Giving Where We Were Led

After buying our first home a couple of weeks ago, my wife Jackie and I were so excited to get to make a fairly sizeable donation to a local charity because of the awesome Give Realty model (they donate 25% of their commission to a charity of their clients' choice). We had a charity picked out (not my own), and then ... Caritas of Austin happened. Here's how.

Back in September I heard from several experts at an awesome Leadership Austin Engage breakfast on homelessness, the main takeaway being that Austin already has best practices in place - as a community, we just need scale. Or in Caritas e.d. Jo Kathryn's words that morning, we need money! The one thing our little family didn't have much of to give. Except, wait - due to the Give Realty model, we actually did! Hmmm.

I talked at length afterward with my awesome real estate agent and friend Amity Courtois, who had been helping a family experiencing homelessness as much as she could but just couldn't quite find any permanent solution. She was frustrated, and determined to help whether it was efficient or not. She was living with this family on her mind constantly for weeks.

The very next night, by happenstance Jackie and I found ourselves at the Caritas Words of Hope dinner to help congratulate our RecognizeGood board chair Bobby Jenkins and his wife on their Harvey Penick Award - after our founders were tied up, the seats fell to me and Jackie. We were so moved by the speaker, John, an incredibly inspiring man who found his way back out of homelessness and onto his feet through Caritas. He talked breathlessly and passionately about the way it felt to use his key to unlock his own apartment, and how months after being off the street he never once took that feeling for granted. He thanked his case worker Phil from Caritas at least half a dozen times - Phil, he said, was the one who got him to where he was. I got two minutes to say thanks to Phil in the lobby - as cool as it was to see Robert Earl Keen up close and meet a few amazing changemakers that night, talking to Phil was the highlight. He said John was never NOT going to make it, and all he needed was the pathway. That stuck with me.

The following weekend, we were packing up for the move and I took a load of donations to the new Goodwill store on Anderson Lane. The Goodwill staff member that came out to help me unload was HIM - it was John! His distinctive voice gave him away almost before I saw him. I asked him if he was the same guy who stood in front of 800 people and shared his story the week before (he was), and likely failed at trying to avoid making him feel uncomfortable as I gushed about how much his story touched me and how grateful I was that he had the courage to share it on that stage. John was very cool about it, but I was so worked up I actually drove off without unloading everything and had to go BACK with the last handful of donation items plus one more "Thank you again!"

Today, through Give Realty, we donated $2,737.50 to Caritas of Austin - by far the most money we've ever been part of giving at one time. We are so grateful to our amazing agent and friend Amity Courtois for not only guiding us through the process of homebuying but also being part of a business model that allowed us to actually 'move the needle' more than we'd ever have been able to do otherwise. Despite homelessness being such a hot-button issue in Austin, we never expected to make this gift to Caritas. Being associated personally with probably hundreds of Austin-area nonprofits myself at this point, I never expected to make this gift to an organization I have zero ties to. But with the series of indicators God, or the universe, or chance put into our path we felt very led to give to Caritas and even if we're never able to give at this level again (with or without an underwriter like Give Realty) we'll look back and be proud we did.