March 19, 2010

She told me one day about her giving. I was writing a chapter in a book.

“Giving is about making meaning,” she said. “And we can’t make meaning if we don’t empower ourselves.” That was the focus of our conversation, empowerment.

“How sad,” she said to me. “How sad not to feel like an actor, an agent of something in one’s own life and in one’s own world.”

So she gives. She gives to empower herself and to empower her son and daughter. She gives to empower all the disempowered. “Making the gift is making meaning. I demand to be an actor, an agent of change in my own life and in my own world.”

This story is a keeper, forever. What stories do your donors tell you? What stories do you save forever?

P.S. The book is called (Me)Volution: Change Begins With Me. Lovely stories from all over the world. Published by Canada’s Civil Sector Press, a division of The Hillborn Group Ltd. And by the way, Hillborn also has a good fundraising newsletter.

About Simone Joyaux

A consultant specializing in fund development, strategic planning, and board development, Simone P. Joyaux works with all types and sizes of nonprofits, speaks at conferences worldwide, and teaches in the graduate program for philanthropy at Saint Mary’s University, MN. Her books, Keep Your Donors and Strategic Fund Development, are standards in the field.

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