Intro 0:00

Welcome to the You Can’t Take It With You show where we feature stories around generosity designed to inspire and encourage others to do meaningful things in their communities. Now here’s your host, Jim Dunlop.

Jim Dunlop 0:16

Hi, Jim Dunlop, here a wealth advisor and host of this show where I sit down with people who get it when it comes to generosity. Thanks for tuning into this special best of episode. In this episode, we’ll take a look back at some of our favorite moments from previous conversations. This episode is brought to you by Advent Partners ready for good. Advent is a financial planning team dedicated to helping you make informed decisions that simplify your financial journey. Advent season, team of professionals is committed to guiding you toward your financial goals. We offer tailored solutions based on your specific needs, from standalone financial planning to integrated financial management. We help all our clients get ready for good, whether you’re planning for the future, investing for growth or navigating financial hurdles. Advent Partners is here to provide insights, recommendations and a clear financial roadmap to learn more about Advent Partners and how we can guide your financial success. Visit readyforgood.com,

Ralph Serpe 1:15

Philanthropy can be healing. I’ll share one story about a woman I met with who received the family home in a divorce, and she immediately gave that house to a charitable fund, and she wanted the proceeds the annual grants from that fund to support domestic violence shelters in the communities where her husband had lived and would live in the future. We didn’t talk about the rationale behind that, but you could tell that that Charitable Fund was a response to and healing for that what sounded like a difficult family situation,

Ron Cohen 2:11

I have sometimes wondered whether like from the charitable organization side and kind of over to the donor side, like there’s often a wall that exists, and I think it’s, it’s kind of a lack of knowledge wall, or just a lack of familiarity. You know, how does this work? How does the organization work? From, you know, the donor to the organization? I’m not sure I know. What is this donor’s life like? How do they work? I don’t know that it’s always understood or valued or appreciated, and so I have observed, and you know, come to believe that if people are willing to ask questions, even hard questions, what’s learned in the dialog helps to diminish the size and the thickness of that wall and just makes for better relationships.

Angela Zimmann 3:29

When I first heard about the leave room at the margins, it was a financial piece that I had heard someone say. They said, Well, if you, if you spend all your money, you know, if you, if you don’t set any aside mindfully, then you don’t have any margin. You can’t give any money. And that makes perfect sense, you know, if you if you spend more than you earn, or spend all that you earn, you don’t have any margin to give. So it’s that margin, but it extends beyond just money again, and so it is about time and energy. In order to be generous, we have to leave a little space at the margins. We can’t drive ourselves right up against the wall with over scheduling and and whatever else. You know, add the money all of those pieces we need to leave room in the margins of our life so that we can be generous with others and and in the end, that’s what brings us, brings us joy not having our schedule or our our bank account down to zero.

Jim Langley 4:26

So what we see is as as organizations became complacent, or just assumed this natural resource court called philanthropy would always be there. They just focused on harvesting it, getting it. And then they became kind of obsessed with competition, with each other, and annual goals, and they lost sight of belief, belong better. So I say, you know, you can’t pass the offering basket if you don’t build the congregation now you just take a. At American higher education, 90% of support given annually for all institutions of higher learning comes from 1% of dollar. You’re getting more money you’re losing community. That’s a dangerous proposition. The de democratization of an organization is a dangerous proposition. Reliance on pew no matter how benevolent they are, is a dangerous proposition. So you liken that to a church, and you say, okay, beautifully appointed church being kept alive by five to 10 donors. Fewer and fewer middle aged people in the middle pews and next to no young people coming in the church may survive, but what will happen to the faith the purpose, right? You’ve lost sight. So we’ve got to get back to we, the people in community, defining Common Cause and working toward commonly shared values, working from commonly shared values toward common purpose. This is great fuel for any community, any society, any country, any culture.

Grace Pomroy 6:08

One of the things that also came to mind for me around kind of expanding this conversation around generosity is something I’ve worked with my students a lot on, which is negotiating salary and benefits, which you might say. What does that have to do with generosity? I’m just not sure. But one of the things I realized early on in my life was because I am a more generous person, that’s where my inclination lies. I never negotiated my own salary and benefits in my career, because I always thought whatever the employer gives me is enough, and I will give away as much of that as I can. That’s my personality. I just need to assume that everyone else has goodwill going into this conversation. That being said, I had a pretty big wake up call midway through my career when a manager told me that I was being vastly underpaid in comparison to my peers, and actually did the work for me of making sure that my salary was increased. But after that experience, I realized that negotiating my own salary and benefits matters, not just for me, but for those who come after me, and that every time I don’t take that step to make sure that I’m being paid equitably, I’m setting the tone for the next person. And I see this happen a lot, particularly in the church space, where pastors think that they are doing their congregation a favor by being paid less, but they’re actually not doing the person who comes after them a favor at all. So another great way to be generous is actually to take that step forward yourself.

Outro 7:32

Thanks for joining us to hear stories of generosity that remind us that you can’t take it with you. Visit our site at canttakeitwithyou.com. For more details on today’s episode and to subscribe to future shows.

Disclosure 7:48

Neither today’s guests nor their company are affiliated with or endorsed by Thrivent Advisor Network. The views expressed in this presentation by the guest are their own and not necessarily those of Thrivent or its affiliates.

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