back at old articles and stumbled across one calling my name. It was titled...
Tips for All-Important Family Conversations
A friend shared that he planned to have a conversation very soon with his wife about some of the finer details of their financial situation. He described it as getting a meeting on their calendar. The need for such an appointment came just weeks after several...
How One Family Brings Their Faith to Work and Changes the Lives of Children!
Listening to someone talk about family is always full of emotion – funny, sad, uplifting, surprising. Such a conversation is a gift; there is so much to learn. I had just such a conversation with Carrie-Ann Jasper recently. She shared from the heart their family...
How to Make Wise Giving Decisions When Disasters Strike
We’re right in the middle of hurricane season. Whether it’s a storm in the Atlantic or the Eastern Pacific, August is pretty much the middle of the season. Every year around this time, and especially into September hurricane season seems the most threatening. Perhaps...
How Four Simple Behaviors Improved My Giving Habits
Once July 4th rolls around, I begin to anticipate another year rapidly coming to an end. The list of things I intend to accomplish this year looms larger and longer as I realize how little time is left. Year-long giving is always on my list. It’s a habit I talk about...
How Aunts and Uncles Teach the Next Generation About Giving
The day started normally. Two generations of family members gathered around a table for the annual meeting, intent on making giving decisions for the small family foundation. While only six of us, we represented many roles. Sisters, husbands, daughters, a niece and...
Take the Grandparent Challenge and Let the Grandkids Tag Along
A morning walk triggered a fond memory in early June, mid-sixties. The water was cold as I jumped into the shallow end of the pool. My grandmother, slowly walking down the pool steps, declared it unusually cold for an early June morning. We were up early for her...
How to Give Well When a Nonprofit is in Transition
A recent five-hour drive to my dad's home was more than enough time for thoughts to drift in and out about work over the last several weeks. First, there was a phone conversation with a couple exploring a list of nonprofits and navigating how to make large donations...
How Do You Know If Your Last One-third Has Started?
What if today is the beginning of the last one-third of your life? How will you define success for that last one-third? Generosity or zeroes in the bank? I recently read an article about giving in the last one-third of a lifetime. The writer, Bruce Deboskey, a...
How Do You Slow Nonprofit Traffic in Your Mailbox?
Frankly, I’m stumped. A friend asked how to get nonprofit organizations to stop sending information, invites and fundraising letters. What makes this a complicated question, and what I explained to my friend, is that nonprofits learn a relationship with a donor takes...
Questions You Should Ask Before Donating to Scale an Idea
If it’s such a great idea why aren’t they doing it everywhere? Or maybe it sounds like this; it’s an incredible idea. It should be in every school, neighborhood or every community. Sometimes it even sounds like this. I just had a phone call from someone in California...
Yes, I STILL Love This Work!
As I sit here in our NEW Your Philanthropy office space surrounded by boxes needing to be unpacked, it is hard for me to believe this journey started five years ago. And now I’m looking to the next five and what’s next for Your Philanthropy. Today, I looked back and...
How to Dig into a Nonprofit’s Numbers
Paul Harvey might have left us ten years ago, but the rest of the story has never gone away. Growing up on AM radio meant that I listened to Paul Harvey talk about the news of the day and heard his fascinating The Rest of the Story segments almost daily. I learned...
How to Give from the Heart and Still Be Smart
Walking to the front of the room I knew I had one job to accomplish. I needed to thank officers, welcome new board members and especially turn the reins over to the new board chair. But as I turned to face the audience, it separated into the faces of spouses,...
Tips to Answer Your Question “Are the kids ready?”
This story captured my imagination. I’ll tell you why shortly. First, the story. A certain farmer had become old and ready to pass his farm down to one of his two sons. When he brought his sons together to speak about it, he told them, "The farm will go to the younger...
How to Get Started on Being an Intentional Donor
Is time your friend or foe? One moment it crawls at a snail’s pace and the next minute rushes by like a rabbit in a race with a dog. In my experience, the rabbit always wins the race and my snail-paced moments are rare. As I write today the year is one-twelfth over,...
How to Give Bill Gates Style
Make it fun! That’s how Bill Gates tells us he gives. If your first thought is “oh, sure, with all that money, of course, he can have fun,” stay tuned. Before we jump into what Bill says, let’s start with what it must have been like to be his parents. Do you suppose...
How Looking Back Can Fuel Tomorrow’s Change
January usually begins with resolutions for the future. But before resolutions can be made we need time to reflect on the past. I asked the question: what have we accomplished in the last five years at Your Philanthropy? A little math was in order. Just how much good...
How to Fill the Empty Seat at the Holiday Table
Is someone missing from your holiday gatherings this year? It seems there is always an empty chair at the table. Someone you just lost or lost many years ago, someone who is across the country or simply at another gathering -whatever the reason, the chair is still...
How a Thankful Heart Inspires Generosity
What comes first? Thankfulness or generosity? A.W. Tozer said, “Perhaps it takes a purer faith to praise God for unrealized blessings than for those we once enjoyed or those we enjoy now.” Start with a definition of thankfulness from a tenth-grade student who...
The Surprising Staying Power of the Middle Class Donor
Ten years ago, the country plunged into a recession deep enough to have a grinding impact on America’s charities. When I read those last two words together, I think about my nonprofit friends right here in my community. When the Chronicle of Philanthropy ran an...
How to Fund Community Change with Shared Passion
A Tale of Two Cities – oh, I meant Two Coalitions. Besides the name has already been taken and I can’t begin to write as eloquently as Charles Dickens. But I can give it my best shot at being succinct about the importance of paying attention to change work going on in...
How to Give Like the Mega-Wealthy
Are you familiar with the idiom, “he puts his pants on one leg at a time,” often followed by “just like everyone else.” Well, that’s what I thought about as I read an article detailing a study of the wealthiest donors and how they make giving decisions. The study...
How to Travel Making a Unique Difference
With summer officially over, some of us are turning our focus to the holidays that are swiftly approaching. But for the planners amongst us now is the prime-time for planning next summer’s adventures. In a recent travel blog called Multi Briefs, I read an interesting...
Every Gift You Make Leaves a Lasting Impression
Something had stained the new Tervis tumbler. I scrubbed harder; they didn’t come off. Holding it up to the light streaming through the kitchen window, I could see them plain as day. Fingerprints. Permanently etched onto the plastic glass, there were the tell-tell...
How to Be the Unique Giver You Were Designed to Be
I have a friend who loves to go to party fundraisers. Her husband finds a buddy to talk with while she dances from one group to another because she loves people and doesn't want to miss a single friend. And for her, it's all the more enjoyable because she can have so...
How to Use a Donor Hack to Help Change the World
Remember Phone a Friend on the hit TV show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Well, it’s a donor hack I recommend to anyone who wants to make a better, smarter, more impactful (put your favorite word here) gift. When it’s time to do giving right, Phone a Friend. Imagine...
3 Important Skills Your Giving Advisor Needs to Have
What does the act of giving look like for you? What happens in your mind between the time you hear or read a story that describes a need and when you make the contribution? Is the desire to contribute a heart response or a mind response? Most likely it is both. Dr....
Five Easy Questions to Make a Better Designated Gift
Is there one right answer to the question, how many programs can one nonprofit organization operate? Of course, the answer is no because every organization is different. Some are single focused on clients and services. Others provide a multitude of programs, serving...
How to Build a Giving Bridge One Intentional Gift at a Time
I know my childhood memory of the Big Eddy Bridge, now under Lake Palestine in Texas, is not accurate. But the memory is real. Every chance we had my brother, and I would convince my dad to drive over the old and very rickety bridge. It seemed like every...
How to Share Your Generosity with a Child
A special note: This blog is mostly about grandparents, but I challenge you to replace those words with parents, aunt, uncle or friend every time you read them. This blog is about all of us and the unique role we play in the lives of the children all around us. “I...
How to Be More than a Fair-weather Donor
The recent three-day weekend afforded extra time for my gardening habit, what I call the green monster in my yard. It takes a lot of my free time and is the source of both pleasure and pain. Recently, I experienced some of the pain while trimming bushes. Close by is a...
How to Trust Your Unique Giving Instincts
Join us for a fun event. Help us honor or remember. Please help feed, educate, clothe – you know the drill. These are the messages that jump off the pages and invitations in your mailbox every day. The pleas are real, the invitation to the fun is real, just like the...
How Mid-Year Gifts Make Healthy Nonprofits
Standing in the alley behind our office building, I struggled to breathe evenly. Blinking back tears, I tried to figure out the words I would use to deliver the news. For the first time in our history, we faced a cutback of services and a staff layoff. I had been...
How to Get a Seat at the Table in the Fight to End Poverty
As a donor, making a gift can get you a seat at the table in fighting to end poverty. Sitting at the table gives you an up close and personal view of the problem. You become a smarter donor and they get food on their table. Deciding whether the best answer is to write...
How to Make Wise Giving Decisions About Young Nonprofits
The daffodils are fading and the weather warming. I planted a few tomato plants and moved several potted plants to the back porch, and then the temperature dropped. Once again, misled by the inexact science of weather predictions. So, I check the Old Farmer’s Almanac...
How to Write a Legacy Statement – The Most Important Gift You Will Leave Behind
Tiny stacks of 35-millimeter slides covered the dining room table. One by one I passed them through the slide viewer. The story of my parents’ earliest years together unfolded from Okinawa to North Carolina to Colorado and Texas. Pictures are only part of the story. ...
Are You Willing to Trust the Next Generation?
"How about oatmeal for breakfast?" That was the question I asked my dad during a recent visit to his home. He was preoccupied and assumed I would make it like, well, just like it’s supposed to be made. "Sure," he responded while passing through the kitchen. I busied...
Hot Dogs, Money and Kids
If you could invent one thing to make the world a better place, what would it be? That’s the question we put to eleven-year-old Jack during the game Phil and His Family’s Adventures in Giving. Joined by his thirteen-year-old brother and another friend of the same age,...
Curiosity Triggers Valuable Ideas
“The two best interview subjects are children under 10 and people over 70 for the same reason; they say the first thing that comes to their mind. The children don’t know what they’re saying, and the old folks don’t care.” He should know; Art Linkletter was at the...
