Categories

Show Your Favorite Nonprofit a Lot of Love this Valentine’s Day

February arrived with Punxsutawney Phil predicting more winter and store shelves drawing us to candy displays and Valentine’s Day cards. Perhaps the most popular non-holiday on the calendar, Valentine’s Day symbolizes feelings of affection, mostly between couples and children. Little is known about Valentinus, martyred on February 14, 269, for

Read More »

Why Answering Questions in Public Makes You a Better Donor

While waiting for my next flight, I was scanning through email, focused on the laptop screen in front of me. Ignoring the voices and sounds, I was oblivious to conversations. Then I suddenly became aware of movement behind and beside me. A glance revealed four uniformed individuals, three women and

Read More »

Four Easy Tips to Better Understand Nonprofit Statistics

The drive to Dallas allowed enough time to prepare for the meeting with a nonprofit organization in transition. While their mission remained the same, how they delivered services was changing. The direction they were heading was cloudy. So, I had questions and hoped the answers and their projections would clear

Read More »

Nine Steps on the Giving Ladder You Can Share with Your Children

Peeping through a keyhole on Christmas morning, I could see the packages and toys Santa had brought. All under the age of ten, all four of us grandchildren took turns looking through that keyhole while my grandmother took her sweet time cooking breakfast. My sweet grandmother had a six-year-old granddaughter

Read More »

How Respect and Trust Can Make You a Better Giver

Thanksgiving turkey with all the trimmings, brightly wrapped presents under Christmas trees, bicycles, and tricycles – it’s supposed to be a wonderful time of year. It’s when we find a few hours in our crazy, jam-packed schedules to share Thanksgiving meals and help deliver packages to go under the Christmas

Read More »

How Anonymous Giving Challenges Even the Best Givers

How “anonymous” is an anonymous gift? An even better question: how anonymous is a gift to a nonprofit organization in today’s digital world?   The answers are not simple. Let’s start with what anonymous means to you.    Is it not being noticed for specific actions or gifts you made?   Is it okay

Read More »

How Understanding Nonprofit Duplication Makes You a Better Donor

Sitting across the table was a gentleman I had just met. He excitedly described how the new nonprofit he envisioned, would change lives. Almost breathless between sentences, his vision ended with this new nonprofit organization spanning the country in every community. Not wanting to dampen the enthusiasm, I sat back

Read More »

How SMART Gifts Can Transform Faith-based Giving

Smart is such a great word. It makes us feel good, as in what great glasses – they make you look so smart. Or, look how fast my dog learned that trick – he’s so smart. Today we have smartboards in classrooms. Forget chalk and erasers. We even have the

Read More »

When to Have This One Talk to Ensure an Enduring Legacy

Are we too late? That was the question asked casually by an acquaintance. Too late for what? Too late for one of the most important conversations you can have with your adult children.   I understand late. Most days I practice stretching time: I ignore the clock, stretching every minute to

Read More »

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

Take a peek inside.

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

Kindle Edition

Digital Download

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.

FREE E-BOOK

Submit info to receive Dawn’s
FREE e-book, Giving Fingerprints.

SPEAKER REQUEST

Request A Speaker

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