Need a short, sweet video to remind you what we're all doing here? May I humbly recommend this one?
Boom. And just like that, a thousand more kids were added this week to The Power of Half Schools Initiative. Here's the story of how ...
Sometimes it's awfully hard to see that we're making a difference -- or that the world is changing at all. Is poverty getting better? Is ...
The Legacy Project interviews the elderly for their advice on living, carved from decades of experience.
This post boils down the counsel in a ...
Last week, I wrote this post about the burial at Bear Creek Middle School, chronicling the cathartic event that begins our process of ...
Please, Lord, never let me grow callous or hardened about what I saw this week in our schools initiative.
You see, this was Burial Week in ...
There are so many misconceptions about poverty. That came to light several times in the past week and pushed me to write this post.
-- Our ...
I'm almost giddy. We launched the second year of our Power of Half Schools initiative today, at Bear Creek Middle School in Fairburn, south ...
Hannah and I will be leading a workshop for The Seattle Foundation on Thursday focusing on family giving. Afterward, we'll be joining ...
The famine in Africa is in the news again, with severe conditions ravaging so much of the Eastern part of the continent. The pain ...
Amid all the Sept 11 coverage this weekend, CNN squeezed in a wonderful piece about the work that our family is doing in the schools ...
It was wonderfully exciting to see this news release announcing that The Power of Half has been selected as the citywide community read ...
Been a while since we've blogged here on the site. It's been a busy spring and summer and we've shipped Hannah off to New ...
Only 26 percent of Americans volunteered last year, according to a new survey by the Corporation for National & Community Service. Just one in ...
Brava to writer Anna Quindlen, who delivered the graduation ...
I love the Nobel Prize winner's speech at Rutgers ...
Just had to share an email we got today. Talk about making the journey all the more worthwhile. Thank you Ellen for your ...
Hannah received a wonderful honor today, being named Emerging Philanthropist of the Year by the Georgia Center for Nonprofits. It was so flattering for ...
I went to a Bar Mitzvah this past weekend and not 45 minutes into the service had one of the "jolt" moments that made my ...
The Giving Pledge team was kind to include me in today's press release about the new group of givers. How flattering.
Yesterday, I wrote about the reactions of 8th grade students at Bear Creek Middle School to the Power of Half programming. At ...
Sorry to be out of touch here on the blog, but life got a bit busy. I have to learn to write quick and ...
News flash: Just learned that Hannah has been named Emerging Philanthropist of the Year by the Georgia Center for Nonprofits. She was nominated ...
Some moments at Bear Creek Middle School can be crushing to an optimist like me. The stream of kids neglected (or abused) by "parents" ...
Last week, I told you about the pain that students at Bear Creek Middle School and Oakley Elementary revealed. Their writing, sometimes ...
We had an amazing week at Bear Creek Middle School and Oakley Elementary this week as we moved forward with Power of Half programming.
Last week, ...
We make no secret that our family is more affluent than most. But since we embarked on our Power of Half program, we've realized ...
Yesterday was one of the most exciting days our family has had since we launched our project in Fall 2006. The big news: Programming ...
Love Hannah's piece for the Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition about defining moments and what she's learned along the way. The pub goes to ...
My dear friend Della is a pioneer woman of sorts; she has taught me to craft a sock puppet, raise chickens, make mozzarella cheese, and ...
Earlier this week, before we headed for Seattle, I posed a question to Joan: "What should we talk about with Bill and Melinda?"
Her ...
What fills my days with a bit of happy? Speaking about giving -- and listening to others circle back around to tell their ...
The Huffington Post asked me to write a little piece about how love played into our family project. So, here it is. ...
Peter Buffett came to school this week, the morning after his performance of conversation and music at the Atlanta Girls' School Day of Learning. ...
So often, we forget why we're here. Sometimes it takes a great human to show us.
Please enjoy this video. It's the ...
I spent the first few days of this week in New York at the Family Philanthropy Conference in New York, a collection of remarkable talks ...
"We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but ...
Loved this piece from late December about a guy who did the simplest philanthropy you can imagine -- cut a single, simple thing ...
Our friends at The Giving Back Fund just released their annual tally of which celebrities gave the most. Not surprisingly, Oprah topped the list. ...
I can't be more simple about this: You have gifts the world needs. It could be the money you earn baking cookies and ...
Do you want a free, signed, personalized bookplate for "The Power of Half" ...
Just after I wrote the post earlier today on how we can all envision our giving differently (you can read "I could never ...
Certain responses are conditioned into people, including what might be my least favorite knee-jerk reaction: "I could never do that."
In the past nine months, as ...
Sometimes book tour travels can wear you out. And sometimes they can be amazingly invigorating.
The latter happened today in Austin, Texas, as ...
So excited about Hannah's night tonight: She's at Carnegie Hall, being named as one of Glamour Magazine's 20 Amazing Young Women of the Year.
Since our book was published in February, we've gotten lots of mail. We've been overwhelmed by the writers' eagerness to share their stories -- all ...
World poverty is serious business. So, I love when great comedians can take us into the absurd with routines like this one ...
I wish this weren't true but more than one-third of givers plan to write fewer or smaller checks this quarter (which, of course, is the ...
Watching the Chilean miners emerge from their temporary tomb this week, I was struck at how the men and their families have a crystal clear ...
University Church in Syracuse is launching a 6-week study of The Power of Half, using the book to examine some of our more basic values. ...
The best three minutes you'll spend today, this video from Girl Effect....
In Colorado Springs this week, a man named Gayle Beshears won the Philanthropist of the Year from the Center for Nonprofit Excellence. Mr. Beshears, ...
Fiction is one of my favorite sources of ideas. So, I just had to share this passage from The Life of Pi by Yann ...
It's a funny thing, these brains of ours. Sometimes they force us to look through negative, downtrodden eyes; other times they give us the ...
The developing world takes a beating from the environmental crowd. Poor pollution controls, deforestation, rapid population growth. The scene can be pretty ugly.
But I'd like ...
There's an old story about Alfred Nobel. It seems that when his brother died, late in the 19th Century, an obituary writer got the story ...
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus is such a novel thinker that I find myself marveling at his audacity. By now, you likely know his ...
We're asked constantly why we chose to support The Hunger Project with our family's resources. The basics are obvious: THP's methodology to help villagers ...
We're back from our summer journey to Ghana, a trip in which we strove to better understand the people in the villages of the Eastern ...
Our family leaves for Ghana tonight (Atlanta to Accra nonstop!) and we'll be rolling up our sleeves for another round of our "work" in the ...
I had breakfast this morning with Michael Nyenhuis, the CEO of MAP International, a 50-year-old nonprofit that focuses on health in the developing ...
Hannah stopped by the Fox 5 Atlanta studios bright and early this morning for a 4 1/2-minute interview on Good Day Atlanta. ...
We are so flattered and, to be honest, shocked by all that's been going on this week.
First, Hannah received the Hasbro Community Action Hero Award ...
Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates met with Charlie Rose this week to talk about The Giving Pledge, in which they are ...
OK, I gotta admit -- when these guys play the Half Game, they play it for keeps. If you missed this Fortune ...
Two new interviews of Hannah and me are now available if you want to hear the stories, get updates on our projects, etc.
...
Yesterday, Hannah and I appeared on the Diane Rehm Show, with guest host Frank Sesno sitting in for Diane. If you haven't listened to ...
Mother Teresa once said: "Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater wishes and so on; so ...
Need a gift for yourself or a friend? That grad? That dad? You're in luck.
Amazon and Barnes and ...
If you've heard us speak in person or in interviews, Hannah and I always talk about how we never expect anyone else to sell their ...
My new friend, Betty Londergan, is on an amazing mission: She is giving away $100 each day of 2010 to a worthy charity. ...
I don't get shocked very often, but two times in two days I have been. First, Joan and I were being interviewed for a ...
There's a great piece by Sonia Shah in yesterday's Los Angeles Times about malaria nets. As she points out, the nets are ...
The envelope that came in the mail last night caught my eye. That's saying something in the email era, one in which the Postal ...
Hannah and I will be joining Anne Ellinger from Bolder Giving on Thursday for a phone conversation about The Power of Half, creating philanthropic families ...
My buddy Karen just ordered The Power of Half from Better World Books. If you don't know ...
Sometimes the waste in our society drives me nuts. Sometimes I don't even notice it. I believe I experienced the latter sentence first ...
Short but to the point. You can read it here.
What a school day it has been for us; I just had to tell you about it. We began the morning in Rye, New ...
Really nice of Lifetime Network to honor Hannah as a Remarkable Woman. Short video here
In a series of posts, our family of 5 will reflect on our reading of The Power of Half, chapter by chapter. For ...
Thank you, David Brooks, for the latest in a great series of recent articles in The New York Times on the connection between happiness and ...
Desmond Tutu and his daughter, Mpho, have written a new book, Made for Goodness, which he says they decided to write after he ...
I've been thinking about money again. I guess I do that a lot these days, given the way The Power of Half forces conversations ...
This week we're launching a new offer for book clubs. If you choose to read The Power of Half and buy at least 10 ...
We've always said The Power of Half is about relationships, what our act of giving did for our family's togetherness and connectedness. But it ...
When we decided to start our family project, we told a few friends and family, then we stopped. Partly, we recognized that we weren't ...
In today's New York Times, columnist Nicholas Kristof reminds us why he might be the best thinker out there on global issues. If you're ...
When you get an email like this, it makes it all worthwhile. (The edits are mine, to protect the girl's privacy.)
Dear Hannah ...
We've finished the end of the first leg of the book tour, a fun and exhausting 10-day jaunt. We visited 8 schools, read at ...
There's a great new addition on Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's site: The readers' guide is now available and there are a ton of thought-provoking questions in ...
Road trips rarely go exactly as planned, and this one has been no exception. We were hit by a foot of snow for launch ...
A little while back, I wrote about how much giving is enough (that post is here). Quantity makes for an interesting debate, and ...
Check out this article. I love her humor and ideas on new-found money.
Blizzard, what blizzard? About 70 folks braved the elements to join us at the Corner Bookstore for the New York launch of The Power ...
Power of Half friends,
Because we are in the spotlight, we get some heartbreaking notes from people who have fallen on hard times. We know ...
Hey Power of Half friends, sometimes people think they have to do something huge to make a difference. Our family thinks -- as we ...
After our family was on CBS Sunday Morning yesterday, we received some emails about our project. This one, from Jennifer Antonia Lewis Amoah of ...
TiVo alerts left, right and center this week.
Sunday morning we'll be on CBS Sunday Morning in a piece by correspondent Mark Strassmann. ...
Just started reading Richard Gunderman's "We Make a Life by What We Give." I must say, he grabs me at the Preface ...
Our appearance this afternoon on PRI's The World with host Marco Worman.
Thanks to the 150 friends, old and new, who came to Barnes & Noble last night for the opening night of The Power of Half. ...
I’ve always said that our half project was the most self-interested thing our family ever did. Giving away half of something we had too ...
If you're like our family, deciding how much money to give to charity is something of a guess. Each December, Joan and I would sit ...
Power of Half Line of the Day goes to Nina: "Hey, Daddy, wanna show them up...??? What if we sell the house and donate ...
Is just one of the very cool blog posts we've been reading about our book.
Check out the Samaritan Blog, with this section: ...
The big hits are the big hits: Nick Kristof's wonderful column about us and the Parade Magazine excerpt.
But so many ...
There are a host of reasons authors write books -- to tell a story, to push a message, to bolster their egos, among ...
Holy cow!! In the day since Nick Kristof wrote his column about our family, more than 200 people have commented on his blog. Some ...
If there is a question we get more than any other it's "Why did you do this project in Africa?" Often it's asked in ...
In a series of posts, my family of 5 will reflect on our reading of The Power of Half, chapter by chapter. ...
A package arrived via UPS yesterday with, drumroll please, two real honest-to-goodness copies of The Power of Half. Galleys are fun, mockups are marvelous. ...
I’m sure you read to your kids when they were little. At some point after they learned to read alone, you probably stopped. ...
Joan, Joseph and I were lucky to participate in the Glenn Institute's Family Philanthropy panel the other night. (Hannah is in Australia until Monday so ...
A friend told me a story at dog park this morning that on its face sounds painfully callous. A year or so back, he recalled, ...
One day when I was working at Café 458 (a restaurant in Atlanta for homeless men and women), I stopped by one of ...
In my 7th grade classroom, kids constantly ask to write on my whiteboard. I have Expo markers in every color of the rainbow and then ...
Welcome to the The Power of Half site and blog. Through our family project, we set out to make a small difference in the world ...