Generosity Flows Freely
Chapter 7 - Little Book of Big Reasons to Love America
This is chapter 7, a sneak peek of my book Little Book of Big Reasons to Love America. If you’d like to start from the beginning, click here and read Chapter 1.
I’m publishing this for friends to give me feedback and ask you to join the Promo Squad. Here’s what it is. To get more people to read this book when we launch, we ask our Promo Squad to do the following: Step 1 - Respond to this email with a Count Me In, and we’ll add you to a separate list. Step 2- When the book comes out, we’ll lower the price to the cost of a latte. Buy the book to be a verified buyer on Amazon. Step 3 - Post a review as a verified buyer. Amazon will promote the book when more positive reviews are seen.
To thank you, I’ll send you a signed copy of the book, and you can give the one you bought to a friend who would enjoy it.
Thanks for reading this. Type “Count Me In” in a response and we’ll add you to the list.
A Distinct Tradition
America has a distinct philanthropic tradition initially rooted in the protestant ethos of the first settlers that emphasized charity as a moral duty. Early colonial practices firmly established the concept of tithing and giving back to one's community. That culture was amplified by the harsh realities of frontier life, where neighbors had to work together to build houses and farms and defend against dangers.
Alexis de Tocqueville, a French historian, notes in his seminal book Democracy in America, published in 1835, that Americans had a propensity to form associations to address social issues. The Industrial Age saw the rise of tycoons like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, whose philanthropic foundations had a long-lasting impact on education, science, and health in America and worldwide. The belief that wealth should be used to improve society is a broadly accepted norm continued by the modern ultra-rich, such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. As the founders of The Giving Pledge, Gates and Buffet started a movement to give away a minimum of 50% of their wealth for the public good. As of the writing of this book, over 200 billionaires worldwide have joined the pledge. There are groups of donors whose yearly giving is comparable to a small country's Gross Domestic Product, many pledging to give 99% of their wealth away during their lifetime.
Unlike most other Western countries, where the state is the primary source of philanthropy, the United States has a tradition of blending government intervention and private charity. With over 1.5 million non-profits, tax incentives for charitable donations, and a strong volunteerism culture, America consistently ranks high among other wealthy nations in generosity. A shining example of state charity, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief ( or PEPFAR) was one of the most significant health initiatives ever undertaken by one country to address a single disease. It has been credited to saving over 20 million lives, with most of the funds spent outside of the US. America continues to be a world leader in generosity with innovative approaches like venture philanthropy and impact investing. This tradition impacted me personally, as I was thousands of miles away.
A Change of Heart
"Those who give to the poor will lack nothing…” Proverbs 28:27
The church community I was part of in my mid-twenties did a lot of work with orphans. I was surprised by the dramatic change of heart I experienced when I first visited an orphanage and spent extended time with the children. The visits became regular. We shared stories and laughed a lot. My wife Deb would teach the kids how to make American dishes. I once brought horses to the orphanage, and we gave them rides around the yard. Their stories were all different and heartbreaking. These children had lost their parents to addictions, neglect, disease, death, or crime. Their basic needs were being met, but their worlds had been shattered.
The organization I participated in created yearly events with hundreds of wonderful volunteers and thousands of orphans. During the day, they played sports games of all kinds. In the evening, we put on a gala show with top musical celebrities donating their time to perform. I still hear from some of those kids occasionally, thanking me for the joy and love they felt from us. One of my musical heroes, Michael Jackson, came to one of those events in a surreal moment, not just for the kids but for me. Michael left a few minutes before I took the stage. I was massively relieved not to feel the pressure of performing in front of someone who had much to do with me going into show business. In a not less surreal turn of events, Michael’s people asked us to find two or three older women to be extras for a number on Michael’s stadium show happening around the time of the visit. My mom ended up being on stage with Michael Jackson in front of 80,000 people. You can’t make this stuff up.
Being around those orphans changed me forever. Until then, although I had experienced hardship, tragedy, and poverty myself in the past, charity was not a central part of my life. I had spent years around some of the poorest people on earth in Mozambique but had not engaged in giving as an essential part of life. From that moment on, it has become that for me and my family.
After moving to the US, I accepted a dual role in an international charity as executive director of a national program funded by a large government grant and the director for Latin America. The years devoted exclusively to charity work were invaluable in understanding the non-profit world and the anatomy of poverty in general. I traveled to remote mountain communities in Guatemala, areas in Jamaica where tourists don't go, barrios in Honduras and Mexico City, and the favelas in Rio de Janeiro. I discovered that poverty has two key elements: the environment and people's worldview. The role of the environment starts with the economic landscape. It goes all the way down to the neighborhood, social circles, and family. The worldview goes in the other direction. A sense of personal identity, agency, and the ability to imagine a better life all the way up to having a role in the community.
The patterns of these elements are consistent worldwide, including poor areas in the US. Working with the youth in inner cities across America, I noticed that the cultural, family, and social environments were so dominant that they shaped a worldview with low self-esteem and hopelessness at its core. In an otherwise prosperous American economic landscape, the immediate environment in the inner cities we worked in seemed to define the worldview of the people who struggled to transcend it.
I later co-founded the Ascend Academy in Maputo, Mozambique, to provide environments for kids in poverty that would transform their worldview, which in turn would help them transcend poverty for generations to come. An alternative reality emerges for them every day for a few hours after school. Spending time with Christian mentors helps them develop relationships with volunteers who are middle-class professionals. They learn core values, build character, and envision what is possible. They also get clothes and a daily meal and are equipped with English and computer literacy classes. By being immersed in this environment, the children develop a sense of belonging and optimism and aspire to become teachers, doctors, and entrepreneurs. Before they step into a different future, they get to see it and believe in it.
What We Saw in Ukraine
Until the day of the Russian invasion, it seemed unfathomable to most of us. Glued to our screens, we watched footage of tanks entering the outskirts of Kyiv in a massive assault on the capital. We were also glued to our phones, tracking the movement of dozens of friends who were stuck in basements for days, holding on to their children as explosions shook the city. We heard gunfire in the background as they described the horrors happening right outside their windows. Never in their worst nightmares had they imagined hastily loading the car with a few belongings and terrified children as they saw war helicopters being shot down and falling in a ball of fire right in front of them.
Millions of cars clogged the roads heading away from danger. Stuck in endless traffic for days and weeks, people ran out of gas, food, and medicine for the sick. We sprang into action and were sending funds to Ukraine on day six of the invasion. Coordinators on the ground would use social apps to locate refugees, learn about immediate needs, and make micro-donations into e-wallets in real-time. Months before any international agency could establish stable humanitarian support, we established the Ukraine Relief Network, partnering with several groups in Ukraine and a network of supporters in the US.
My emotional connection to the war was obvious; I had lived in both Russia and Ukraine and loved both countries. My two oldest daughters were born in Moscow, and my youngest daughter was born in Kyiv. What both surprised and inspired me was the overwhelming outpouring of generosity in the US from people who had no immediate connection to the war. Middle-class American families sent us amounts that were clearly a sacrifice for them, churches took special collections to support our work, and private donors wrote big checks moved by the sheer brutality of the worst humanitarian crisis in Europe since World War II.
A year into the war, Deb and I went to Ukraine. After landing in Warsaw, we took a car to the border and crossed into Ukraine, taking another vehicle into Lviv. We visited our partners in a community center that provided food and logistical support for refugees. It was surreal to see priceless statues and ancient churches with bags of sand all around them to diminish the damage from the regular rocket attacks. The concierge at our hotel elegantly pointed, matter-of-factly, the way to their in-house bomb shelter. People were so used to the daily air raid sirens that most just went about their business when they went off several times a day. We shared meals with families who had escaped from occupied cities and described cruelty towards civilians I will not repeat here. I spoke to a woman who was pulled out of the rubble of the apartment building that had collapsed entirely, trapping dozens in the basement. We cried several times a day every single day we were in Ukraine.
After Lviv, we took a train to Kyiv. I spoke at a local church and toured the projects we were helping support. A rehab center for wounded soldiers, a shelter for refugee families with children, and an art therapy facility for children traumatized by the war. Everywhere we went, we saw a combination of profound sadness and fierce determination. We drove by uncleared minefields and saw dozens of burned tanks and massive piles of destroyed civilian cars on which artists had painted flowers and peace signs. We visited villages on the outskirts of Kyiv where people who had close to nothing were left with just the burnt shells of their humble homes. As we entered the now infamous suburbs of Bucha and Irpin, the sheer scale of the destruction and eyewitness stories of indiscriminate killings, mass graves, and torture were overwhelming.
On our last day in Kyiv, we decided to take a few hours to enjoy a city we loved. The beautiful Independence Square was transformed by wartime. The central lawn was covered with thousands of Ukrainian flags representing lives lost. Thick notebooks on stands were there for anyone to write down the names and a few words about loved ones who died. We had just found out that someone we knew, who was drafted several months earlier, had been killed on the frontlines. We wrote his name into the book. Anatoly Tchaikovsky.
Soaking the views of the Dnipro River before boarding our train to the border with Hungary, we said a prayer standing on the famous glass bridge overlooking the city. A few days later, a Russian rocket hit that exact spot. A chilling reminder that it could have been us.
Mark Twain: "Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'"
Maya Angelou: "I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver."
Robert F. Kennedy: "Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope."
John D. Rockefeller: "I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty."
Bill Gates: "Is the rich world aware of how four billion of the six billion live? If we were aware, we would want to help out, we'd want to get involved."
LeBron James: "For me, giving back is about uplifting others, sharing your success and opening doors for the next generation of leaders."
Brad Pitt: "I give because it’s selfish for me not to; it helps me as much as anyone I might be helping through my charity work."
Angelina Jolie: "We have a responsibility to improve the world for others, and we can all start with the community we live in."
Meryl Streep: "Empathy is the engine that powers all the best in us. It is what civilizes us. It is what connects us."