Thanks for being a part of Know Abundance. We’ve enjoyed writing each week and have appreciated your comments and feedback on our posts.

As of June 2010 we’re taking an indefinite hiatus.

I especially want to thank Sande Smith, Elizabeth Husserl R. and Tuti Scott for adding their wisdom and perspective to this forum.

You can read their previous posts by clicking on their names or browsing the archives on the right sidebar. I’m re-sharing my favorite post (To Be Alive is Enough) for our last “Quote of the Week” and our Know Abundance mantra for our last “Abundance Vocabulary.”

Wishing you all the best and thanks again,

- Lanell

I used to think that I had to be something for my life to have meaning.

I used to think that I had to do something to earn my life.

Then I woke up to the fact that I am alive.

Sure, this sounds obvious, but I was so distracted by all my striving to be and to do that I totally overlooked this elementary truth.

Being alive is a new revelation every day.

That’s where the Know Abundance mantra, “Everything I need, I already have” comes from.

Our scarcity beliefs are most prevalent at this fundamental level of our relationship with life. Why is being alive not enough?

We constantly judge ourselves and each other based on standards (created by ?) that say we need to do more, we need to be more, than what we are.

I notice this underlying belief all the time in the women’s movement as we try to make a case for why women and girls should have equality with men. We say, “Invest in women and girls because it is better for society, for democracy, for the family, for the economy, for a future without extremism and violence…”

This might be true – in fact a lot of studies have been done to show that “investments in women yield large social and economic returns.”

But while this recognition of women and girls as vital and important is welcomed after years of marginalization, there is a subtle message that is also carried: we are not valued for being alive, only for what we can produce.

Why are the elderly and people with disabilities often seen and treated as “less than?”

A friend said to me last week, “I always thought the world would be better without me.”

In our striving to be something and to do something – we overlook the fact that each and every one of us is a unique expression of life. This is a given. We don’t have to do or to be anything.

We make up those requirements. That’s our story – added on after our birth. We tell each other and ourselves how we should look and behave, what kind of jobs we should have, how much money we should make and how things should be in our lives.

This week, let being alive be enough.

Ten years ago, I worked at a corporate PR firm. My first week there, my boss taught me two very important lessons that I call upon every day as I produce and write annual reports, videos, articles, communications plans, stories: Never start from scratch, because you don’t have the time and repurpose any and everything you do.

Instead of starting from scratch, she encouraged me to scan the environment and see what’s already been done that I can build on or adapt. And then the next step is to adapt and re-purpose the fruits of that work!

I not only consider the content I create for repurposing, I also listen for ideas that I can adapt to a piece that I’m working on.

For example, I was recently at a fundraising dinner and my CEO spoke about what had moved her the most at a recent conference we had held for our community. She told a story about a woman she’d met years ago – an employee at a grant partner organization. The woman’s personal transformation resulted in her becoming a powerful and eloquent leader at another organization that has made incredible gains on behalf of farm workers in California’s Central Valley.

This inspiring story helped to demonstrate the ability of our organization to identify and cultivate leaders who have gone on to have a tremendous ripple effect in their communities. And it showed the way the work personally touched my CEO. The story became an important part of a direct mail letter this spring.

Another great place to repurpose content is in your organization’s blog. I’ve found that many organizations are reluctant to start blogs because they don’t know how they will generate content. I launched a blog for the Women’s Foundation of California this spring, and I base content creation upon repurposing the incredible information that I come across in the course of a week.

Before the blog, this was information and anecdotes shared when people sat together and ate lunch, or short emails that rarely went further than staff in-boxes. Many of us come across information that can be easily re-purposed for blog content. Examples include:

* success stories shared by grantees or the beneficiaries of your organization
* responses that you write to emails seeking information about your work or an issue
* podcasts that other people do (you can link to ones that are related to your issues)
* photos you take at events that can become brief photo blogs
* quick videos in which you ask a question and get an answer (see previous blog post about using video)

It’s also important to share the workload and engage others. We have a couple of regular contributors who write blog posts every other week. Another staff member created simple short videos featuring two public policy fellows who are working on upcoming legislation. And don’t forget to create an editorial calendar with key dates so that you can see what’s on the horizon for your organization and your constituents. That will inspire story ideas too.

I didn’t think so at the time, but I’ve come to realize that these ideas – never start from scratch and repurpose everything you do – are actually ways of exercising creativity. Many great inventions are inspired by, or modifications of, something that already exists.

In his book, Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius, Michael Michalko uses the acronym SCAMPER to help people remember 9 different things you can do with an idea to create a new idea:

- Substitute
- Combine it with something else
- Adapt
- Magnify or add to it; modify it or change it in some fashion
- Put to other use
- Eliminate something from it
- Rearrange or Reverse  it

Try repurposing an idea this week and see what you can create – and the time you save!

- Marcus Samuelsson, New York Chef (Aquavit)

We all know we’re in the midst of significant change propelled by new technologies.

We’re living the change every day – with our smart phones and flat screen TVs, our Facebook and Skype accounts.

If you doubt the rapid changes in technology watch this video of Steve Jobs unveiling the Macintosh computer – it makes 26 years seem like ancient history.

So how are all of these changes affecting Philanthropy? Check out the new white paper, Disrupting Philanthropy, for a comprehensive summary of how our access to instant information and capacity for networking online is transforming philanthropy. For a quick synopsis read Working Wikily’s review.

The authors of Disrupting Philanthropy, Bernholz, Skloot and Varela, offer some advice for us on how to deal with all of this rapid change: be flexible, scalable and portable.

“Th(e) institutional structure has remained the predominant model for organized philanthropy for almost a century. Today, peer-supported, data-informed, passion-activated, and technology-enabled networks represent a new structural form in philanthropy, and the institutions that support them will need to be as flexible, scalable, and portable as the networks they serve.”

We can reconsider assumptions built into our work over decades – assumptions that may no longer make sense….There are innumerable strategic and tactical approaches for us – as philanthropic institutions, as social-purpose organizations, and as individual donors – to consider in this moment of transition.”

- Disrupting Philanthropy by Lucy Bernholz, Edward Skloot and Barry Varela

We often talk in fundraising about donor prospecting, cultivation and the all important “ask” – but equally significant for successful relationship building with our supporters is donor stewardship.

Stewardship is defined as “the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care.”

Every gift that we receive from a donor, large or small is an act of trust.

Donors are trusting that we will use their money in the ways we’ve said that we will. And in a world where financial scandals are reported daily and faith in systems and the people who run them is weaker than ever, this part of our job is even more crucial.

What are the key aspects of good donor stewardship?

1. Honor the intent – Did you receive the gift in response to a targeted appeal? Did the donor send in a note with their gift expressing interest in a specific program? Then that’s where their money needs to go. Talk with the donor about why they are choosing to give to you. Record and respond to their interest.

2. Be Transparent and Honest – Every donor wants to know, “How will my money be spent?” Don’t use fancy marketing or vague lawyer speak to answer this question. We all feel suspicious of that sort of thing. Instead be explicit about organizational costs and expenses using simple language and terms that are easy to understand.

3. Report on successes and challenges – Donors want to hear from us about how their money was used. Did their contribution make a difference? The stories we share about what is made possible because of donor generosity is the pulsing heart that keeps our organizations alive and thriving.

4. Remember where the money comes from – We are simply intermediaries between the donor and their passion. We are helping them do what they want to do in the world. So the money might change bank accounts but it’s never ours.

5. Be your donor’s best friend - Don’t take your donors for granted. No relationship is static. Donors literally have thousands of choices of where to give their money. What will keep them giving to you is the relationship you nurture and build with them.

As passionate crusaders for our cause we can easily slip into the belief that we “deserve this money” and forget how important donor stewardship is.

But as the charities who’ve had to close their doors in the past two years know, without our donors our organizations will not survive. So follow these five basics of donor stewardship and honor the trust your donors place in you each time they make a gift.