Cookies of the Rising Sun

The bakery on my block is selling “Cookies of the Rising Sun.”  Cookies decorated in the colors of the Japanese flag, their profits dedicated to a fund for the displaced in Japan.

The exercise studio in my neighborhood is running mat classes at which they’re selling “Red Sun Mermaid” t-shirts, with proceeds going to the Japanese Relief Effort.

A group of artisanal breweries is hosting a Brewery bash to help Japanese beer and sake brewers in affected areas.

Giving begins at home.  With who you are, and what you have to offer.  And sometimes, taken from this stance, giving back spurs creativity and results in events far more personal than a straightforward dinner-dance. 

This kind of giving – localized giving, based on who we are and what we do in the world – is collective.  It takes an everyday community, of bakers and munchers…exercisers and trainers… and elevates that activity to a loftier purpose.  It takes our actions dedicated to ourselves, and redirects them to others.

Back in 2008, my kids sold lemonade, along with a number of their classmates, to benefit the Obama campaign.  That’s what kids do – set up lemonade stands.  But here the purpose wasn’t to subsidize yet another Lego set or computer game – it was a higher social good.  So, too, with the brewers, the trainers, and the bakers.

Giving begins with the heart.  What can you extend to the world, and how can you shape it to benefit others?

Remember To Breathe

“As you know things are getting more difficult and crazy here.”

That’s a quote from a friend who went over to Japan just before the tsunami to visit with her elderly parents. And now she’s stuck there.

“They need me for keep their life” she tried to explain to those of us in the States who’ve been begging her to come back to New York.

The burdens…the joys…and the ties…of family.

I wrote back to her immediately sending all my love and energy – and reminding her to take 20 minutes each day to remember that she is loved.

“It’s Good To Breathe” I intoned. In what I hope was a soothing manner.

And then I thought about that metaphor.

Isn’t that what we in the nonprofit sector are trying to do, every day?

Hold up people who need us for keep their life?

Someone asked me the other day why Cause Effective was a nonprofit. At first I was astonished, because it’s so ingrained in me that we’re in it for the social good. Then I realized he was wondering why some “fundraising consulting firms” were organized as for-profits, yet we who did similar work were not.

And it has to do with where we’re coming from. To hold up people who need us for keep their life.

Our abiding belief, at Cause Effective, is that every group that’s vital to its community has a nascent funding base. That every community-based association has its audience, its fans, its donors-in-waiting. And that it’s our fiercely-held mission to help each nonprofit find and connect with the donors right around them…in their home.

My friend in Japan is determined not to leave her parents behind, and she’s trying to convince them to come back with her to the States. But they’re stubborn, and stuck in their ways, and they don’t want to leave their home. Even if scads of radioactivity might be headed their way.

Isn’t that who we’re here for? The most vulnerable of us, the most stubborn and committed, the most loved? People who need us for keep their life?

So for all of us, a reminder: It’s Good To Breathe.

For their sake, as well as ours. For the long haul.