As I put together this month’s e-newsletter, I couldn’t help but notice that engaged philanthropy seemed to be the theme that carried the day (er, month)…from the Leadership Awards to the recent Washington 100 visit to CASA de Maryland to the upcoming Philanthropy 101 sessions, to the book list we generated around informed giving to Siobhán’s reflections on the real work, research and tough calls behind effective giving, it seems that February has been all about giving with a capitol G. 

As a proud member of The Women’s Foundation’s board, I wanted to tell those of you who couldn’t make it last week to the site visit to CASA of Maryland what an inspirational morning it was.

Marjorie moderated a panel of Gustavo Torres, CASA’s dynamic Executive Director; Christy Swanson, CASA’s Director of Services; Herminia Servat, CASA Board Member and Iris Murillo, CASA volunteer and local business owner.

In order to weave philanthropy into the lives of women and girls in our region, and help low-income women gain financial and economic security, we use and encourage advocacy, leadership, collaboration, and, of course, hope.

Today I had the privilege of participating in a site visit with The Women’s Foundation’s Grantee Partner, CASA de Maryland.

As a follow on to our last post on recommendations for good philanthropy-related reading, we wanted to let you in on the final results from Tactical Philanthropy’s giving carnival on the topic, which features our post (yay!) along with some other great recommendations.

As Britton said, “Lisa, do you know that you just used the phrase ‘blogging buddy’ and ‘blogging carnival’ in one e-mail?  What is that?  You’re killing me over here.”

It seems that giving should be easy, and like love, limitless in possibility.  But it isn’t easy and limits, particularly where bank accounts are concerned, abound.  Caring about everything can quickly turn into not caring at all.  Sometimes NOT giving seems to be an answer, but it isn’t, as a request from a friend fundraising for a cause near and dear quickly proves.