Time and money are too valuable to me to waste, so it may seem odd that I give them away.
Even so, that’s just what I decided to do when I joined the board of directors of Caritas of Austin. Their mission is to “[provide] a home and tailored services to prevent and end homelessness.”
An informal cost-benefit analysis led me to give my time, talent and treasure freely. While the primary driver was altruism, some of the good comes right back to me. I hope that sharing my “whys” might encourage you to become involved in a cause that is meaningful to you. I certainly don’t think of my own experience as a waste by any means. Here are several benefits I receive from serving on a nonprofit board:
Deemphasizing Money
I became a financial adviser because I find joy in helping other people, and I receive that same satisfaction by volunteering. I’ve previously written that “It’s the people we help and the people who help us that give life meaning.” In my work at Palisades Hudson, I tend to help people who have achieved financial success as measured in traditional ways, because I can use my skills to add the most value to their lives. That said, this reality could create a particular impression of who I think is worthy of help, one which isn’t consistent with my worldview. Wealth, or lack of it, has no impact on a person's value. Stepping into the nonprofit sector, I can disentangle my desire to help others from the financial incentives and realities of supporting my family.
Making A Difference
In thinking about my board service, I’m reminded of this video featuring poet Taylor Mali explaining what a teacher makes. Spoiler alert: They “make a difference.” As I alluded to earlier, it can feel good to remove money as a motivating factor sometimes, since it tends to pervade so many parts of daily life. The satisfaction of giving back to my community that I get from volunteering is a major source of value for me. It is also a reminder that there are ways other than finances to measure effectiveness.
Caritas of Austin makes a difference through its high rate of success in achieving housing stability for the people it serves. It also succeeds by keeping even more people fed through its community kitchen, free lunches it provides to hundreds each Monday through Friday, and its food pantry. While Caritas has not fully achieved its stated vision of “a stable home for everyone in the Greater Austin area,” it has made an observable difference in so many individual lives.
Without serving a greater purpose that I believe in, the ancillary benefits I receive from volunteering wouldn’t be as meaningful to me. My contributions are a drop in the bucket compared to the much more significant contributions Caritas’ employees, other volunteers and community partners make to the organization and its mission. Still, I am honored to make a difference in the community through the leadership and governance guidance that I provide as a board member. Ultimately, as I’ve also mentioned before, cultivating a purpose beyond one’s career contributes to a successful life.
Taking Opportunities To Learn
Another component of a life well-lived is pursuing lifetime learning. The causes of and solutions to homelessness have intrigued me for years, but my work with Caritas has given me an opportunity to dig deeper. From reviewing global research to hearing the actual experiences of Caritas’ staff and the people it serves, I better understand the challenges and systematic barriers that people experiencing homelessness face. While bad luck, mental health issues, substance abuse, and personal choices can each contribute to an individual’s likelihood of experiencing homelessness, “Homelessness is a Housing Problem,” as Gregg Colburn states in the title of his 2022 book. The affordability and availability of housing in a region is the biggest determinant of that region’s level of homelessness. Even as I’ve learned more about the causes of homelessness, I’ve learned that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Just because the problem continues, it doesn’t mean current efforts aren’t working.
Gaining A Different Perspective
The information I learn and the stories I hear while serving Caritas of Austin do not only make me better informed. They also help me to appreciate the opportunities, advantages and comforts that I enjoy. My personal echo chamber online, the demographics of the clients I serve, and the people I interact with on a daily basis all skew my perception of what is “normal.” Caritas allows me to poke outside of that bubble and realize my problems aren’t so big.
Thinking about challenges through the lens of a nonprofit also helps me to refocus on what matters. While a charity needs to make good financial decisions to continue its operations, Caritas emphasizes that housing is a human right. Caritas often reaches out to the most vulnerable people, those whom others are not willing to help. In those cases, providing supportive housing may be especially costly, yet such help is arguably more important and may even amount to saving a life. Treating others as I hope someone would treat me is a value that I, like many others, try to adhere to. My involvement with Caritas helps me to live out that value in concrete ways.
Building A Broader Network
People who choose to volunteer for a nonprofit come from diverse backgrounds, but what unites them is a shared interest in a given cause. This diversity among my fellow volunteers lets me hear how other people with values similar to mine approach the problems they face. Sometimes this is when we are working toward the charity’s mission directly, but I can also learn from stories they share about their own personal and business experiences. In our work, I learn best practices that other people use to overcome their challenges.
Because Caritas is supported by Austin’s business and civic leaders, my volunteer work has given me the chance to meet and get to know people whose paths I otherwise wouldn’t cross. Rather than “the CEO from a commercial I’ve seen” or “the mayor I watch on the news,” these are now real people I have met. These opportunities bring me a greater sense of being a part of the community.
Exploring A Different Outlet For My Skills
When you’ve been at the same company for a long time — and I have been at Palisades Hudson since 2007 — it’s nice to get a sense of how people other than your longtime colleagues react to your ideas. Working with Caritas has helped me to reimagine ways to use my skills and let me use those skills for different purposes. At work I help families manage their money and prioritize and identify their goals; as a board member at Caritas, I apply these same skills. In addition, I can provide insight into how a financial planner thinks of optimizing charitable giving. I’ve also learned new approaches from how Caritas manages its communications and maintains relationships with its donors.
I’ve come away, too, with a profound respect for the thoughtful nature of Caritas’ long-term planning process. It does a spectacular job with an approach that is akin to the personal financial planning process. They gather information from stakeholders; establish goals and objectives; analyze financial strengths and vulnerabilities; develop recommendations; present the plan; implement the plan; and monitor and update the plan. Just as with personal financial planning, Caritas’ planning process gives the organization a better perspective and more effective courses of action than they would have created without a thoughtful approach. Seeing a process similar to what I do applied in a different context gives me a different perspective on my own profession.
Building Community
I am not very active in a faith community right now. I’m not a sports fanatic, and I’m outraged by what politicians on both sides of the aisle do and say. Connecting with a nonprofit organization that meets a true need in my own community fills a void left by the absence of passionate positioning in other areas of my life. Through my volunteer work, I can participate in building community and doing what I feel is right.
Cultivating Gratitude
At the end of the day, serving on the board of a nonprofit has brought me far more than it has cost me. A major component of this is gratitude. Caritas’ staff expresses seemingly unending gratitude for my contributions, which I in turn appreciate. As I said earlier, I am also grateful for the staff’s hard work in ensuring the organization’s mission succeeds.
Practicing gratitude at Caritas also carries over into other areas of my life. I am immensely grateful that Palisades Hudson’s clients choose to work with us and let me venture so deeply into their personal lives. At the same time, I’m grateful that Palisades Hudson affords me the opportunity to diversify my sources of joy at work by encouraging me to use work time to support my community. As Texas singer and songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard says, “The days that I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations, I have really good days.”
Although I’ve focused on my board work in this article, a leadership role isn’t essential in achieving the benefits I’ve received. The times I’ve helped serve lunch in Caritas’ kitchen have brought some of the biggest rewards.
Regardless of the particular causes that matter to you, getting involved can create a great deal of value: not only for those you will help, but for you too.
