December 31st is quickly approaching.

Your mail boxes are filling up with nonprofit organizations asking for year-end charitable gifts.

Randi Hogan, CAP®, has earned the professional designation focused on effective and strategic philanthropic planning. In addition to mastering the financial details involved in different forms of charitable giving, CAP® designees gain critical interpersonal skills needed to guide clients and donors from philanthropic aspiration to positive social impact.

Randi Hogan was interviewed by Christina Gamache, founder of Audax Wealth Management, a boutique investment management and financial planning firm.

I’ve curated this list of authors and their books that have added perspective to my work, and I hope it will inspire you.

Disclosure: I’ve linked this collection of recommended books to Bookshop.org because the site is lovely and its mission is to financially support local, independent booksellers. I’m a member of their affiliate program, which pays a 10 percent commission on every sale and gives a matching 10 percent to independent bookstores.

April 2020. The coronavirus pandemic exacerbated Maine’s food insecurity crisis. Restaurants were closing. People were losing jobs. Others were going hungry. Ellie Linen Low, philanthropist and social justice activist, had a desire to help them all.

Once they sold their business, Jeff and Diana used part of the profits to start a family foundation. They felt excited to have the opportunity to pour their ambitions into giving back to the community and support issues they cared about.

Soon, their excitement turned to worry. While they had some ideas of issues they wanted to support - they had been generous with charities and a couple of scholarships when they owned the business - starting a family foundation was all new territory for them.

With over a million nonprofits, and more than 30,000 doing good work in their home state, how would they choose the right organizations? They now realized why many philanthropists have said giving money away, and doing it well, is hard.