Holiday Message from Phyllis, Giving Circle Co-chair:



My mother was a secretary for most of her career. She loved her work. It took her out of the home and gave her a sense of meaning and importance.  When my mom died in 2002,at age 84, I was tasked with going through her things. True to her career, I found neatly organized files, and categorized receipts for just about everything.  Among the papers were untold number of acknowledgements for charitable donations. I had no idea that mom was a small time philanthropist - giving $18.00, $36.00 and in some cases $72.00 to everyone from the March of Dimes to the American Heart Association, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, the NY Public Library, Feeding America, St Jude’s Hospital for Children, etc. – to probably every organization from whom she received a solicitation letter.   

This year, if I had one, I’ve had 100 emails asking me to contribute to one cause or another for Thanksgiving Thursday and Giving Tuesday. Unlike my mom, I sort through the requests with discretion and serenity. I give mindfully and only to a select few groups where I know my contribution will make a real difference. Being a member of our TTN Philadelphia Giving Circle, I take joy in knowing that pooling my contribution with the funds of like-minded other donors, I gain the potential to make a much larger gift and have a significant impact on my community and to a cause or causes that matter to me. In the Giving Circle we get to know our grant recipients personally and reap the knowledge of the difference our funding can make - as we learned at our recent Gather for Giving event.

If you have not already made your annual contribution to the TTN Giving Circle, Kris, my co-chair, and I encourage you to do so right now.  Our fiscal year ends on December 31, and we need every donation to help us accumulate the largest sum that we can allocate to our 2024 grantees. Your contribution of $200. or more gives you the right to participate in our voting meeting where collectively we choose the organization(s) whom we want to support with our Giving Circle dollars.

Thank you for reaching deep and sending your contribution in today.  For credit card donations click here to donate and scroll down to find The Transition Network Philadelphia Giving Circle Fund.  For checks mail to: Phyllis Bookspan, 210 S 25th Street, Unit 405, Philadelphia, PA, 19103. And you may qualify to save on taxes by sending the donation from your IRA account. Check with your IRA manager.

As the year comes to a close, Kris and I thank you for your participation and wish you all . . . Happy Holidays!





As you know, all the funds we raise this year will go towards early children’s literacy programs in 2024. In order to prepare us to be knowledgeable about the hurdles that many children face when learning to read, our program committee is putting together two educational programs in 2024. The first one is called Philadelphia’s Early Literacy Crisis: Why Children Can’t Read and will focus on the issues facing our children (3-9) to read i.e. everything from access and poverty to ill prepared teachers using outdated instruction techniques.

The second program is called Philadelphia’s Early Literacy Crisis: Reasons to be Optimistic and will focus on programs and methods that are working such as the "science of reading" approach to reading, tutoring and much more.

So, stay tuned. We will be announcing the dates and times of these programs shortly. In the meantime, feel free to watch a video created by Reading by 4^th, an early literacy movement in Philadelphia that highlights the importance of reading.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plLt0yh-reA

 

Kriste Lindenmeyer, Giving Circle co-chair, kicked off the evening by welcoming everyone and sharing her perspective on the importance of collective giving and how it makes a difference to the nonprofits we fund. “We are here tonight to celebrate all of you who give so generously to improve the lives of women and children in Philadelphia.”

Kris then introduced Susan Makurath, TTN Philadelphia Chapter Chair, who talked about the importance of the Giving Circle as TTN Philadelphia’s philanthropic arm and the mutual benefits with the TTN community. First up was Frank Wang from 12Plus, who shared personal stories about how 12Plus touches the lives of many of the young people in their program, its long-lasting impact and how much they appreciated our funding. Next we heard from Brianna Banks of Kensington Soccer Club, a success story in her own right. After playing soccer as a child with Kensington Soccer, she not only went on to play soccer professionally in Peru but she was also inspired to earn a masters in Social Work so that she can give back. Brianna is truly an example of how a small nonprofit in Philadelphia, which we have funded, can change the trajectory of a child's life.

Phyllis Bookspan, Giving Circle co-chair, then introduced Carol Williams, the Grants Committee chair, who gave us a preview of the 2023-2024 grants cycle and spoke to the personal rewards of being on the Grants Committee, including the valuable and educational site visits. If you have questions or interest in joining the Grants Committee, please reach out to Carol (her email is below). Phyllis closed the meeting with a heartfelt “thank you” to all who make our Giving Circle a community of which we can all be proud. And, of course, she reminded attendees that if they have not yet made their 2023 donation, the deadline to do so is year end. 

Inspirational! That was the feedback from our attendees as they headed home.

The conference was called PowerUp!Baltimore 2023 and over 300 people (mostly women) were in attendance. The conference offered inspirational speakers, breakout sessions and lots of opportunities to network. The break-out sessions fell into four categories i.e. Collective Power + Leadership, Communications + Technology, Governance + Finance and Membership + Grantmaking. And there were other sessions as well called Affinity Group Sessions on such topics as diversity, educational programming and trust-based philanthropy, all led by fellow giving circle members including one by our own. . . Carol Cunningham. As a group, we tried to split up so that we could glean as much information from others as possible. We networked, listened and feverishly took notes.

We came away with lots of thoughts and ideas spinning around in our heads. As a group we gathered again a few weeks later to try to consolidate our notes into some sort of summary to take back to our Executive Council. We will be talking more about some ideas worthy of putting into practice as we move into 2024 so . . . stay tuned. In the meantime, if you wish to read more about Philanos, click here.