The Philanthropist Next Door

This editoral appeared in The Rocky Mountain News on March 28, 2008.

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In the recent article, “Anschutz’s $23 Million Tops Donors in Colorado,” Joanne Kelley, the Rocky Mountain News philanthropy reporter, listed the major givers in Colorado. She noted that while Phil Anschutz gave $23 million to charitable causes, Marvin Caruthers gave $20 million and Tim Gill $11million, the “affluent, particularly those worth billions of dollars, give away far less than they can afford.”

I have not found that beating people over the head is a particularly good motivational tactic. To me it is amazing that millionaires and billionaires give so much to philanthropic causes. Rather than focus on the philanthropic defects of the rich and famous, let’s celebrate the fact that last year, Americans at every income level combined donated more than $250 billion dollars to our nation’s 1.4 million nonprofit organizations.

I believe that instead of decrying the philanthropists we already have, Colorado can lead the way to a new spirit of philanthropy—one that includes the moviegoers as well as the opera patrons. United Way of America started right here in Denver, when in 1887 the first dean of Saint John’s Cathedral, along with Monsignor William O’Ryan of St. Leo the Great Catholic Church, the Reverend Myron W. Reed of the 1st Congregational Church, and Rabbi William S. Friedman of Temple Emanuel, had an idea that by coming together to raise money as a community they could achieve more than with many separate appeals. Their unique “Denver Charity Organization,” renamed The United Way, is now one of the largest charitable fundraising organization in the world.

The question for me is: How can we make philanthropy the catalyst for change? I believe we must start by changing our definition of philanthropy. Independent Sector’s most recent study on Giving and Volunteering in the United States notes that “giving in Hispanic culture takes place primarily within the network of church, family and friends” rather than to institutional charities, accounting for the fact that statistically Latinos have lower levels of giving to organized philanthropy than the non-Latino population. It turns out that most Latino people subscribe to the notion that charity really does begin at home—and at church, at school and in the neighborhood. Rather than send in a check to Food Bank of the Rockies, a Latino philanthropist is more likely to simply stop by with a basket of food for a neighbor who has just lost his job, or offer to run errands for a couple whose child is ill in the hospital.

Isn’t the person who checks on his frail, elderly neighbor a philanthropist? The person who volunteers to coach soccer? The person living on a fixed income who writes a $10 check? We can all be philanthropists, and we need to recognize and applaud the tremendous difference we are making to change the world, one person at a time. Why do we need to wait for a tsunami or a hurricane? Let’s figure out ways to be proactive—before tragedy hits home.

How do we take the inherent goodwill of the American people and harness it into a force for positive change? Several leading philanthropic institutions, including the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in its Emerging Philanthropies in Communities of Color initiative, are studying ways to tap into the informal but extremely generous network of individual philanthropists.

There is a lot that organized philanthropy can do to encourage individual philanthropists in Colorado. The Rose Community Foundation and El Pomar Foundation already have wonderful programs that inspire and support high school students to raise and then give away money. The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County has developed a 12-week curriculum for elementary school children on the importance of giving back, how to volunteer and raise money, how to research nonprofits and how to have impact. Last December, 4^th and 5^th graders in Bixby School’s student council had to make a tough choice between the Humane Society and Children’s Hospital, but after much discussion finally decided to donate their $1,000 of collected pennies to purchase an Art Cart for the new Children’s Hospital. The foundation program has so far graduated 240 young philanthropists and more schools are signing up for the program.

Our young people are ready and eager for leadership, each one of them a budding philanthropist and change agent. The idea that Barack Obama is running a “movement” rather than a political campaign has come in for some sarcasm from the pundits, but we have seen more young people involved in this election than in the past 50 years. In Colorado, schools and churches had lines winding round the block on caucus night. Senator Obama has been able to touch a point deep inside people that brings hope and inspiration.

The philanthropists are ready and waiting. Will some more leaders please step forward?

Ethiopia Trip: Final Thoughts

I am flying out of Addis Ababa this evening for the US and want to write my last email partly about my week in the coffee growing/jungle area of Southern and Southwest Ethiopia and my final thoughts on leaving this wonderful country and this incredible experience I have had during the past three weeks.

Most of the past week was spent in Southern Ethiopia in the towns of Jimma (the capital city of the Kaffa region) in the birthplace of coffee. I also spent time in Bonga and Chira that are smaller towns and villages. My hosts for this visit were the Catholic Secretariat that has a series of schools, health care clinics, programs for women, economic development activities where they provide coffee plants for farmers and help with forming coffee growing cooperatives.

Shabbat In Ethiopia

The following story is written by Rich’s son, Daniel, who went with Rich to Ethiopia. Rich and his wife wanted to share the story:

Friday night my dad and I had a Shabbat dinner we will never forget. But let me tell you, this wasn’t just any Shabbat dinner. At home my Shabbat dinners usually consist of getting dressed up nicely, sitting down at the table as a family (while my mother makes sure we’re wearing nice kippot), singing Shalom Aleicham, Eishat Chayil, and following up with Kiddush, washing, and a Motzie. We would then proceed to eat the meal in courses: fish, soup, salad, the main event (usually chicken and kugel), and then dessert. My mom might throw in a d’var Torah. But for the most part it’s a traditional Shabbat dinner.

This dinner on Friday the 12th was as opposite as I could get while still being Jewish. We were invited to the home of Dr. Rick Hodes, a Jewish American internal medicine doctor who lives in Addis, and was hired by the Joint Distribution Committee to take care of the Falasha Jews. In addition, he volunteers some of his time at an orphanage/medical clinic.

Ethiopia Trip Update #4

I am so pleased and relieved that my two day training session on Thursday and Friday went well. I had been studying, organizing and planning for this session for three months and spent an inordinate amount of time preparing. Over 40 NGO’s from throughout the country registered for the session and they are working on a wide variety of issues around health care, AIDS/HIV especially for kids, reproductive rights and family planning, disaster and famine relief, rural community development, and women’s groups that are fighting the female circumcision issue.

I don’t know why I was so worried about this session because I have conducted literally hundreds of training workshops on this topic, but I was concerned about the cultural and language issues distracting from a rhythm I need to feel comfortable in the training sessions. It did take me about 4 hours until I started to relax and then the rest of the training was super. Ethiopian people and NGO’s are very formal that have their coffee and tea breaks at a certain times as well as the lunches. Having these breaks is a ritual and the coffee they make is almost a sacred ceremony.

Ethiopia Trip Update #3

Wow what a country of contrasts!!! For most of the time is all we see are dreary browns and battered landscape surrounded by sad looking faces of people designed to spend their life in poverty. Then the past couple of days we say a totally different side of life (for a few hours).

It started with Noel Cunningham, our wonderful friend who owns Strings Restaurant helped us set up an appointment with the President of Ethiopia, President Girma. So Yohannes and I put on a suit and tie and went to the presidential palace. We stopped at the gate and the guards checked to see if our name was on the register and then let us inside and proceeded to conduct this 20 minute security search of our ‘85 land cruiser including sweeping the bottom of the car with mirrors. We drove in and parked the car surrounded by beautiful manicured lawns and flower gardens. We walked into the palace and right when we entered there was a huge red rug with four Stars of David embroidered into the carpet. We walked to the President’s office and engraved into his big desk were two Stars of David. It is interesting to see the biblical connection this country has to Jewish people. We spent almost 90 minutes with this delightful man, who walks with a cane and appears to be about 80 years old but very smart and sharp. He served us coffee and tea with western style cookies and was extremely courteous and engaging. Once he found out that I worked with NGO’s he asked me to assist one of his favorite NGO’s that he founded a number of years ago. It is called LEM Ethiopia and it is an environmental organization designed to protect the forests and replant tree’s throughout the country that have been devastated because of the need for poor people for wood to cook their food and to sell for income. Yohannes invited the President ( and he accepted) to be the featured person at his book week event in Addis Ababa on April 1st.

Ethiopia Trip Update #2

Daniel and I just returned from five days in the rural parts Ethiopia heading south of Addis Ababa to the towns of Awasa (that is the regional capital for the province) to Arba Minch and the Nechisar National Park. This is an area that is only about 60K from the Kenya border.

 

We first drove down to Awasa (about a five hour drive) where Yohannes used to live and where Ethiopia Reads has a regular library and a mobile library that is pulled by a donkey that goes out into the neighborhoods and kids read books. It was really great seeing all of the young children reading books and some of the kids read the books out loud to us. After lunch we headed another 6 hours south to Arba Minch that is a large city in Southwest Ethiopia. It is a town with grubby streets, very chaotic but with lots of charm and we did not arrive until night and made a reservation at the Swayne’s Hotel.

Ethiopia Trip Update #1

I am writing before I leave Addis Ababa for 5 days into Southern Ethiopia and wanted to share some of my initial adventures and observations. .

INITIAL THOUGHTS AND EXPERIENCES IN ETHIOPIA

After traveling for over 24 hours we arrived in Addis Ababa at 9AM on Tuesday January 2nd. The last couple of hours on the plane were truly beautiful as we watched the sun rise over three African countries and looked down at the dry and parched desert to reach Addis. We could see the sun from a thin sliver to painting the whole horizon a beautiful red. It was like we could also see the shape of the horizon as we were heading south.

We arrived at the airport and we walked around the slightly tarnished but made to look like a modern airport. After clearing customs they ex-rayed our luggage and we jumped into Yohannes Land Cruiser and drove into Addis. The first site we saw “hit me through the eyes” and both of us said “wow this is not like anything I have ever seen”. We slowed down and banging on the window of the car (with a cane) was a young man in tattered clothes, bending down, disabled and broken back, walking on all fours with a cane, banging on our car window, begging for money. Welcome to Ethiopia.