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Do Your Giving While You Are Living: Inspirational Lessons on What You Can Do Today to Make a Difference Tomorrow

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We live in the most challenging time in history. This is also the greatest opportunity in modern times. In our universal suffering we are all now related. As we look towards the future we can create a world of compassion and generosity. Edie and Robin have shown us the way. Do Your Giving While Your Living is a blueprint for giving. This astounding book is a guide for finding the solutions to the many local and global issues we face.

Each chapter of Do Your Giving While Your Living provides an example of an organization or individual who is making a difference. I am honored and humbled to be featured in this book as the founder of Dreams for Kids. While reading of so many who have done so much, I am filled with hope.

Please, commit to reading one chapter per week of this timely and important book. Apply the suggestions at the end of the chapter. Join this movement of giving - and together we will change the world!

Want to read inspirational stories on how to live a life that matters?

Buy a copy of this book for you, your friends and employees. One way to counteract troubled times is to focus on all that's right with the world -- and one way to do that is to read about these individuals and organizations who are committed to serving those less fortunate.

As author Maurice Sendak says, "There must be more to life than having everything." The dozens of contributors to this book -- including top executives from AARP, Make-A-Wish Foundation, American Red Cross and Dreams for Kids -- prove that.

You'll be moved to tears -- and moved to action -- after reading about these extraordinary people who are, as contributor Casey Golden says, "making a difference, one small act at a time."

Most importantly, you'll be motivated to figure out how YOU can give while you live so that everyone benefits, including you.

Perhaps Mother Teresa said it best: "We cannot do great things. We can only do ordinary things with great love." Edie Fraser and Robyn Spizman have produced a vivid testimony of people and organizations who are devoted to loving service through "ordinary" acts. Yet the ordinary becomes much more in these pages. In Spizman's words: "When we inspire goodness we create greatness." Anyone who picks up this book will never again say: "What can I do?" Every community is brimming with challenges, and as Frances Hesselbein has observed: much as the clergy, we are all called.

Perfect book for this season of giving: Do Your Living While You Are Living" will motivate your inner humanitarian through the personal, first-person accounts of sixty-six philanthropists. Short essays chronicle stories of selfless giving experienced by people ranging from Maxine Clark, CEO of Build-A-Bear Workshop to President of United Way of America Brian Gallagher to Joi Gordon, CEO of Dress for Success Worldwide.

The convenient, user-friendly format of the book allows you to take a minute to read a single account or peruse essays from several chapters in a longer sitting. Each section concludes with a handy "Make a Difference Today" suggestion that provides ideas for ways you can start influencing the world for the better right away.

Website addresses for all companies and organizations are included, providing a one-stop research tool for those looking for avenues through which to apply their desire to do good works.

Do Your Giving While You Are Living is a handy guide that will be of use to the experienced philanthropist and new volunteers and donors alike. You won't be disappointed!

Can each of us make a difference? The answer is "yes," according to authors Edie Fraser and Robyn Spizman in DO YOUR GIVING WHILE YOU ARE LIVING (see also Sections 10 and 11).

Money, of course, helps . . . yet one of the book's many quotes pointed out, there's more you can do because:

* Volunteers are not paid--not because they are worthless, but because they are priceless.----Unknown

The authors, to quote the subhead, [present many] INSPIRATIONAL LESSONS ON WHAT YOU CAN DO TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE TOMORROW . . . these were attained from a wide range of companies

and non-profit organizations, and they all motivated me to want to do more to help others.

This can even be done by just speaking up:

* Someone somewhere once said that when you contribute to a conversation, that simple act of sharing a view or speaking up permanently changes the conversation. This is a very powerful notion: that what we say--or, in the case of taking action, what we do--can change the world around us. We can inspire, motivate, encourage, and we can make someone's day, just by choosing to give or to act.

It can also be done by just applying your brainpower:

* Think about ways you could give to a nonprofit organization by filing or even answering the telephone. Whether you are a pro on the computer and can volunteer your skills organizing an online database or by designing or improving an organization's website, your skills will be a welcome contribution. People power, putting our talents to work for others, is one of the best ways to give.

I got a special kick out of DO YOUR GIVING because it featured both Big Brothers, Big Sisters of America and SCORE, groups that mean a lot to, respectively, Cynthia (my wife) and me.

The stories of contained in this collection illustrate that giving is more that writing a check. Do your Giving While you are Living provides a framework for learning about the ways in which people can make a difference in so many ways. The organizations represented in this volume share stories of how individual dreams can be realized to ensure a better life for thousands of people - whether it is through education, or women's rights, or human rights - there is a lesson in this book for anyone who wants to serve, and to give in this time of change and hope.
The book can also be used in as a model for classroom service projects as each of the cases inspires and suggests ways to make lives better and our nation stronger.

So many people have a desire to give back and don't know how. This book is an insight into people who follow their passions. In a world that seems upside down, the authors have created an interesting composite of individuals and organziations who understand what really matters in life. This book is for any school, business, or industry that desires to create a caring community.

An inspirational call to action in these economically stressful times. A practical guide to how each of can make a difference now. Straight-forward, useful and uplifting, and written with human values at the core. A book for everyday life as well as global engagement.

Hearing first hand from people who love enough to give so much gives us all so much hope for the future. Edie and Robyn have captured lessons that make us all think about how we can make a difference.

Beautifully written and sincere. This book provides real stories from successful people from all walks of life (great mix of the famous and not so famous). It reinforces the wonder and personal satisfaction that can be attained when contributing and getting involved in something bigger than yourself. The title is apt and the content is relevant today and everyday. Highly recommended as the ideal gift.