I received a piece of direct mail advertising today that really missed the Olympic point.

Established to celebrate all that is good in humanity, and to find ways to unite people, nations and cultures through the power of sport, the Olympic movement is arguably one of the great achievements of international cooperation.

So I was intrigued to see a black envelope in the mail today with a large Hockey Canada logo emblazoned on the front. Unfortunately, its contents seem to contradict all the openness and the spirit of community of the Olympic ideals.

Presented by the Vancouver Board of Trade (of which I’ve been a member up until this year) and Concord Place, the brochure invites me to “enjoy an exclusive, limited-time offer” to “enjoy the 2010 Winter Olympics… in the middle of the action…. For the entire 17 days of the Olympics [I can] have [my] own reserved seating area for 8 guests. Complimentary gourmet food and beverages will be available while [I] take in all the action on screen and on the stage” in the Molson Canadian Hockey House.

And this can be mine—and I assume yours, too—in exchange for nothing more than $68,000! (Plus “applicable taxes and fees,” of course!)

It’s hard to know where to begin….

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Times for donors are tough. You want to give, but your personal pot of generosity feels smaller than it did a year or two ago. Like most people, you’re now hesitating a second longer before pulling out your credit card. The kitchen renovation can wait a year. Last season’s summer clothes just need a belt, not a bin.

You want to support your favourite causes, but how can you? The money you could afford to give is gone. Sometimes, money does feel like everything.

If you’re feeling the need to cut back on your planned giving, don’t worry: Your relationship with your charity can deepen during tough times, making your contributions and commitment even more valuable to the cause in the long run.

Firstly, call your charity and be honest. Let them know you need a giving holiday. Most donors are feeling the pinch, but knowing will help your charity to budget more realistically. Take your time. Let them know if you need six months or two years. And call them back if you need more. They’ll appreciate the information, and can use this foresight to ensure their projects remain as unaffected as possible.  And you can breathe a sigh of relief that your lack of funds won’t come as a horrible surprise potentially undoing the good you’ve been investing in all these years.

And though your financial contribution may be on pause, there are still ways to give to charity that still give you returns on that warm and fuzzy feeling! Here are a few examples…. Read the rest of this entry »

Taisiya had led a fortunate and sheltered life. Her self-made father doted on her at their estate home, and was proud to send her to Moscow to study. But Taisiya’s heart was to be broken by twin tragedies.

First, she lost her husband in a hunting accident, which left her to raise their five children with only the help of her sister. Second, by the time Alex was twelve, the Soviet state had seized her family’s land, turning it into a collective farm.

Together with her children, and especially bright young Alex, Taisiya knew that learning would bring freedom from destitution. For Alex, this conviction led to a strong academic career in mathematics, philosophy and literature. But his childhood had also stoked in Alex a rebellious fire of independence.

In 1945, Alex penned a letter to his friend, critical of “the whiskered one.” He was accused of anti-Sovietism for speaking ill of Joseph Stalin, and sentenced to an eight-year term of forced labour in the camps of northern Siberia.

It was here, though, that the strength of Alex’s character began to shine. His autobiographical tale of his time in the camps became one of the most celebrated and revered works in all of the 20th century—even endorsed by Nikita Kruschev.

It would be the first of many politically charged works for Alex. His life continued to be filled with turbulence, expulsions and illness. But the Nobel-winning voice of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was the clarion conscience both of east and west until it went quiet forever on August 3, 2008.

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“Some countries are blessed with beautiful scenery and history. But not with other important resources. Poverty is the norm, and children are impacted the most. In these countries, education is often a dream. But not something to expect, or even to hope for.”

In 1998, these observations led John to find a way to help.

John believed that the key to ending the cycle of poverty, and to giving control over their lives to the world’s most disadvantaged, was education.

John was a man of insight, whose career to that point had been one that provided a unique perspective on how to address a challenge of such significant scale.

Instead of teaching individual children to read and write, John decided to partner with communities, helping them to teach many.

Instead of perpetuating cultural biases, he decided to promote young girls’ education, providing them with long-term scholarships.

And instead of choosing to change a life, John Wood decided to change the world.

Today, some eight years after he founded Room to Read, John’s organization has built more than 140 schools; established more than 2,230 new libraries; donated more than 1.2 million local language and English children’s books; and impacted the lives of more than 755,000 children.

And this month, Room to Read is featured as a repeat winner of Fast Company Magazine’s Social Capitalist Awards.

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