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Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World by Bill Clinton
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Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World

by Bill Clinton

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Bill Clinton encourages each us to give throughout this book, giving us examples of the amazing work other people have done from all walks of life and how we can give, too. From giving money, giving time, giving skills and more, this book inspires us to give even a little, showing us how much can good just a "little" does.
My Opinion: I have been interested in giving for a while now, and it has helped me see how my new volunteer work is important. I hope to give more in the future. ( )
Moniica | Nov 29, 2008 |  
Excellent resource - but a tedious read for book club. ( )
brsquilt | Aug 31, 2008 |  
This is comfort-food, feel-good reading. The book doesn't contribute to a grand philosophical debate about the best ways to spend time or humanitarian duty or anything else. It just highlights the work that various groups and individuals are doing by giving time, coming up with new ideas, and giving money. It's nice to hear the stories of the people and organizations featured in the book, and I think the book's emphasis on measurable results is good. Overall, I enjoyed listening to Bill Clinton reading the text.

For what it's worth, I was finally inpired to make some microloans through Kiva, which is something I'd been meaning to do since I heard about the idea. ( )
msjoanna | Mar 24, 2008 |  
GIVING is a wonderful collection and listing of the types of giving and the people that give. Examples of this are "Giving of Time" which lists ways to contribute such as joining the Peace Corps or Doctors without Borders. However, the same chapter has anecdotal examples such as the HIV postive patient in Africa who has gone to volunteer at the clinic she to which she had gone.

Examples of giving range from a young girl who starts beach clean-ups to Bill and Melissa Gates and their humanitarian efforts. Of course, the author takes every opportunity to talk about the giving and charity work of he and his wife, but it is his book.

I enjoyed this book and found some new ideas on ways in which I can give back. One of the most helpful sections of the book is called "Resources". This lists organizations' names, web-sites, e-mail addresses and mail addresses according to the chapter in which they were mentioned.

This book will stay on my shelf as a personal reference for me for giving. ( )
LivelyLady | Dec 20, 2007 |  
Inspiring ( )
Smokler | Dec 20, 2007 |  
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Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0307266745, Hardcover)

Here, from Bill Clinton, is a call to action. Giving is an inspiring look at how each of us can change the world. First, it reveals the extraordinary and innovative efforts now being made by companies and organizations—and by individuals—to solve problems and save lives both “down the street and around the world.” Then it urges us to seek out what each of us, “regardless of income, available time, age, and skills,” can do to help, to give people a chance to live out their dreams.

Bill Clinton shares his own experiences and those of other givers, representing a global flood tide of nongovernmental, nonprofit activity. These remarkable stories demonstrate that gifts of time, skills, things, and ideas are as important and effective as contributions of money. From Bill and Melinda Gates to a six-year-old California girl named McKenzie Steiner, who organized and supervised drives to clean up the beach in her community, Clinton introduces us to both well-known and unknown heroes of giving. Among them:

Dr. Paul Farmer, who grew up living in the family bus in a trailer park, vowed to devote his life to giving high-quality medical care to the poor and has built innovative public health-care clinics first in Haiti and then in Rwanda;
a New York couple, in Africa for a wedding, who visited several schools in Zimbabwe and were appalled by the absence of textbooks and school supplies. They founded their own organization to gather and ship materials to thirty-five schools. After three years, the percentage of seventh-graders who pass reading tests increased from 5 percent to 60 percent;'
Oseola McCarty, who after seventy-five years of eking out a living by washing and ironing, gave $150,000 to the University of Southern Mississippi to endow a scholarship fund for African-American students;
Andre Agassi, who has created a college preparatory academy in the Las Vegas neighborhood with the city’s highest percentage of at-risk kids. “Tennis was a stepping-stone for me,” says Agassi. “Changing a child’s life is what I always wanted to do”;
Heifer International, which gave twelve goats to a Ugandan village. Within a year, Beatrice Biira’s mother had earned enough money selling goat’s milk to pay Beatrice’s school fees and eventually to send all her children to school—and, as required, to pass on a baby goat to another family, thus multiplying the impact of the gift.

Clinton writes about men and women who traded in their corporate careers, and the fulfillment they now experience through giving. He writes about energy-efficient practices, about progressive companies going green, about promoting fair wages and decent working conditions around the world. He shows us how one of the most important ways of giving can be an effort to change, improve, or protect a government policy. He outlines what we as individuals can do, the steps we can take, how much we should consider giving, and why our giving is so important.

Bill Clinton’s own actions in his post-presidential years have had an enormous impact on the lives of millions. Through his foundation and his work in the aftermath of the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, he has become an international spokesperson and model for the power of giving.

“We all have the capacity to do great things,” President Clinton says. “My hope is that the people and stories in this book will lift spirits, touch hearts, and demonstrate that citizen activism and service can be a powerful agent of change in the world.”

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:52 -0400)

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