Steve Buyer, Indiana Cogressman, Expected To Announce Retirement
Friday, January 29th, 2010
An Indianapolis TV station reports this a.m. that Rep.
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Steve Buyer, Indiana Cogressman, Expected To Announce Retirement
Posts Tagged ‘charity’
Jeff Ondash, Teddy McHuggin: Man Sets Hug World Record
Sunday, February 14th, 2010
LAS VEGAS — A 51-year-old Ohio man has embraced the Valentine’s Day spirit faster than anyone before, giving 7,777 hugs in 24 hours for a new world record. Jeff Ondash, who sought the squeezes under the costumed alter ego Teddy McHuggin, broke the record Saturday night outside the Paris Las Vegas hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip. “When you hug somebody, they all walk away from each other smiling,” Ondash said.
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Jeff Ondash, Teddy McHuggin: Man Sets Hug World Record
Immigration Reform: Hopes Dim For Tackling The Issue In 2010
Friday, January 29th, 2010
As I noted yesterday, the chances of getting an immigration-reform bill passed this year dimmed dramatically in the wake of Scott Brown’s victory in the Massachusetts special election. Last night President Obama’s SOTU speech pretty much snuffed out any remaining possibility. He waited until roughly word 6,300 of a 7,000-word speech to address the issue
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Immigration Reform: Hopes Dim For Tackling The Issue In 2010
You Don\’t \’Get\’ Giving Till You Just Get Giving
Saturday, January 16th, 2010
B1G1/BOGO (Buy One Give One) matches businesses with charitable cause right around the planet so that every business sale makes a difference somehow, somewhere, every second, every day. And it does much more than that. It adds a potent marketing \’engine\’ building your own level of attraction.
Michael Porter, probably the world\’s most respected business strategist says this: \”I used to see this area of corporate social philanthropy as the last thing on my agenda 10 years ago, but now I agree that social and economic issues are intertwined. Corporate philanthropy – or corporate social responsibility – is becoming an ever more important field for business. Today\’s companies ought to invest in corporate social responsibility as part of their business strategy to become more competitive.\”
Everyone we share with about Buy 1 GIVE 1 gets it in a heart beat. It\’s an idea that totally resonates and makes sense. And it\’s an idea whose time has come.
You can put your hand up to make a continuing difference and literally play a part, not just in leaving a legacy, but also in transforming our globe. It could be the best business and personal choice you\’ve ever made. After all you will leave a legacy the question is : will it be one of consumption or one of choice.
Bill Gates has become central to this idea, calling for \’Creative Capitalism\’ in response to the vital question, he shares in TIME Magazine:
\”How can we most effectively spread the benefits of capitalism and the huge improvements in quality of life it can provide to people who have been left out?\”
Buy1GIVE1 is about Sharing the Joy of Giving; and giving, results from giving thanks for what we have in our lives.
Just remember – you don\’t \’get\’ giving till you get giving.
Discover more about how Buy1GIVE1 (BOGO) can transform your business using Cause Marketing.
Sphere: Related ContentLife-Changing Quotes In ONE Book: Discover The Joy Of Giving
Monday, December 21st, 2009
Part Two of Three
This collection of beautiful quotes that will inspire you to discover and embrace the joy of giving is extracted from Masami Sato’s second book – “ONE”. Masami is the founder of a global giving movement called Buy1GIVE1. The quotes in this edition include topics that are related to our everyday lives, such charity, giving, receiving, joy, making a difference and rich-poor separation. This article is the second part of three “ONE Book Life-Changing Quotes Series”.
On giving (and receiving)
“When we give more and communicate wholeheartedly, we have less insecurity-both emotionally and physically.”
“Giving love is the only way to be generously loved.”
“The people who give more (time, money, kindness, love, ideas) have more of these things because that’s the balance. And balance is the natural law of life.”
“one key in the giving process is never to expect a return when we give.”
“We can feel the real joy of giving when we’re doing something for others knowing that we’re simply doing it for ourselves-we’re doing it for our own joy.”
“Giving something to others is so much easier than trying to get it first.”
“Giving is just a part of who we are.”
“Every single one of us prospers when we learn to give value to others first. We are rewarded naturally.”
“We’re not here to give in order ‘to get’. We’re here to have more to give more.”
“Because we can’t have scarcity when we are totally grateful.”
“Giving to others is actually giving to self.”
“What if giving actually was as important as brushing teeth?”
“Giving is not just about helping others. It is about sharing the joy. We do it for our own joy first and we pass it on.”
On joy
“So without denying the benefit of having more innovation (because it feels good), can we find the way to have more joy in our life? If we can, then we can go beyond the temporal gratification. We can create a sense of permanent certainty.”
On charity
“Charity organisations are like our out-sourcing agencies for the giving of our life.”
“Businesses and charities are actually the same thing. Someone started the organisation with the passion to do something-to make a difference.”
“The moment we start giving out of guilt, we appreciate charities far less.”
On having more or having less
“The moment we perceive someone as ‘poor’, our perception creates the poor feeling in the other person.”
“The moment we believe we have more, we’re saying others have less. And OUR attitude creates separation.”
On making a difference
“Big is nothing other than a whole lot of ’smalls’. Small things can actually transform the world.
Find out more about how Buy1GIVE1 (BOGO) can transform your business using Cause Marketing. Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service
Sphere: Related ContentEight Stages Of Giving – Your Guide To Wealth
Sunday, December 20th, 2009
A new development is revolutionizing many lives in the hamlets of India by bringing brightness where there used to be blackness.
The New York Times published a piece named, “Husk Power for India”. Power, which is common in the lives of most in advanced countries, is a rare bonus in far-flung areas of underdeveloped countries. What was once cattle feed is now used to generate power – rice husks.
Growing up in rural Bihar State, Manoj Sinha knew what it was like to sit in the dark. Being an engineer with Intel Corporation he had all the skills to make a lifelong idea come alive. He led the development of his electricity equipment that generates power from rice husks and other farming waste and now he sells it to villages across India.
Sinha is what could be called a social industrialist because he feels entrepreneurship is a way out for important problems of the society. “Business leaders must realise that the world’s poor need investments more than handouts,” he says, adding, “these are customers, not victims.”
The article inspired me to think about giving in a different way leading me to ask myself, “what is the most effective form of giving?” Is it education, commercial activity or disaster relief? There are so many ways to make a difference. One way of giving can seem more effective or sustainable than other ways depending on the way it is expressed, looked at or implemented.
I then came to identify there were eight sections to giving as a form to perceive this. So, let me outline the eight methods; which in effect are often ‘phases’ of giving as well.
Stage one: Necessity – saving and helping others who are afflicted by natural catastrophe, contagious diseases or other unmanageable conditions.
Stage two: Reprieve – providing reprieve from long-standing malnutrition, penury, illnesses, handicaps or inequity which otherwise would prolong or get worsened because of the lack of perception, edification or resources.
Stage three: Healing and protection – mentally, physically and emotionally. Many people carry traumas that may be invisible but severely limiting their lives. Giving the healing to release the deep-rooted pain creates more opportunities for them while giving suitable protection gives them a sense of security.
Stage four: Education – giving better education, information and skill training to create empowered and creative solutions to resource generation while supporting individuals to discover their unique talent to thrive.
Stage five: Inspired investment – giving a help, capital or resources to those who have great talent to alter the situation. This gets used many times as the resources become more and passed on to other people who again produce more out of the prospects given.
Stage six: Sustainability – working together involving the people in the local environment, creating sustainable community – environmentally and socially.
Stage seven: Empowerment – sanctioning and influencing the people to set free their true capability and drive to make a difference. In this group of offering, the aim of offering changes from ‘giving to those who are in need’ to ‘giving people an opening to give to others’ and to the whole group.
Stage eight: Cherishing – just doing whatever we like to do to tend and care for others. No approach or expected upshot exists in this stage of offering. ‘Giving’ does not even exist here in the physical sense of the word, as there is no sense of owning or decision or craving to modify things. This is where we do not even have to consider anything, we give out of a sense of our own fulfilling sensations.
What we also perceive is that at each one of these eight stages of giving there are distinctive things that the donor gets back.
One: Sense of bonding
Two: Sense of comfort
Three: reprieve from ache (our own)
Four: Gratitude for our own knowledge, skills and circumstances
Five: Long-term sense of commitment and contentment for our own life
Six: Improved atmosphere for our own life and for the lives of all those we value and cherish
Seven: Soul fulfilling inspiration and dedication to our own purpose
Eight: Care
Sharing has many stages and sensations based upon the donor and getter. And the ‘phases’ do not detail which one is of more importance than the other. All are mandatory.
I was gifted with an experience early in 2008 while travelling with a group of dedicated entrepreneurs through India to see how we could be more effective in our giving. I was blessed to have one particular experience that made me think about what ‘effective giving’ really meant.
We were in a little town one day. Four of us had just booked a taxi to take us to another town nearby. We negotiated with the driver carefully as our hotel staff had warned us in advance about the rip-off we might experience seeing we were not local.
We chose to stop in front of the local train station for a short interval en route to the town. While the others went to use restrooms, I struck up a conversation with the driver of the taxi, standing nearby. With his limited English vocabulary and a smiling face that showed his black front teeth to advantage, he told me that he lived in the outskirts of the town and that he had a young wife and two kids who attended the local school – I began to feel a relationship with him.
I congratulated him on having such a loving family and told him that I also had two children similar ages to his. When the others returned he spontaneously invited us to come to his house for lunch. I thought it was just a friendly courtesy he wanted to show at first. However, after dropping us off in the town centre, he insisted that he would wait for us until we finished our exploration in town. And he did. I was actually quite surprised to see him still waiting at the side of the road standing next to his taxi more than hour later. We jumped back into the taxi and he zoomed off up the road to where his family lived.
When we arrived we were actually quite shocked to see how he was living. It was almost like the same condition (if not worse) to the lifestyle of people living in slums we had visited previously. From the nice new taxi he was driving, who could have imagined
As he drove into the narrow unsealed street between small houses that were made with roughcast concrete blocks and mud painted walls, we almost regretted about saying yes to his invite. For a brief moment I felt pangs of guilt. “How could I go to this man’s home who didn’t seem to have anything and I didn’t even bring any food or gifts for his family”, I thought.
As we walked into his house, we saw a pan and small stove on the mud floor. His very shy wife nodded blushing in surprise and disappeared into the small storeroom (a cupboard size) next to it. As I looked in, I saw the next-door neighbours handing over some teacups to his wife over the crumbled concrete fence. They didn’t even have extra teacups in their house. There was only one small room fitted out with one single bed and an old galvanised chest next to it.
The driver hastily drew out three hand-woven mats from the trunk and spread them out on whatever little space there was on the mud floor and put one on the bed.
Steaming cups of tea and hot snacks arrived soon. Both his kids as well as kids from the neighbouring houses came to see us and remained at the doorway. The six of us could just squeeze into the tiny room. I was curious to know where his children were sleeping. I thought maybe they had another space somewhere. To my astonishment, he just pointed at the chest and said with his happy smile that it was their bed.
He gleefully told us that he was a dancing champion in town and pointed to some trophies on the shelf above the bed. Keen to show us his dancing skills he suddenly dashed outside. From nowhere music filled the tiny room. He didn’t have any music system in the house, it was coming from outside. I was curious so I stood up to see him reversing his taxi right against the back wall of his house with the doors wide open with car radio on full volume!
The time quickly passed (dancing together and having more cups of tea) and it was finally time to say thank you for their great hospitality and head on our way. As we stood up to leave and thank him and his wife, he reached to the best looking rug on the bed, rolled it up and handed it to us. It was one of the only few things he had. I could not believe he offered it to us.
We all courteously begged off his gift and moved out waving goodbye to all the people waving back at us. We got real baffled about the whole affair. Should we have paid them something as they surely had only too little money? Should we have consented to take the cherished gift he made us?
As I was thinking about this awe-inspiring experience after a few days, I considered our begging off his gift. He looked crest-fallen that we didn’t accept the gift. It wasn’t only the rejecting of the gift that remained in my mind.
I realised that the sense of discomfort I felt was actually coming from perceiving him as less fortunate. I was thinking that I couldn’t possibly take anything from someone who had so little.
But did he actually have modest means? Maybe he had other things – a lot more.
Maybe the real present we could have given him then was to receive his present in utmost deference and thankfulness.
All acts of giving and receiving are necessary for us to fill our world with abundance and fulfillment equally for both giver and receiver. We can start doing this instead of judging and justifying one over another. The pure act of giving and receiving requires no further explanation.
Manoj Sinha’s words continue to reverberate in my mind, “these are customers, not victims.” I can picture the happy faces of the rural folk who are now pleased to have power in their hamlets and the kids who now can read books and happily do their homework at night.
Discover more about how Buy1GIVE1 (BOGO) can transform your business using Cause Marketing. Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service
Sphere: Related ContentClaims of sex abuse by women grow
Sunday, November 8th, 2009
Calls to ChildLine reporting sexual abuse by woman is rising five times faster than calls about male attackers, the charity reveals.
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Claims of sex abuse by women grow
Joseph Cao: Health Care’s LONE Republican Supporter Is Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao
Saturday, November 7th, 2009
One Republican lawmaker out of 177 crossed party lines to support the health care reform legislation offered by Democrats. Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao, the Louisiana Republican who hails from a decidedly Democratic New Orleans district, voted yea on the final passage of legislation
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Joseph Cao: Health Care’s LONE Republican Supporter Is Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao
Ethan Hawke Praises Madonna For Supporting Gypsies
Saturday, October 31st, 2009
BUCHAREST, Romania — Actor Ethan Hawke on Saturday praised Madonna for her boldness in speaking out against discrimination against Gypsies, words that provoked boos from thousands of fans at her concert in Romania. Hawke, visiting Romania to help promote his mother’s charity supporting education for Gypsy children, placed the pop superstar alongside Bob Marley and John Lennon as part of a tradition of artists speaking out against racism. “She transcended being a pop star,” he told reporters.
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Ethan Hawke Praises Madonna For Supporting Gypsies
Madonna Leaves Malawi After A Week
Saturday, October 31st, 2009
LILONGWE, Malawi — Madonna has left Malawi after a nearly weeklong visit with her family, airport and charity officials said Saturday. Officials said Madonna flew out of the southern African country on Friday. The 51-year-old celebrity arrived in the impoverished country on Sunday accompanied by her four children – daughters Lourdes and Mercy, and sons Rocco and David
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Madonna Leaves Malawi After A Week
Madonna & Children Return To Malawi To Launch School
Sunday, October 25th, 2009
LILONGWE, Malawi — Madonna arrived in Malawi Sunday to visit the girls school she is building in the impoverished country where she adopted two children, an official for the star’s charity said. The official who could not be named because he was not authorized to speak on the matter said Madonna arrived at about 2:30 p.m
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Madonna & Children Return To Malawi To Launch School
Three Steps Toward Building an Endowment Church Fund
Sunday, September 6th, 2009
For all the good churches do, most of the funding for their ministries come from pledges. What if every church was endowed? Here are some suggestions you can employ in your church to build a bigger endowment church fund.
All 88 keys of the Phoenix Symphonys Steinway piano, for example, were endowed. The endowment was sold for $5,000 per key. At Penn State, there is an endowment for every position on the football team.
Is your church endowed? If not, why not?
I’ve been attending a different church for the past few months. The church recently marked its 50th anniversary. It is a small church that ended 2008 with a $33,000 deficit. I was surprised to learn that after fifty years this church has nothing in earmarked or other church funds. There is no endowed church fund.
This is not unusual. Because of the current economic climate, many churches took a big hit the fourth quarter of 2008. In a December 1, 2008 article, The Barna Group predicted that churches would receive $3 billion to $5 billion less than expected the last quarter of 2008. If a church has any amount in a church fund, the balance is likely to decrease, not build, until the economy turns around.
Financing ministries from the interest on endowment funds goes a long way toward shielding the good a church can do from economic downturns.
Some churches have done a good job building their church fund. I would refer you to “Financing American Religion” by Mark Chaves and Sharon L. Miller. However, every church can do more. Here are several of my opinions about some of the steps needed to build a church’s endowment fund.
1. Fish where the big fish swim.
You probably have heard of the 80/20 rule, which holds that 80% of anything comes from 20% of the people involved in the activity. With respect to building a church fund, it’s more like 98/2. You need to concentrate on major gifts. 98% of the money will come from 2% of your congregation.
Although we want to believe that all giving to the church is entirely faith-based or altruistic, you should also consider that if you can show a donor how to solve a personal financial problem or need and endow a church fund you will be more successful.
While it is true that many donors are 100% altruistic, you stand a better chance of getting a major gift if you can show a major donor how to solve a problem that simultaneously results in a gift to your church.
I’m very clear that tax breaks are not the primary reasons people give money to a church fund. In most cases, the tax issues never enter the mind of the giver. But if you can show someone who is interested in your ministry how to make a gift that satisfies the original goal and helps them solve a financial issue or tax problem at the same time, you dramatically increase both your chances of getting the gift and your chances of getting a larger gift for the church fund.
3. Support your fundraising effort with case study information.
I am convinced that many people who could be major donors to church funds simply don’t know about the planning approaches allowed by law that can encourage a major gift to the church fund.
During my 39 years in the financial and estate planning arena, I have spoken with numerous business owners who didn’t even know they had a problem. No one had ever pointed out to them how much of the fruits of their labors could be lost in taxes. I think church fundraisers also suffer from the same lack of information, as do church members.
By explaining the laws and offering case study examples of how other people have solved similar problems, I believe fundraisers can easily help people see how their tax problems can be eliminated by opening a conversation about making a sizeable contribution to a church fund that will pay interest and provide the principle of the gift to the church.
About the author: Robert D. Cavanaugh, CLU is a 39-year veteran of the life insurance, financial and estate planning industry. He publishes The Smart Giver, a planned giving educational series which advances techniques to increase income and reduce taxes while simultaneously helping churches and non-profits. Additional information about how to build a church fund can be found on his blog.
Sphere: Related ContentCharity warns over child drinkers
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009
Fewer children are drinking but those who do are downing more than every before, the charity Alcohol Concern warns.
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Charity warns over child drinkers
Madonna’s New Daughter Leaves Malawi On Private Jet
Saturday, June 20th, 2009
LILONGWE, Malawi — Madonna’s new daughter has flown out of her native Malawi on a private jet headed for London, an airport employee and a person familiar with Madonna’s adoption proceedings in this southern African country said Saturday. The airport employee, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter, said 3-year-old Chifundo “Mercy” James left late Friday headed to London, with a stop in neighboring South Africa
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Madonna’s New Daughter Leaves Malawi On Private Jet
Jamaat-ud-Dawa: Banned Group Helping Pakistani Refugees
Thursday, May 14th, 2009
MARDAN, Pakistan — A banned charity with alleged links to the Mumbai terror attacks is helping people fleeing the fighting between the Pakistani military and the Taliban, group members said Thursday, raising questions about the government’s pledge to crack down on the organization. Around 2,000 former members of Jamaat-ud-Dawa are handing out food and transporting refugees at three centers, said a member of the group, which is using the new name Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation but the same logo as the outlawed group
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Jamaat-ud-Dawa: Banned Group Helping Pakistani Refugees
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