Financial Planning magazine is running a story called Extreme Philanthropy about people who give away 50% of their income or even 50% of their assets:
For the last few decades, Americans’ charitable giving has hovered around 2% of pretax income. Anne and Christopher Ellinger of Arlington, Mass., have upped the ante with an invitation to what could be considered "extreme philanthropy"—pushing that percentage up to 50. In 2003, they established a foundation called Bolder Giving to inspire people to realize their full giving potential. Today, more than 88 people have joined the organization’s 50% League and given away half of their financial assets, or half of their income or business profits for at least three years. Many of them have shared their stories online at www.boldergiving.org.
The article talks about Tactical Philanthropy Podcast guest Tracy Gary and quotes our friend Phil Cubeta a number of times. If you read Phil’s blog Gift Hub, you’ll find it as funny as I did that the article features a big pull quote of Phil saying that philanthropy “is a way for advisors to prospect upwards”. That might be true, but somehow I don’t see that as the core of Phil’s message.
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O Lordy, thank you, Sean. Prospecting upward. When you live in a Dumpster it is all up from there. Or in the words of an old song by Nina and Rick Farina, “Been down so long it looks like up to me.”