Bolder Giving gathers the stories of incredible givers (all giving anywhere from 20% to 90% of their money) and shares these stories through presentations, publications, partnerships with other organizations, and the web.

The following excerpts are from our Bolder Giving story library.  In each case, our featured giver has engaged with a Giving Community as an integral part of his or her philanthropic journey.  Please enjoy and get inspired!

People want their giving to count, and through our work with Giving What We Can, we aim to help them increase the impact of their generosity.  By reaching young professionals while they’re living modest student lifestyles, and creating a peer group for long-term mutual support, our members can have enormous impact while living the lives they want.

One of the most persistent challenges I feel as a donor of color is that I can be overlooked and stereotyped as only the recipient of someone else’s generosity when in fact there is plenty of philanthropic wealth going on in my own Native American and Latino communities.  That’s why I have become involved in Hispanics in Philanthropy & Native Americans in Philanthropy.

My husband Jim and I have been giving for many years, bringing our minds and hearts to work.  After so many years, I hungered to meet other international funders. I wanted peers to learn from, and to pass important lessons I had learned the hard way on to new givers, so I started New England International Donors (NEID).

Twenty+ years ago, my wife Judy gave me a present of a Faith & Money Network retreat.  One of the leaders talked about money in ways I’d never heard before, values-based simplicity – helping people connect their material possessions with their faith and their values in a secular, consumer society.  

Through my work with Threshold and Women Moving Millions, I feel blessed to bring my whole self to my work; my values, leadership, knowledge, social network, fundraising skills, and financial resources. Though my journey has taken me to Africa and back, I am still following the path of Tikkun Olam, repairing the world through creating justice.

In my own search for developing a giving plan I became involved in Resource Generation. I’m motivated by a vision of young people becoming an increasingly strategic force for positive change, transforming philanthropy, informing new frameworks for how social justice movements are funded, supporting the rise of impact investing, and organizing around why there’s financial inequality.  I’m inspired by my generation – and by others younger than me.

My driving mission these days: to help gay and lesbian people step up and become visible as givers, both to GLBT causes and to the wider community.  The current statistics are abominable.  Fewer than 5% of gays and lesbians even give to national GLBT organizations.  That’s why I became involved in OutGiving and helped launch Give OUT Day as a national annual LGBT fundraising campaign.

I have had the privilege of being involved with some amazing, innovative groups like the Women Donors Network & Women Moving Millions. Not only do these groups financially support the change we need in the world, we also try hard to walk the talk - to work and learn collectively with activists so that as funders, we are part of the shift toward a more loving and peaceful world.

As Christians we asked ourselves, “How does our faith guide our use of money in the middle of this world of need and injustice?" Howard and I not only found support from others in exploring this question but also overcame the different approaches Howard and I had about giving with support from two Christian giving communities – Harvest Time and the Faith & Money Network.