Americans lead the world in charitable contributions, giving $300 billion a year to charities. Sounds like a lot right? But this is just a drop in the bucket compared to the over One Trillion Dollars needed to keep US charities in operation, more than the US government collects in taxes. The rest comes from their own assets, government support, and foreign investment.
via Charity: Who Cares? | MintLife Blog | Personal Finance News & Advice.
I have been thinking about it for a while to write about few of the most heartbreaking reasons and consequences of the Icelandic Financial Collapse. Here I will not look at the victims, but more at the devastating pitfalls the “elite” stepped into on the way. Continue reading The Financial Collapse in Iceland
A website about sustainability and responsibility.
In a class session in Pastor as Leader, Bishop Rimbo, mentioned slightly synodical diaconate in the New York Metro Synod of the ELCA. It is worth looking further into.
First Evangelical Lutheran Church in Longmont Colorado does a great job in presenting their Proposed Budget on the web. It is easily understandable. It starts with focus on what we are doing which then is turned into numbers.
Think about that for a moment. Make a list of the people and groups in your community outside your membership who would miss your church. What would they miss? Repeat the exercise a year later. Is the list longer or shorter?
J. Clif Christopher talks about why people give to charity:
I then asked the pastors to choose which ones they felt were the number one, two, and three chief reasons people give. They started blurting out, “taxes, guilt, involvement” No one was even close. Finally, a lady who had been sitting quietly in the back raised her hand and said, “Number one is a belief in the mission. Number two is a regard for staff leadership, and number three is fiscal responsibility.” She was right. I was stunned. I asked her where she was a pastor and she sheepishly said, “I am not a pastor, but my pastor told me about this seminar and thought I might learn something. I am the executive director of Habitat for Humanity.”
Ég fór í tilraunakennda guðsþjónustu á sunnudaginn þar sem Spencer frá stopconsuming.org lét dæluna ganga. Ekki besti guðfræðingur Bandaríkjanna en þörfin fyrir að breyta einhverju var svo sannarlega til staðar. Hverju og hvernig á að breyta var hins vegar e.t.v. ekki skýrt. Spencer heldur út í samstarfi við fleiri eða er á einhvern hátt tengdur shemamovement.com.
Það er óneitanlega kómískt að sitja við tölvu í LSS West Pantry, bíða eftir næsta kúnna sem þarf hjálp með skattskýrslu eða aðstoð við að fylla út umsóknir um húshitunarstyrk, læknishjálp eða matarmiða og lesa á sama tíma eftirfarandi texta í bók Thomas Friedman, The World Is Flat.
This weekend there will be accountants painting watercolors in their garages. There will be laywers writing screenplays. But I guarantee you that you won’t find any sculptors who on weekends will be doing other people’s taxes for fun.
Það er nefnilega þannig að sum okkar sem tilheyrum “liberal arts” hluta heimsins, leggjum stund á listir, heimspeki eða guðfræði, lítum á tölur og “fill-in-form” sem áhugaverð hliðarskref sem er vert að stíga sér til skemmtunar. Thomas hefur þannig einfaldlega vitlaust fyrir sér í þönkum sínum hér að ofan. En þetta er svo sem ekki eini galli bókarinnar.
