Globalization for Military and Civilians

      I recently read a blog post from the US Military's European Commander, Adm. James Stavridis.  He began a conversation about our military’s culture savvy and effectiveness abroad.  Without calling into question the strength and capabilities of our military, he suggested that our forces would be incredibly more effective if, as a part of their training, individual military officers each received culture and language training, with the goal being to have bilingual and multicultural military officers. (Read the blog post here).

As someone who has lived abroad and seriously studied a foreign language, I know that it can be a daunting and often times frustrating task to become acclimated to both a foreign culture and language.  But at the same time I have experienced firsthand the open-mindedness that culture immersion, the effectiveness of speaking the native tongue when traveling abroad, and the general efforts to being a more engaged global citizen.

I fully support Adm. James Stavridis, already fluent in English, Spanish, and French and currently studying Portuguese, as he urges the US military to add foreign language and foreign culture training to the requirements of becoming an officer.

Tying this into the 8 spheres of wellness that I described in my last post, it is clear that these efforts would fall under the umbrella of 2; studying foreign language and culture is a way of exercising both intellectual and social wellness.  Studies have shown that individuals who are bi- or multilingual have an intellectual benefit over unilingual individuals.  A NYT study, to cite just one, suggests that being bilingual plainly makes you smarter (read here).  And what better way to integrate globally than to familiarize ourselves with foreign cultures – moving from thinking foreigners are weird and stupid to understanding that different is sometimes just that: different. 

I fully support foreign language study in the military, in college, in junior and high schools, and as early as parents can provide such learning for their children.  I think that the more consciously we all work to exercise as many of our spheres of wellness that we can, the happier and more productive we all will be.

Let me know what you think about the Admiral’s suggestion for US military officers, and also feel free to share your personal experiences with foreign language, culture, and travel.

Brian

Linking Spheres to Attain Mutual Wellness

          As part of an exploratory committee for the University, I have recently began studying the 7 spheres of wellness, in an effort to encourage participation in various wellness-related programs on campus.  Due to the addition of an 8th sphere (financial wellness) to the common scheme by our group, I thought of a new opportunity to encourage individuals to interact with, and to contribute to their community.
 
The benefits of following the 7 spheres of wellness are intuitive, cumulative, and contagious.  Each sphere (emotional wellness, intellectual wellness, environmental wellness, spiritual wellness, physical wellness, social wellness, and occupational wellness) addresses a distinct aspect of one's life that can cause stress, may require expertise of some kind to get under control, and is important to control to achieve general well-being.  It was not difficult for our group to decide that financial wellness was an important additional topic to address, as many people experience stress or confusion when trying to tackle their finances.  Thus, our group added financial wellness as the 8th sphere to tackle, which will likely consist - at least at first - of individual consultations and follow-ups with experienced financial planners.
 
It was in the development of this new idea that I recognized the overlap between financial wellness and social wellness.  Social wellness can be interpreted as prioritizing, to a certain extent, contributing to the common welfare of one's community over one's own self. 
 
Although individuals' time contributions to their community is incredibly important (more important than financial contributions? There's probably a case to be made for both), allocation of one's time for their community likely fits either solely under the social wellness sphere or in the overlap between the social wellness sphere and the occupational wellness sphere, as a person must have sufficient work-life balance to have the freedom to donate their time to their community, for example volunteering at a charity event.

In much the same way that someone needs to have free time in order to donate their time, however, they also need to have disposable income in order to donate their money.  Someone must simultaneously plan their finances on a monthly basis, allocate a certain, relatively nonburdensome amount of money to give to charity/their community/a local organization, and then they must be disciplined enough to stick to their budget.  In this way, a person can take control of their finances while improving their social wellness.  This can be achieved through the support and expertise offered in financial wellness programs.

Although in depth interpretations of what each sphere means and how we can collectively work on improving our wellnesses can seem boring, overly theoretical, and too optimistic, the underlying ideas are, again, intuitive.

In order to be universally "well" every person will likely have to achieve some level of emotional, intellectual, environmental, financial, spiritual (broadly speaking, not pigeon-holed into the practice of any specific religion, per se), physical, social, and occupational wellness.  In this situation, as I have just outlined, it is important to incorporate one's charitable contributions in their financial planning.  Surely everyone wants to give back, but only those who have saved enough (time or money) can.

Be well.

CNN Names Next "Hero"

Every year CNN names one person the "CNN Hero of the Year" based on a large pool of nominated individuals who find creative and effective ways to improve the lives of others and make our world a better place.  This year, the award went to Pushpa Basnet, a 28-year old woman in Nepal, for her efforts helping children in Nepal.



In Nepal, with an underfunded and poorly structured child welfare system, when an adult is arrested, they are often forced to take their children to prison with them.  Pushpa Basnet was very troubled to learn how many children were growing up behind prison bars, and began working to free them.


Pushpa started an NGO, the Early Childhood Development Center, that brings imprisoned children in for schooling, cooking and eating, and in many cases living.  Pushpa said that the children give her energy and that she never gets tired caring for them and running her organization. 

Check out her CNN Heroes profile here.

Want to get involved? Check out the Early Childhood Development Center website at www.ecdcnepal.org and see how to help.

It should perhaps be a motivator, not a deterrent, to think that no matter what we do with and for our communities, there is always someone doing more.

Brian

Agassi Raises $175 Million for Chairty

In an article from Yahoo! Sports yesterday, it was revealed that tennis legend Andre Agassi has, to date, managed to raise $175 million for charity.  Such a staggering amount was likely made possible by his success as an internationally recognized tennis champion, but Agassi's accomplishments are more appropriately attributable to his devotion to helping out those in need.

According to Agassi, the group in most need of assistance is American children who would benefit from an improved education system.  Specifically through the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy out of Las Vegas, Agassi helps elementary, middle, and high school students every year.  Their mission is to prepare students from under served communities to excel and graduate from the top 100 college and universities in the nation.

This is the kind of lasting impact that I want Zero2Sixty to have on our community.  With a fund that size (or even half of that size) massive funding can go to support programs designed to fight hunger, homelessness, illness, and low-quality education - with little more than interest earned on the portfolio!  Without having to deplete assets, and allowing new contributions to further grow the fund, a portfolio this big will truly be a game changer. 

When we reach our goal balance of $60 million, and assuming a reasonable return of 7% on the portfolio, we will be able to provide over 4 million dollars per year to charitable causes nationwide, and still grow the fund. 

Please keep a look out for my first fundraising campaign, which will fund incorporation, tax-exempt filing, and administrative start-up costs.  This initial campaign will likely be a pledge-a-thon attached to a distance running event.  Please give generously and often, as the size of the fund early on will have exponential impacts of the size it will become in the future.

Brian Anderson

@BrianWA33
www.facebook.com/bwanderson2

Is That Charity Legit??

11/6/12

Happy Election Day!  Make sure you get out and vote before your poll closes.

I wanted to write a quick note to those interested in donating to charity, but are hesitant to select one.  Are you ever concerned that you aren't picking a good charity?  Is this how you feel when trying to decide whom to give your money to?

While its true that some organizations are fake charities, and some others don't pass 100% of your denotation on to the needy, we do have resources available to find the ones that are really putting all of our donations to good use.

I look forward to giving frequent advice on how to select legit charities, but the one resource that I'll offer today is the Wise Giving Alliance, a Charity-focused division of the Better Business Bureau (BBB).  You can access their site by clicking here.

If nothing else, you may find the documented list of complaints and reviews that have been collected on certain charities, so please check with them if you're concerned, and don't let uncertainty lead to not giving.

Brian

Charitable Tax Deductions

11/4/12

Now that my mid-term exams are over for this fall semester (whew!), I have been doing a little extra-curricular reading and researching for the fund, and came across a great article from The Chronicle of Philanthropy last week detailed an on-going debate about tax deductions for charitable contributions.

Nonprofit Leaders Urge Obama and Romney to Protect Tax Break

The growing federal deficit has sparked conversation/debate/argument about how to change ("reform") the tax code.  Both candidates have, at one point or another, made it clear that they will support changes that adversely affect charitable donations.

President Obama has said that while he does not support eliminating the charitable tax deduction, he does support putting a cap on the amount that tax payers can write off - lowing the current cap of 35% to 28%, for high-income earners.   

According to the article, Congress has never supported such a low cap on charitable deductions, but with the size of the national debt quickly becoming an even hotter topic, donors may soon find themselves without the same incentives to give as they had before.

Governor Romney, on the other hand, has made it clear that he supports a (virtually) flat tax across the board.  He plans on implementing a revenue-neutral reorganization of our income tax levels, which (if you do the math*) means that all deductions, include the mortgage interest deduction and the charitable tax deduction.  Depending on where we fall on the Laffer Curve** it is possible that a lower overall tax rate will result in an increase in total revenue for the government, thereby allowing Washington to start paying down the debt.  This would certainly be a good thing for the U.S. balance sheet, but citizens are left without a tax incentive to contribute their money to charities! 

It is important to retain this charitable deduction, so as to incentivize donors to contribute their money to help those who need it.  Although there are debates about which organizations are/should be covered by the charitable deduction, it is irrefutable that without a tax incentive (or with less of a tax incentive), charities will not be able to operate as effectively or as thoroughly.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
*Governor Romney's proposed lower tax rates will cut revenue by almost 1.2 trillion per year, and in order to have a revenue neutral result, he would have to simultaneously eliminate all of the available tax deductions and write-offs, which total to about 1.1 trillion per year.

**The Laffer Curve suggests that there are some situations in which a tax-rate increase would yield more total revenue.... but only to a point.  After this critical tax rate, marginally higher tax rates cause people to stop working as hard or to stop working at all (because they get to take home less of their hard-earned money), therefore decreasing the total tax revenue collected, despite the higher rate.  The kicker is that it is impossible to know in which situation we live, for even if we conduct a conscious experiment, there are too many factors in revenue generation to attribute the results to the change in tax rates.

Hurricane Relief Fund

11/2/2012

We have all seen the destruction of Sandy over the past week, and can share in our sympathy for the people killed, hurt, or displaced.  When FZTC is up and running (with your help, sooner rather than later), it will be positioned to provide much needed relief from these kinds of disasters. 

Hurricane Aftermath Video (ABC News)

 

As it stands now, however, I'm happy to at the least do some quick research to find a great charity to give through. 

American Red Cross Hurricane Aid


Millions of people need your help right now, trying to put their lives back together without any kind of infrastructure to speak of.  Give generously and be thankful that the damage wasn't worse. 



Brian