If you work with foundations you have no doubt received calls or notes  from people asking if you know  foundations that support particular causes. Because of my role with The Gathering I get my share. Typically I try to explain having a list of foundations to contact isn't all that helpful. For one the descriptions of what they fund are often not current or not accurate and second ” so many decisions are made based on  relationships and many other intangibles. (If you have a foundation you should go online to the Foundation Center  (www.foundationcenter.org )  and see how your interests are described). Some time ago” I received a note…

  I've been re-reading a couple of books (Generations: The History of America’s Future for one)  by William Strauss and Neil Howe as a result of seeing several posts on Facebook about the uneasy relationship between Millennials religion and politics. This book was published in 1991 and because I was born in 1946 I especially like the sections on the relationship between Boomers and Millennials.   The description of Boomers as they age is not flattering.  The authors see us as tending toward people who will  “grow increasingly pompous intolerant uncompromising snoopy and exacting of others.”  Not only that but we will likely be “an ascetic elder glowering down from Sinai looking…

  I have been given the gift of giving.  It’s not something to brag about or take pride in.  It’s not like I worked to get it or ever really paid much attention to it. Ever since I was a kid I have loved seeing what money can do – especially when it fits neatly into an opportunity.  Not when I was young  but when I was in my 50’s I became so interested in how to use it that I had a friend do an analysis of what it is about giving that makes me enjoy it.  I was curious about those things that gave me a special satisfaction.  In…

  Several years ago our local Chamber of Commerce brought in a renowned demographer to talk with a large group of business and civic leaders about the future impact of immigration (legal and illegal) on our community of 100 000 people.  “Your community will soon experience the full force of a tsunami of brown young unemployed fertile sometimes violent non-English speaking immigrants from the South. It is going to affect every institution and as it has everywhere else the economic resources of your city and region.”  I raised my hand and asked him if he thought there were any opportunities or should we all move to Switzerland and wait it…

My mother died in 2004 and my father passed away in 2007.  It was not sudden or tragic but the end of a long life for each of them.  Dad had been sick for several years and my mother had died from Parkinson’s three years before so it was not unexpected.  Friends had told me that each of the children would grieve in particular ways and there was nothing that could predict how that grief would affect us.  There are undoubtedly some principles of grief and some common patterns we can read about in books but our friends were right.  Each of the three children had their own relationship with…

I grew up in a time in publishing where getting Billy Graham’s endorsement on a book was not exactly a guarantee of respectable sales but it was key.  While his was probably not the first example of the importance of endorsement (Arthur Godfrey and Art Linkletter had already blazed the trail there) it was certainly one of the first in the evangelical world.  As everyone knows after that the power of imprimatur moved from Billy Graham to Chuck Colson Bill Hybels Rick Warren and now Tim Keller. In fact many books published today have several pages of endorsements from a wide variety of influential pastors thought leaders consultants artists celebrities…

  I love Jason Russell and the work of Invisible Children.  I love the work of Scott Harrison and Charity:Water.  I love the work of Gary Haugen and IJM; Jena Nardella and Blood:Water; Peter Greer and HOPE International; and (increasingly) many, many others.  I especially like that my younger friends care about these issues and I support their work in whatever way I can.  I read about the ravages of malaria, poverty, and sex-trafficking. I read daily of the atrocities inflicted on defenseless women and children.  I have seen them first-hand.  I have taught Bonhoeffer and the words he speaks and the willing sacrifice of his life more than challenge…

  I have been part of a number of conversations in the last few weeks about the possibility of donors collaborating on projects – both locally and internationally.  While we often encourage our grantees to collaborate it’s too often true that neither we nor they know what that means or what is expected.  Like many words, it means something different in the mind of everyone involved and we often start working on collaborations without taking the time to define it and to get on the same page.  Years ago I read a paper by the Council on Foundations about the several levels of the continuum of collaboration – from the…