• Giving Pledge
  Thinking about the Giving Pledge, my mind kept searching its folds for a passage I once read about writing, something about not saving our best ideas for later chapters, about using them now.
  May 25, 2019
• 116 Organizations Driving Change
  Last year I pledged to give the majority of my wealth back to the society that helped generate it, to do it thoughtfully, to get started soon, and to keep at it until the safe is empty.
  July 28, 2020
• 384 Ways to Help
  Emily Dickinson lived much of her life isolated in a single room, and I’ve found her poetry coming to me a lot this year. Though her isolation was voluntary, I doubt it was easy. Her room overlooked a cemetery, and many of her poems are focused on death.
  December 15, 2020
• Seeding by Ceding
  Sitting down to write this post, I felt stuck. I want to de-emphasize privileged voices and cede focus to others, yet I know some media stories will focus on wealth. The headline I would wish for this post is “286 Teams Empowering Voices the World Needs to Hear.”
  June 15, 2021
• No Dollar Signs This Time
  Sometimes what’s going on in the world or in my work brings a line of poetry repeatedly to mind, but just as often it’s a single word. Lately the one I keep turning over is “philanthropy.”
  December 8, 2021
• Helping Any of Us Can Help Us All
  The increasing stridency of opinions in the news can be divisive. But lately I’ve heard something different in it. Turned up so loud, all I can notice is how similar it all sounds.
  March 23, 2022
• Of and By
  There is a poem by Gwen Nell Westerman that inspires me by shutting me up every time I read it. I had to close my laptop for a couple of days before writing this very short post.
  November 14, 2022
• Bridges and Barriers
  The process of building a website has been a strange one for me.
  
  Who is it for? the people helping me build it asked reasonably. What do you want them to do?
  
  December 14, 2022
• (Giving Update)
  Excited to call attention to these 360 outstanding organizations, every one of whom could use more allies.
  December 6, 2023
• (Open Call Update)
  From a pool of over 6,000 applicants, each of these 361 community-led non-profits was elevated by peer organizations and a round-2 evaluation panel for their outstanding work advancing the voices and opportunities of individuals and families of meager or modest means, and groups who have met with discrimination and other systemic obstacles.
  March 19, 2024
• Investing
  I love words, and this year this one has been on my mind a lot. It’s another one that seems to have undergone a kind of semantic shriveling.
  
  On the list of its big, beautiful, original definitions? To devote resources for a useful purpose. To endow with rights. To clothe.
  
  December 18, 2024