Bolder Giving - Give More, Risk more, Inspire more
Pilar Gonzales

| West | 40 to 59 Years Old | Under $1M | at least 50% | Profession |
| Social Justice | Fairness |

Comments (2)

Posted on September 23rd by MfromCAL

Five Stars for Inspiration

I had a thought after sitting in on Pilar's incredible Bolder Giving call yesterday. She spoke about the power of even small gifts (e.g., her giving out work gloves to day laborers). Inspired, I went out and did some gloves gifts today--it felt great, and the workers really appreciated it.


Which got me to thinking...for every visitor to your site with abundant resources, there are probably 10-20 with more modest means. What about adding a little section to your site entitled: "25 ways to have an impact for less than $25" or "50 ways for less than $50"? You already have three ideas to kick it off from Pilar: giving out gloves, handing out small water bottles and paying the bill of the next person in line with you at, say, a drugstore.


You could bulletin all your members and ask them to submit their own personal "power of small giving" examples to build up this list. Anyway, I know you don't have unlimited time to consider every idea. But this may be a way to help people come up with their own ways to give, dramatize how even the smallest gesture can have a huge impact and show that everyone can be a philanthropist.


Posted on August 10th by Anonymous

Each of us has something to share

Thank you for sharing your story, Pilar. I can especially relate to your last paragraph, which reminded me of a personal experience.  A woman made a donation and then personally handed me "a bit extra".  I encouraged her to donate the "extra" as well, but she insisted that I must keep it for myself.  When I informed the woman that, as a fellow donor, I completely understood her desire to give, her face contorted in display of confusion.  She had assumed that I was a recipient because, as she admitted, I "looked the same" as the recipients (i.e., had the same skin colour).  My only hope is that the experience, for all who were present – including me, was an opportunity to explore our own assumptions about who and what “need” looks like and focus on how each of us can share in meeting the needs of others.

 
https://www.boldergiving.org/stories.php