The assignment was for my granddaughter to develop a plan by the end of the year to donate time and money.

We sat down together and discussed the following three questions:

1. Why give?

• Express gratitude by contributing to the good work of organizations who have done good stuff for you
• Help people who need help (all of us need help, sometime or other)
• Make things better in the world – building a sustainable community where children grow healthy and happy and people work and learn together and respect each other
• Develop a habit of paying attention to the needs and interests of others

2. Where do we want to volunteer our time?

• Activities that match our interests and skills
• Activities where we can generate a visible, positive result
• Activities that strengthen the capacity of others to learn and to do
• Activities where we learn by doing

3. Where should we contribute money?

• Where we volunteer, to make our efforts more effective
• To organizations that provide clear information about how our money will be used
• To activities that strengthen the capacity of others to do for themselves

Our results:

As a volunteer, she will read and sing with pre-schoolers in an after-school program.

As a philanthropist, she would divide her dollars between;

1) Her school’s farm project,
2) Buying children’s books for a homeless families’ shelter
3) Buying farm animals for third world families through Heifer International.

It will be interesting to see how she chooses to give next year.

Jan Hively
HIVEL001@umn.edu

Don Schmitz is a popular speaker and writer on parenting and grandparenting. He is the author of The New Face of Grandparenting…Why Parents Need Their Own Parents and founder of The Grandkidsandme Foundation and Grandparent Camps. Don holds graduate degrees in Education, Administration and Human Development. He is the father to three sons and nine grandchildren. Contact Don@grandkidsandme.com