It seems that at the end of the year, every year, budget issues start to come up more and more. Families discuss their finances: How much should we spend on holiday gifts? Should we buy the plane tickets to visit grandma? What about making charitable donations before December 31 - and getting a tax deduction? While these discussions are going on across the kitchen table, corporations are undertaking the same exercise across conference room tables and asking the same kind of questions: where are we against our plan for this year and how much budget will we have next year? It seems that it’s the time of year when everyone tries to juggle all of the competing financial needs without dropping a ball that has to be caught.
As a foundation, we’re doing the same thing. Our budget gets divided up a lot like everyone else’s: 1) the gotta dos, 2) the wanna dos and 3) the wish we could, but can’t dos. We have multi-year commitments to fulfill and core partnerships that we know we will fund; these are the “gotta does,” much like a family has mortgage payments and utilities. Of course, we make grants throughout the year as nonprofits request support, and we set a budget for how much we will distribute in each of the different areas we support. It’s akin to treating each grant program we have like a child with an allowance to spend. They can use it for whatever they want - that is, what ever they “wanna do”, but as I tell my real kids, “When it’s gone, it’s gone.”
And finally, there are the multitude of very worthwhile causes, organizations and people we would like to be able to support, but we just can’t. This may be because a nonprofit is working in an area that is outside our focus on healthy, affordable homes and sustainable communities. It may be because a request is related to our focus area, but we don’t think it will produce enough impact or it is too expensive for the outcomes the nonprofit is anticipating. Our deciding not to fund a request may also be for a reason entirely unrelated to the nonprofit and the request - maybe we’ve already made a number of investments in that city or the timing doesn’t work.
At the end of each year, in fact throughout each day, we are all making choices, and that’s all the more true when it comes to money. And as we think about charitable giving, the requests seem to grow as we near the end of the year - it is, after all, the season of giving. So in thinking about what we’ve done this year, what we’ll be able to do during the remainder of it and what we’ll plan to do in 2010, I hope that we’ve made sound decisions. We know that there are more organizations, more causes and more people who need - who deserve - grants than we would ever be able to support. We can always wish for additional money, but knowing that our budget is unlikely to increase in the near term, I hope that we’ve made the most of the funds we do have, that we’re correct in defining what we must do and chose well when we decide what we are able to do.
Today, though, I want to present some different information about trees - some economic information. We don’t often think or talk about it, but there are quantifiable, financial benefits of having trees in our cities, in our parks and in our yards. These financial benefits are part of the reason the Foundation has committed to fund the planting and restoration of 3 million urban trees over ten years.
We’ve adopted a 20-acre park near downtown Atlanta for the year, and this was the third of four workdays we’ll have there. The neighborhood has been trying to transform this piece of wild woodlands into an accessible natural area for about 5 years, but was making slow progress. With 75 people working for four 6 hour projects, you can accomplish a huge amount of work.
I was a little cynical about creating a day of service around 9/11, but given the conversations this morning as we gathered at the park, it is clearly an appropriate way to commemorate the day. Each of us shared the story of where we were when the planes hit the towers - stories we would never forget. I recalled that I was in the hospital after having our second child the day before, and I”m always a bit sad that his birthday is linked in my mind to what happened during the first days of his life.
Given what was on everyone’s minds, thinking about it now, I believe it was a gift to be able to come together as a team and to work collectively to create something constructive for our neighbors to share. In a few hours, we saw the landscape transformed with trails, bridges and a new meadow where kids can run.
The day started with a slightly somber tone, but as we left, a little wet and muddy from occasional rain with sore hands and backs, our moods had lifted. I left with a changed point of view about the best way to spend a day associated with grief, and I hope that from now on, when asked about my son’s birthday, I’ll remember what happened the day after his 8th birthday as well as what happened on that day in 2001.
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