FIVE STEPS TO STRATEGIC PHILANTHROPY
The Southern Tier West Development Foundation can help you create a strategic plan to meet your philanthropic goals. As you think about giving back, we've put together five simple steps to help you get started:

1. Define Your Passion
Creating a strategic philanthropy plan starts with understanding what kind of difference you want to make. Ask yourself:

· What issues do I care about?
· What organizations do I currently give to - either money or time?
· How did I first get involved?
· What gives me the greatest satisfaction?

Often we have a relationship with an organization or community that is connected to a friend or relative. Sometimes there's an emotional connection that engages you in philanthropy. How do you define community - geographically, socially, economically?

2. Create Your Plan
Start by asking yourself: If I could change three things about my community, what would they be? What is the best way to go about changing those things? If you were going to give to a community or organization, what attributes would you look for? Some possibilities: strong leadership, client base, providing prevention services or intervention services, sound fiscal management. Do you like to support the operations of organizations working on things you care about? Do you like to know exactly what your money is supporting? Do you like to fund specific projects? Answering these questions will help you create your mission, vision, and core values to develop a philanthropic plan.

3. Determine Your Giving Level
There are a variety of ways to determine what level of giving is right for your budget and tax situation. Here is one secure online tool to help you: www.newtithing.org

PrudentPalTM Charitable Giving Calculator, a budgeting and charitable giving calculator which NewTithing Group expects to offer this fall, is intended to help users evaluate how much money they can comfortably afford to spend in general or donate to charity each year. That determination is based on a customized step-by-step process developed by Claude Rosenberg and NewTithing Group which requires a visitor to input information regarding the visitor's personal finances. NewTithing Group does not retain records of the information entered by any visitor into the calculator, and no employee of NewTithing Group has any access to that information. PrudentPalTM Charitable Giving Calculator merely performs specified calculations.

4. Implement Your Strategy
Once you know what types of projects you want to support, you can begin to make gifts to charities working on those issues. How do you find the right public benefit corporation (nonprofit agency)? Southern Tier West Development Foundation staff can always help.
You can also Research Charities online at:

Network for Good (www.networkforgood.org), is a coalition of leading Internet companies and nonprofit organizations that has developed extensive online resources and tools to make it even easier for individuals to donate, volunteer, speak out on issues and make more informed decisions about supporting the causes they care about.

Guidestar.org provides information about who our nonprofits serve, their budgets, staff, needs, success stories and much more.

5. Review and Update Your Plan
Strategic philanthropy is not static. You should review and update your plan on a regular basis as your passions and financial situation may change. You may want to take a more family-oriented approach to giving to include your children, parents, or extended family in the decision-making. Philanthropy should be gratifying, reflecting your core values.