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Generosity Is Part Of Being American

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By MICHAEL J. AUDINO, Special to the Tribune

Published: October 10, 2007

The generosity of Pasco County businesses and residents as outlined in your editorial Monday ('Residents, Businesses Take County Under Wing') should come as no surprise. Why? Because we are residents of the most generous nation in the world.

Data from Giving USA reveals:

•Americans donate approximately 2 percent of the value of our gross domestic product; Great Britain is next at approximately 0.7 percent.

•Americans donated $295 billion in 2006, and 76.5 percent of this total came from individuals.

•Eighty-nine percent of Americans - regardless of race, color or creed - contribute to others.

And here is a 'good news-bad news' item: More people donate than vote.

Our nation's - and county's - generosity is part of our unique American heritage. In 1630, John Winthrop, the governor of the Massachusetts colony, shared these words with his fellow residents of the New World: 'We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities for the supply of other's necessities.'

Winthrop called for generosity as a way to build our new land. He called for sharing as a way of life. He reinforced the notion of 'love your neighbor as yourself.' And he established generosity as one of the foundations of our Western heritage.

Further evidence of our nation's 'foundation of generosity' is contained in these words from our Declaration of Independence: 'And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.'

Our Founding Fathers called each of us, as Americans, to help assure our mutual well-being.

As Americans, we are obligated to be generous and personally engage for the advancement of our fellow citizens.

As residents of Pasco County, we are equally obligated to 'partner with our government' in order to 'make the county a better place to live and work.'

Throughout multiple generations, our nation's generosity legacy has helped advance three primary forms of capital: physical, human and intellectual. Imagine our communities without buildings funded by donors - the hospitals, museums, libraries, theaters. Imagine our lives - your life - if all the people who were educated by privately donated scholarships had been deprived of that education. What if all the inventions funded by private gifts (i.e. polio vaccine and radar) disappeared?

Philanthropy is part of our unique American heritage. If we see a problem, we don't have to wait for the government or a for-profit business for solutions. We take care of business ourselves - 'we seek to satisfy the necessities of others.'

As Americans, each of us is obligated to share our God-given gifts (time, talent and treasure) to help advance the physical, human and intellectual capital of our wonderful country. As residents of Pasco County, we are obligated to do the same.

Novelist and theologian Frederick Buechner said 'the place God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.' We each should ask ourselves: What is Pasco County hungering for right now, and how can my unique gifts (time, talent and treasure) satisfy that hunger?

The person or group that routinely neglects his or her fellow citizens in the pursuit of individual happiness violates our democracy's social contract. Therefore, let us each 'abridge ourselves of our superfluities to satisfy the necessities of others.'

Michael J. Audino is principal of Charitable Giving Resource Center, 25720 Frith St. in Land O' Lakes.

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