Why I give

Today's confession - I'm not a Colorado Native.  I was born in eastern PA and was moved here by my parents 33 years ago.  My mom and dad were non-traditional undergraduates both of whom dropped out of their first schools and got their (advanced) educations/certifications later in life.  My dad was 23 when I was born and my mom was 22 and my brother was born a year before - so they were young and raising children at the period of their life where I, 24 years later, would be starting a career in software.  Today, as my first two sons reach the ages of 7 and 5, I'm reminded why I give and why I give to the organizations I choose to support.  

"Giving" takes many shapes.  Time.  Money.  Support.  Some of us don't have the time to give so we give money.  Some of us don't have the money to give so we give time.  Some of us are better suited to listen and help by lending an ear that doesn't judge.  

About 15 years ago, I was volunteering my time on I Volunteer Day cleaning up the creek I grew up enjoying.  There were a lot of things that I cleaned out of the creek at that time but two stand out.  The first was a sleeping bag that was partially submerged in the creek - a sign of someone in need who chose to temporarily make their home in the creek.  I found irony in that I was helping to clean out the creek and make a better home for many species and not helping by removing part of someone's "home".  But I stuffed the bag into my trashbag and moved on.  Further upstream I found a plastic baggie fully encapsulating some dog 'waste'.  More irony - someone had chosen to pick up after their pet but since they forgot to pick up after themselves, this waste would live on until someone else removed it.  Years later, my oldest son and I did our first creek cleanup with the Fly shop I frequent at the old Cornucopia property.  At 5, he was one of the youngest volunteers.  He did it again the next year at 6 and so did his younger brother (at 4).  These boys learn by example and by doing.  If everyone choosing to use the creek (and the adjacent road up the canyon) chose to clean up after themselves and not create waste, the creek cleanup would be a much shorter event.  I fly fish this creek often and sometimes pack out one or two things, a bottle here a can there.  Much of the waste is from people recreating at Eben G Fine park and from homeless camps downstream from there to 28th street.  Cleaning up this creek is a community event but the City has a responsibility to do more about the root cause (a conversation for another day).  In this case, I and my children volunteer our time.

I serve on the board for the Lefthand Watershed Oversight Group (LWOG).  In September '13, the city was hit with an historic multi-day rain event that resulted in catastrophic flooding of the local streams.  My children were very young and the flooding seeped through the basement floor hours after I returned from a business trip.  Our household was permanently impacted by the results of the flood.  We replaced < 5 year old carpet with water-resistant flooring but spent the whole night bailing water from the basement as we didn't have a sump pump.  The neighborhood helped each other out during the post-flood recovery and the community was strong.  We were supporting each other and also giving our time.  Years later, the now executive director of LWOG (Jessie Olson) was presenting to the Boulder Flycasters chapter of Trout Unlimited on their activities in watershed restoration.  Having biked up the canyon for a few years and having witnessed the devastation firsthand, I was intrigued by what I was hearing.  I also knew there wasn't much fishing access up and down the stream and that I had personal experiences with the creek from my teenage years.  Jessie presented on how their activities would positively impact aquatic habitat but also the mining legacy of the watershed and how that impacted water quality.  My interest was in one of the programs called Monitoring and Measurement and specifically around benchmarking and baselining the datasets behind Water Quality (another later and longer conversation) and this interest was the primary reason for my joining the board.

I've been giving money to charitable institutions for a while.  My first might have been in 2000 for the MS Walk where I raised money through work networks but also gave.  Every year, someone was fundraising for one of these events and I gave but I never set a budget or even a target for how much I'd give in advance of the year.  Over the years, two things have happened that impact my gifts of money.  First, because of my exposure to Salesforce.com and their commitment to 1% of giving back I've now begun to set directional targets for how much I should give yearly; and two, I've begun to prioritize ecology and conservation-based organizations (LWOG, TU, Cornell Lab of Ornithology) over social-assistance programs.  This is mainly because they align with my interests in sharing the natural world and the understanding of the same with my children.  I love talking about birds with my boys and supporting resilient restoration activities on a stream very close to my home ensures better habitat for those birds in the future.  If you're interested in giving on Colorado Gives day, consider giving to LWOG - their approach to facilitating stream restoration guided by sound watershed science is a beacon to others.  
-gt


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