Indulge me while I snivel.
Spouse and I have been trying to [-]get a clue[/-] formulate a policy for our charitable donations. We think we have everything else covered-- our ER portfolio, the kid's college fund, our long-term care, even some set aside for the parents' long-term care. We can see that our earnings are occasionally exceeding our expenses and that some years we might want to push our spending up against the top of the 4% envelope.
I'm a recovering nuclear engineer so I'm familiar with the challenges in disposing of toxic waste streams from holding tanks. So far this has essentially been like yardwork-- you rake up all the green waste, compost & mulch some of it for your own use, and give the rest away. Some days you barely have enough for your own piles, other days the opala guys have to send an extra truck to accomodate your largesse. Or maybe it's like sewage-- insert your own analogy here.
The mechanics are fairly straightforward. There are at least a half-dozen websites that help find charities for your keywords and also rank their efficiency/effectiveness. Examples of where I'd give money today include: Hawaii's Institute for Human Services (homeless shelter), the Hawaii Food Bank, the Honolulu Habitat for Humanity, and Rabbit Kekai's surf foundation. There are plenty of other candidates like microcredit loans, Doctors Without Borders, shelters for domestic violence, and literacy organizations. No problem there.
We've established a donor-advised fund, dumped some [-]green waste[/-] highly appreciated Tweedy, Browne shares into it, and spread it around a bit. We can take a charitable tax deduction this year for the money we put into the DAF and dispose of the rest of it more or less at our leisure. We may leave the residue in the holding tank to compound for a few years (in Fidelity's International index) or we may grant the rest to a worthy charity tomorrow-- no more pressure to get it done before the end of the tax year. Another nice feature of Fidelity's DAF is that we can dump anonymously. It all works great.
Spouse, however, raises the very good point that stewardship is not supposed to feel like yardwork or toxic-waste disposal or septic pumping. (Gosh, how Bill Gates & Warren Buffett must be suffering.) She wants to find something that fills her with the passion of a life's mission-- maybe even spreading it around like Dolly Levi. She wants to feel like Melinda Gates was on the Charlie Rose show-- full of motivational stories, spouting facts & figures, and excited about the project. Spouse, however, does not want to have to travel to Kenya to develop this feeling.
I've expressed these sentiments in e-mails to a local estate-planning law firm and an elder mentor. I've asked for suggestions on where we'd find a resource to help us get enthused about stewardship. The response so far could best be summarized as "stunned silence". That may be all the response we get from them.
Anyone else have any inspiring ideas on how to stop feeling like I'm wielding a shovel?
Spouse and I have been trying to [-]get a clue[/-] formulate a policy for our charitable donations. We think we have everything else covered-- our ER portfolio, the kid's college fund, our long-term care, even some set aside for the parents' long-term care. We can see that our earnings are occasionally exceeding our expenses and that some years we might want to push our spending up against the top of the 4% envelope.
I'm a recovering nuclear engineer so I'm familiar with the challenges in disposing of toxic waste streams from holding tanks. So far this has essentially been like yardwork-- you rake up all the green waste, compost & mulch some of it for your own use, and give the rest away. Some days you barely have enough for your own piles, other days the opala guys have to send an extra truck to accomodate your largesse. Or maybe it's like sewage-- insert your own analogy here.
The mechanics are fairly straightforward. There are at least a half-dozen websites that help find charities for your keywords and also rank their efficiency/effectiveness. Examples of where I'd give money today include: Hawaii's Institute for Human Services (homeless shelter), the Hawaii Food Bank, the Honolulu Habitat for Humanity, and Rabbit Kekai's surf foundation. There are plenty of other candidates like microcredit loans, Doctors Without Borders, shelters for domestic violence, and literacy organizations. No problem there.
We've established a donor-advised fund, dumped some [-]green waste[/-] highly appreciated Tweedy, Browne shares into it, and spread it around a bit. We can take a charitable tax deduction this year for the money we put into the DAF and dispose of the rest of it more or less at our leisure. We may leave the residue in the holding tank to compound for a few years (in Fidelity's International index) or we may grant the rest to a worthy charity tomorrow-- no more pressure to get it done before the end of the tax year. Another nice feature of Fidelity's DAF is that we can dump anonymously. It all works great.
Spouse, however, raises the very good point that stewardship is not supposed to feel like yardwork or toxic-waste disposal or septic pumping. (Gosh, how Bill Gates & Warren Buffett must be suffering.) She wants to find something that fills her with the passion of a life's mission-- maybe even spreading it around like Dolly Levi. She wants to feel like Melinda Gates was on the Charlie Rose show-- full of motivational stories, spouting facts & figures, and excited about the project. Spouse, however, does not want to have to travel to Kenya to develop this feeling.
I've expressed these sentiments in e-mails to a local estate-planning law firm and an elder mentor. I've asked for suggestions on where we'd find a resource to help us get enthused about stewardship. The response so far could best be summarized as "stunned silence". That may be all the response we get from them.
Anyone else have any inspiring ideas on how to stop feeling like I'm wielding a shovel?
