{"id":912,"date":"2010-02-09T16:00:53","date_gmt":"2010-02-09T16:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/2010\/02\/being-a-creative-joyful-minor-benefactor.html"},"modified":"2010-02-09T16:00:53","modified_gmt":"2010-02-09T16:00:53","slug":"being-a-creative-joyful-minor-benefactor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2010\/02\/being-a-creative-joyful-minor-benefactor.html","title":{"rendered":"Being a Creative, Joyful ‘Minor Benefactor’"},"content":{"rendered":"

When author Courtney Martin got a six-figure book advance, she decided to share the wealth. In addition to donating to established non-profits, she started giving $100 chunks to friends and asking them to donate it however they wanted. So cool! This is all in an article in today’s New York Times<\/a> on Martin’s resulting “Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

This year her benefactees did things like…. <\/p>\n

“Turned the writing of New York City children in a literacy nonprofit into books.” <\/p>\n

“Distributed 10,000 pennies to friends throughout the country to drop so there would be more lucky pennies for people to find.” <\/p>\n

“Slipped $100 into a thank-you card and asked a friend to give it to the clerk at her local Duane Reade who makes her feel like a million bucks whenever she buys toothpaste.” <\/p>\n

“Gave $100 to the most frequent commenter on her Web site, who turned out to be a former correction officer aspiring to write.”<\/p>\n

“Donated $60 to the Red Cross for Haitian earthquake relief, and $40 to a man on the subway who gives sandwiches to the homeless.” <\/p>\n

“Fixed an old bicycle he found on the street to give to someone whose bike was stolen.”<\/p>\n

Here’s one recipient who begged people on NYC subways to take money from him. <\/p>\n

<\/embed> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Martin told the Times she doesn’t think these small gestures will change the world (though I beg to differ–the butterfly effect and all that), but says “a visceral engagement with joy and spontaneity, and injecting more of that into our lives” is really important. Amen, sister.<\/p>\n

How would you joyfully and creatively give away $100?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like what you see? <\/strong>Click here to subscribe<\/strong><\/font><\/a> and get Fresh Living in your in-box every day!<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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She was a founding editor at Breathe magazine, and her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Women's Health, Natural Health, Yoga Journal, Lime.com, Vegetarian Times, and ABCNEWS.com. A native New Yorker, Valerie holds an M.S. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a B.A. from Beloit College in Creative Writing with a minor in Women's Studies. She also lived in Maui for a while where she drank green papaya juice and taught some creative writing. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/author\/vreiss"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}