Articles & Guides
My goal is to equip people with the resources to inspire generosity and build enduring legacies. Here are a few of my favorite posts and practical guides on key topics, as well as a few other articles I recommend.
Generosity
The Give a Benjamin Challenge
I often recommend families try this unusual challenge: pick a day and give away $100 in cash. I call it the “Give a Benjamin Day.” It’s a chance to practice a random act of spontaneous generosity.
Guide: Giving As A Family
Practicing generosity as a family provides a powerful catalyst for finding common ground and having important conversations. This simple guide will help you get started.
The Giving Family: A Surprise Lesson
When my kids were still young, I began giving them money each year to donate to a charity of their choosing. It was a valuable exercise—for them and for me!
Legacy
Podcast: How Generosity Transforms Generations
Get a 9-minute introduction to some of the core ideas of family legacy and generosity from my conversation with Christopher Kai, host of The Gifters Podcast.
Guide: Creating Family Vision & Mission Statements
Creating vision and mission statements for your family is an exercise that can set the tone for how your family lives out values individually and collectively. Get started with this guide.
How Do Family, Legacy and Generosity Go Together?
I’ve been asked how the three themes of my personal mission fit together—specifically, how does generosity relate to the felt needs of family and legacy? Here is my answer.
Fundraising
Giving in Retirement: America’s Longevity Bonus
This very accessible study conducted by Age Wave and Merrill Lynch delivers loads of useful insights on how older generations give charitably.
Not Your Father’s Oldsmobile Fundraising
Oldsmobile learned the hard way that consumers reward companies who adapt to their changing tastes. Those in the fundraising world also need to adapt to new ways that many are approaching their charitable giving.
Fundraising’s Future
I wrote a book about 10 trends affecting the future of charitable giving. Here’s a taste of that content in article form, originally published in Outcomes Magazine.
Books in the Store
A Generous Life
Learn ten steps to help you establish a generous mindset, determine where and how much to give, create a legacy plan, and more.
Charity Shock
Discover how recent cultural shifts are revolutionizing fundraising, and how you can understand and take advantage of these shifts.
Entrusted
Discover why the model for estate planning today is fundamentally flawed, and how it can be fixed.