Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Woggy #12: Creating a Giving Plan

Resolutions. Everyone's talking about them this time of year. And while I do believe in the general concept of self-improvement through the setting of goals, and even think time-focused goals can also be a positive thing, I have to say I've long had a big bone to pick with the whole specific delivery system of this end via the "New Year's Resolution" as it is traditionally understood. (what do you think? let your voice be heard in my poll to the right)

In general, while I often try to go with the whole feeling of turning-new-leaf-ness that the new year brings as an excuse to sit down to review my personal goals lists and set new ones, I often don't actually have time to do that right at the new year, and like last year, sometimes don't even get around to it until, oh, say ... May.

But my biggest problem here is really with the concept of the "resolution". As most people seem to recognize, this is basically a do-or-die setup for failure. Day one of the year I "resolve" to do item A, and then every day forward for the next year that I do not do said item, I am "failing" at my "resolution". So its no wonder under such an oppressive regime that most people abandon their resolutions by the end of January, if in fact, they didn't already abandon them last weekend.

So, while I here refuse the term "resolution", allow me to today review and insert into the Woggy log one of the "year-end" goals I set for myself last May, which was to "Create a Giving Plan".

Ever since my husband and I began receiving letters from a few worthy neighborhood charitable causes, we've set aside as much as we could towards charitable giving, increasing the number of these groups as we found out about more and have become more sophisticated about deciding which ones we care about the most, as well as increasing the amounts commensurate with the rising income we found ourselves sitting around with due to my husband's good luck in being in a field that our society has decided for the moment anyway, to pay alot for.

In any case, as these amounts and number of causes have grown and grown, this task has become more unorganized and difficult to manage in a way that was making sure we gave as often as we wanted. Thus my goal last year to get this organized in some sort of specific fashion. Enter one very highly recommended book titled Inspired Philanthropy. While alot of us think of "philanthropy" as being something only really super-rich people like Bill and Melinda Gates do, its really a term that can apply to anyone who dedicates their time, money, and or effort in a specific way for the benefit of worthy causes. While sending out a check to some person or cause as the whim hits you is wonderful of course, what this book encourages the reader to do is to focus your gifts of time and money in more specific and fcused ways, in order to get the most benefit for others, and the most satisfaction for yourself in terms of time and money well spent.

The book is filled with actual written exercises for you and any fellow companions-in-giving (in my case my husband) to fill out, asking you to really examine your values, goals, and attitudes about how and where you'd like to do the most good in the world.

While the book itself I read through fairly quickly, it is our slow progress in completing these exercises together that have left this goal as yet incomplete. For whatever reason, remembering to find the time to sit down and complete them, and to meet together to discuss them, has just proved a slow process. Part of this on my part anyhow, I'm sure is a reticence to face the fact that me, a person who once was poor enough for subsidized housing, am now wealthy enough to help assist those who are in that position today. It's a class shift that's been taking me and my husband years to get to used to, and is still a fancy shirt that doesn't quite fit the way you'd expect it to.

In any case, while the progress has been slow, it has been steady, and we are soon reaching the important moment where we create our personal "mission statements".

Things Left To Complete This Woggy Project:
  • complete the next "mission statement" exercise
  • schedule a meeting to discuss the next stage of the giving plan process
  • do the next set of exercises
  • meet to discuss the exercises
  • repeat, repeat, repeat, until the Giving Plan stage has been achieved
  • set a new goal: implement our Giving Plan

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