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How Nonprofits Got Smarter and What it Means for Donors

I turned the calendar page this morning and found this quote: “Starting over is not starting from scratch; it’s starting from experience.” Career changes, family interruptions and losses, moving, education decisions, devastating weather events, and on and on, starting over always follows. There are so many ways we start over

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3 Questions and 3 Tips to Give Like Melinda Gates

I stepped out of the sunroom to a sunny, cool morning. Then I realized it’s mid-June, and the year is half over. Summers used to mean running barefoot through the neighborhood, walking to the corner store for an ICEE, and trips to the nearby park for serious swinging. Summer is

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5 Easy Tips for Summer Time with Grandkids

A morning walk triggered a fond memory in early June, mid-sixties. The water was cold as I jumped into the pool’s shallow end. Slowly walking down the pool steps, my grandmother declared it unusually cold for an early June morning. We were up early for her morning swim to beat

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Six Ideas to Honor the 2024 Graduate

The front page of today’s newspaper has a wonderful story about a graduating high school senior at the top of his class, already facing life’s realities and unexpected changes to his dreams. You remember the dreams when we were young and barely tarnished by life’s bumps and bruises. Many of

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Why the Science of Fundraising Makes for Better Fundraising

Photo:  Astronomical Clock in Prague, Czech Republic Over twenty years of my nonprofit career, I drove or flew home from meetings and conferences, wondering how to replicate great ideas and model programs. I faced the reality of fewer resources and the need to get creative to make it work for

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3 Ways to Make 2024 Giving the Best Year!

Exactly twenty-two months ago, we adopted a two-month-old corgi. On the drive home, we named her Sophie. Later, while completing her registration papers, I decided that Sophie’s name didn’t do her justice. The application provided a long string of squares to fill in, so I settled on Sophie’s Firecracker Celebration

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Create a Legacy Statement for Future Generations

Tiny stacks of 35-millimeter slides covered the dining room table. One by one I passed them through the slide viewer. The story of my parents’ earliest years together unfolded from Okinawa to North Carolina to Colorado and Texas. Pictures are only part of the story.   Several years ago, dad sent me

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The Gift of Giving

The Gift of Giving is a journey into a donor’s personal legacy—the one they’ve been living every single day. It started the day they were born, a story only they can live and share. Their story is their legacy.

The Gift of Giving is not just a book, it is a valuable resource, guide, and tool for givers of all ages at all stages to tell their legacy story. Throughout this book they will find short exercises to help them understand and convey their legacy, in essence, write their legacy.

While the story they’ve already lived will not change, donors can do something about tomorrow by becoming a more intentional giver today!

Available in Kindle, digital download or paper edition.

Your Legacy, Your Story

Some of us are great story tellers, and then some of us are better on paper. But for most of us, our stories play out on a never-ending tape stuck in our heads. Sometimes we feel them in our heart or gut. Author Don Miguel Ruiz says it this way, “You create an entire picture or movie in your mind, and in that picture you are the director, you are the producer, you’re the main actor or actress. Everyone else is a secondary actor or actress. It’s your movie. Every movie has a script. That script is your life story."
FROM
THE GIFT OF GIVING

One Story Across Generations

Golda, matriarch of a generous family, modeled a legacy story for her granddaughter, Sharon, and her community. Sharon learned about giving, watching and talking to her grandmother. When the young and curious Sharon asked Golda why wheelchairs were hanging from the basement rafters, she learned that her grandmother believed it was a community’s responsibility to care for those in need. As a result, Golda had prepared with wheelchairs, walkers, and dressing rolls ready for the future.
FROM
THE GIFT OF GIVING

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See what’s inside The Gift of Giving on book2look.

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Gift of Giving Book

Giving Fingerprints

Sign up to receive Dawn’s FREE e-book, Giving Fingerprints, designed to help you be the unique giver you were meant to be.

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SPEAKER REQUEST

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Dawn Franks is available to speak on a wide variety of topics to philanthropic organizations, professional associations and community groups. Topics include:

  • Giving Fingerprints

  • How Your Philanthropy Impacts the Next Generation

  • What Story Does Your Foundation Tell?

  • Family Foundations: Starting from Scratch