Providing structure in a chaotic charitable giving world
My late great-aunt Rose said, “Anyone who knocks on the door is worthy. I give something to everyone, even if it is a dollar.” Her generosity was an example for the generations. In the “olden days” canvassing was direct, limited by volunteer capacity and had many fewer options. However, person to person canvassing is the most successful even if limited in its reach. Aunt Rose and Uncle Jack also had their favourites to whom they made larger gifts. Their giving was thoughtful and strategic. To the many, they would give some. To their favourites they would research and choose a project, assess their capacity, and give accordingly. They were not looking for accolades, they were looking to merge their passion with purpose and ensure their hard-earned dollars had a meaningful and lasting impact.
Making a gift is not intended to spawn an overwhelming number of requests or result in our personal information becoming accessible by other charities — leading to even more requests. Yet today, everyone is accessible and a “prospect” for charitable giving. Many appeals quickly find their way into the “circular file” (wastebasket) and some are marked for future consideration.
Strategic and targeted giving applies your values and interests to options for giving and enables you to support what you want, having the desired impact. Strategic giving is the best way to weaponize your capacity for the good. To help you manage your charitable giving portfolio and navigate through the requests, R&D Philanthropy is available as your value-added partner. We work with you to thinking strategically and target special projects or initiatives that laser focus your giving, helping ensure your gift provides that meaningful and lasting impact.
R&D Philanthropy will help you sort through the mountains of requests assess and direct your interests, developing a healthy path to giving.
To help you achieve your personal or family objectives, we raise questions and together create a more effective way to help you put your charitable dollars to work:
- Why are you giving? Why have you been giving as you have until this point? Is there a problem that you would like to address?
- What work needs to be done to address the problem? What are your expectations? What do you envision as successful outcomes?
- Who will benefit from your gift? Who is responsible for delivering the programs or services? Who are other funders that will make the initiative a success?
- When will the project or service be delivered? When does the charity expect to start, to assess, to report on the initiative?
- How will your gift be made; one-time, multi-year and how do you want to be recognized for your work?
In answering these questions, we begin a process to harness your passions and develop a process that will help give lasting value to your charitable giving. Together we can help build a structure that will put your charitable giving dollars to work and support the things most important to you.
Contact us to learn more and to start the process of creating a strategic giving plan that will be most effective for you.