What is Generosity?
posted by Heather Brugh 9/3/09
"What we keep we lose; only what we give remains our own"
That was the motto of my school and during the thirteen years while I was there it evolved from a crazy oxymoron to something that made sense. It continues to evolve as my life moves on, and - for me- sums up the spirit of generosity. We do not gain, if we do not give. For me, it's that simple.
What does Generosity mean to you?
Our recent meeting focused on Generosity and the Spirit of Generosity.
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Such Great Heights/Generosity Team Meeting
August 25, 2009 Minutes
John Davis, Vestry Representative and co-leader of the Generosity team graciously hosted a meeting on August 25, 2009 at his home. In attendance were co-leaders Heather Brugh and Anne Rusbuldt, and committee members Hugh Antrim, Bryan Appel, Natalie Davis, Joe James, Michaelle Justice and Si Wofford. In addition, Rev. Wallace Adams-Riley and Rev. Kate Jenkins joined the meeting as well as Dabney Carr and Tammy Shackelford.
John opened the meeting with a review of the Agenda and a brief discussion of our committee's purpose: defining what Generosity at St. Paul's means and how to inspire the spirit of generosity amongst our parish and beyond.
Heather Brugh noted that there has been little in the way of blog/plog discussion up to this time, but there is a sense that these forms of communication will pick up as we move to fall and the Such Great Heights forums begin.
Youth members Natalie Davis and Si Wofford then delighted us with their "To Save A Village" fundraising project which has generated over $12,000. Upon their return from Mwitikira, Tanzania this summer, Natalie and Si were distraught about the dire situation facing the children they had met, taught, befriended and danced with during their visit. The rainy season brought very little rain and the village faces great famine during the upcoming dry season (this fall). Natalie and Si motivated the youth group to take on this anti-hunger campaign and through email trees, letters to various schools and individually targeted solicitations - as well as creative appeals to our parishioners - their efforts have been tremendously successful. The spirit of generosity is alive and well in the St. Paul's youth!
John then updated the attendees on the status of the canvass which is being chaired by David White, with Mary Eberline associate chair. John noted that pledge cards will be mailed out September 24th with an October 18th return date. A Feast to celebrate the conclusion of the canvass will be held on Sunday, November 15th.
The Generosity Forum will be held on Sunday, September 27th and will feature the Tom Payne (Office of Stewardship and Development, Diocese of Virginia) and Jim Doherty (author of "In Praise of Givers", a book profiling philanthropists from the Richmond area). After hearing from both of these gentlemen, the forum will proceed with small-group discussions about generosity and how we might best capture and promote the spirit of generosity. Committee members will spread out amongst the groups in order to facilitate conversation and gather notes. Our committee will hold an additional meeting or two in hopes of drawing more thoughts and suggestions as we work toward our final report - due in November.
A discussion of Generosity began and to the question of "what words do you think of when you think of generosity?" elicited a vast collection - which is listed below (in no particular order):
-Gratitude
-Responsibility
-Stewardship
-helping others without expecting anything in return
-selfless actions
-Sacrifice
-Thankfulness
-giving without thinking of the pros/cons
-expansiveness (thinking/acting beyond yourself; looking outward rather than inward)
-Relationships
-Trust
-Courage
-Abundance (as opposed to scarcity)
-giving until it hurts so good
-Awareness (of a need)
-Knowledge (to be educated to know how to be generous/what is needed)
- Liberation (out of your hands into better hands)
-passion for a cause
-creativity (making it personal)
-offering of time and talents
-generosity begets generosity
We discussed the fact that the canvass effort falls under the big umbrella of generosity, but that the Spirit of Generosity at St. Paul's is much more than the canvass and the annual plea for dollars to keep our ministry alive and well. In terms of the annual canvass, Bryan pointed out that many younger people are heavily in debt and do not habitually make budgets, so that traditional patterns of contributing money to the church will continue to change. Also, one of the themes in the discussion was an interest in measuring and quantifying Generosity at St Paul's in monetary and non-monetary terms, and in finding ways to encourage the pledging of gifts of time and talent in addition to money. We concluded that generosity needs to be an on-going discussion amongst our parish, not limited to or bounded by the confines of the annual canvass campaign. We believe there is an educational component to the success of our program. We must have in place tools of encouragement to help our parishioners aware of the time, talent and treasures they possess and then, we must have the means to follow through and realize such generous offerings.
After a closing prayer by Kate, our meeting was adjourned.
Feel free to offer your thoughts on the meeting below!
