Grandma’s Charity Challenge

Nkiru’s Letter

Granddaughter Nkiru is coming tomorrow to celebrate Mother’s Day with us. She’s driving from Syracuse University to New York tonight, and will stay with her brother Kenechi and his girlfriend Mary. They’ll come to Westport tomorrow morning.

Our daughter Beth with her husband Kelvin and 5-year old Ikem, are also coming in the morning. They were planning to come today, Saturday, but were too exhausted. Beth said Ikem was awake at 4 am this morning. She’s also been working madly on the FDA submission due soon for her company’s contraceptive patch.

So I can watch another two or three episodes of Grey’s Anatomy tonight!

Thank you to those of you who advised me to share the letter I wrote to my granddaughers with both of them. Tomorrow I’ll give Nkiru her letter. I’ll email Teya’s to her dad Sam.

Progress for World’s Poorest

A recent article from BeaconBroadside.com talked about a new culture of charity. In his new book published by Beacon Press, author Raj Kumar says that, “nontraditional models of philanthropy and aid are empowering the world’s poorest people to make progress.”

He says that with “a wave of billionaire philanthropy and the rise of tech disruption in the aid industry. . . ending extreme poverty by 2030, a United Nations Sustainable Development Goal, is increasingly possible.”

Kumar believes it’s time to rethink the large-scale multi-year funding from organizations like USAID and World Bank. Smaller tech-enabled projects that respond to the people in need are critical to ending poverty, he says. The approach requires listening to those whose lives can be impacted.

Aid providers need to engage their clients and treat them like customers, asking, “What do they need? How do they make decisions about their livelihood?”

Tech-Disrupter for Farmers

He cites several examples of successful “tech-disrupters.” I love this one from Nigeria, “Hello Tractor.”

This “ag-tech” company connects smallholder farmers with tractor owners.

With this app, farmers who could never afford to purchase a tractor can request the use of one.

Tractor owners benefit by earning extra income. The tractors are monitored by an installed device. Booking agents make the connections, aggregating demand and supplying the tractors.

Their website says, “Hello Tractor was founded under the belief that smallholder farmers are the key to ensuring global food security and alleviating entrenched poverty. We value everyone that makes agricultural mechanization work, from our farmers to our tractor owners to our booking agents to our team members and beyond.”

Today Hello Tractor is operating in four other countries in addition to Nigeria.

My Charity Challenge

Do you read Kwame Appiah’s column “The Ethicist” in The New York Times Magazine on Sundays?

In April he posted a letter from a great-grandmother who wanted his advice on how to teach her great-granddaughter to be charitable.

When I read his advice, I remembered how I encouraged our grandchildren to think about giving 8 years ago. I sent an email to Appiah and told him about it. I said, “I loved your April 14 piece on encouraging charitable giving for grand- or great-grandchildren. In 2011 I made a “Charity Challenge” gift to our grandchildren, Kenechi and Nkiru Garner, then 15 and 11. I wrote it as an official-looking letter and enclosed $25: 

Dear Kenechi and Nkiru,

The Christmas 2011 Charity Challenge takes place today, December 25, 2011, until 6 pm.

You are challenged to choose a charity from any of those in the folder [I provided the appeal letters from 3 charities], or those on the list here, to give your $25 dollars. You may split your gift or give all to one. Write two or three sentences about why you chose what you did and convince us that your choices are thought out.

If we are convinced, we will match your gifts one-to-one. You can pay your money to Grandma and she will use a credit card to make the gifts.

Love, Grandpa and Grandma

• • Million Moms, cervical cancer in developing world (check this one for your mom)
  • Heifer (be sure to check this one)
  • GirlUp
  • Ashoka
  • Racial Justice Colorlines

They each wrote thoughtful responses. Nkiru chose Heifer. I think she remembered seeing the goats in Nigeria. Kenechi chose Milllion Moms because he knew his mom, a gyn-oncologist, was helping mothers.

We made the gifts. I told Appiah about it. I added,

There was a funny wrinkle. At 6 pm, the “closing time,” we were still at the dining table. So I announced that the deadline was extended until 8 pm. My daughter, their mom, said, “Can you do that?” She thought it was part of a larger event, not realizing I had made it up!

I created a blog, Grandma’s Charity Challenge, and kept it going for a year. And I did a Charity Challenge for Kenechi and Nkiru in 2012.

Do you encourage your children or grandchildren to be charitable? How?