Weaving magic - the symbol of hope

To all of you sitting on the edge of your seats just waiting to hear if I sold the property (see last post here) well the daffodils - the symbol of hope - certainly wove their magic - as I sold my property for more than expected - so I'm pretty happy!

Weaving their magic

As promised in my last post I have 'tithed' a % (I hasten to add not the normal tithe which is 10%) of the property sale to the Daffodil Day Cancer Appeal. Bizarrely all publicity stated that Daffodil Day was 22 August but when I went to 'tithe' it mentioned  28 August 2014. Weird. Still it is done and I feel all warm and fuzzy inside!

Whoo Hoo!

The Oxford Dictionary states that a tithe is a tax of one-tenth - or a tenth part. Talking of tithing I was horrified to read in The Age recently that 37% of Australians earning $1 million donate zero - repeat zero - per annum. Here is a summary:

Tax Office figures show about 24,000 Australians report taxable income of $500,000 to $1 million and another 8000 earn more than $1 million a year. Indeed, the most recent tax figures  show  of those earning more than $1 million a year, 37 per cent did not claim a single dollar of tax-deductible charitable giving.

It's an excellent article and I recommend that you take a few minutes to read it here

One of the great ideas that came out of the article was the new wave of Giving Circles. For those who don't have the odd 100,000 (!!) to donate then this is a great idea. The premise is simple. Get together a group of 100 or so people, who each contribute perhaps $1000 (or even $100 - its about the formula) to create a pool of $100,000. This is high-impact, high-involvement philanthropy that many could never do on their own. The Circle then donates the whole amount to one charity where $100,000 will make a big impact.

And then of course there are the Philanthropic Funds where even a minnow like me can set up a fund with the the likes of Australian Communities Foundation.  The Foundation offers individuals, families, groups, corporations and not-for-profit organisations an easy and satisfying way of giving something of real value back to the community that they care about. It assists donors in generating, managing and distributing philanthropic resources - wisely and efficiently. My own personal fund has been set up to distribute 'after I'm gone'. But in the meantime it gives me the opportunity to learn about Philanthropy and the benefits that can be gained to those less fortunate. 

If you haven't read the famed parable The Richest Man in Babylon written in 1926 by George S Clason it's a read I recommend (in fact I'm just off to re-read it now!) It can usually be picked up at a second hand book stall or these days even downloaded onto your Kindle or Kindle App!! It's a bit dated but the message doesn't really change.

It reminded me of my fathers philosophy  - and one that I sometimes forget:

I expect to pass this way but once 

Any good that I can do

Let me do it now

For I shall not pass this way again