{"id":1745,"date":"2011-05-06T15:28:37","date_gmt":"2011-05-06T19:28:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=1745"},"modified":"2011-05-06T15:32:42","modified_gmt":"2011-05-06T19:32:42","slug":"modest-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/modest-needs\/","title":{"rendered":"Modest Needs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Normally I&#8217;d be rockin&#8217; and rollin&#8217; here &#8211; off on some wild tangent &#8211; yammering about totally crazy stuff. And after blathering for a few paragraphs, I&#8217;d make a seamless segue into today&#8217;s Website pick.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes I find myself wishing things were going better, wishing the economy was better, wishing that things would improve for our business. And then we come to this time of year when I start counting the blessings I have. I have a great partner &#8211; yes the much maligned EB. We have thousands of wonderful subscribers who make this, and all our other newsletters possible. I have food and a nice, warm place to live. I have my health and I have good friends. I may not be rich in ways the world can see, but I&#8217;m rich nonetheless.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes I start thinking about families who don&#8217;t even have enough money to buy food for their children, who can&#8217;t afford to buy winter clothing and coats for their kids, who can&#8217;t afford to take their kids to the doctor. Don&#8217;t worry, I&#8217;m not going to get off on a political rant. Suffice it to say there are millions who want to work who can&#8217;t find jobs in these tough times, or people who lost good jobs and who&#8217;ve had to to take menial jobs for minimum wage.<\/p>\n<p>Giving to charities to help others has always left me with doubts as to whom gets the money &#8211; where does my money go? What if there were a way to donate directly to families in need? What if there were an organization which didn&#8217;t take a penny of donor funds to pay its salaries and expenses. What if there was an organization that could guarantee you that 100% of the money you donate goes directly to the family or families you&#8217;ve chosen to help?<\/p>\n<p>There is such an organization. I just learned about it this week, it&#8217;s called called Modest Needs, and we&#8217;ve decided to make it our site of the week this week. It seems an appropriate pick for site of the week; it seems the right time of year.<\/p>\n<p>Modest Needs describes their mission this way:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Founded in 2002, Modest Needs is an award-winning public charity with a simple but critical mission: we work to stop the cycle of poverty BEFORE it starts for the low-income workers whom conventional philanthropy has forgotten.<\/p>\n<p>We do this by empowering compassionate members of the general public to safely and securely help hard-working, low-income households to afford the kinds of short-term emergency expenses that we&#8217;ve all encountered before: the unexpected car repair, the unanticipated visit to the doctor, or the unusually large heating bill, for example.<\/p>\n<p>Since 2002, by working together in this very &#8216;modest&#8217; way, Modest Needs&#8217; donors have stopped 9,149 low-income individuals and families from entering the vicious cycle of poverty and a lifetime of dependence on the public welfare system for their survival.<\/p>\n<p>And, through our unique Non-Profit Grant program, we simultaneously empower our donors to invest directly in small non-profit organizations struggling to serve their communities, but whose needs are generally too small to be considered a funding priority by larger, more conventional grant-makers.<\/p>\n<p>Discover your power to instantly change a life. Please join your friends and neighbors in supporting Modest Needs.<\/p>\n<p>Because Modest Needs has earned the highest possible charity ratings from both Charity Navigator and the Better Business Bureau&#8217;s Wise Giving Alliance, you can give with confidence, knowing that we won&#8217;t abuse your kindness.<\/p>\n<p>But more importantly, together, we can make sure that no hard-working person is ever forced to choose between taking a child to the doctor and putting food on the table&#8230;.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re in a position to help others, or you&#8217;d just like to learn more about a unique site that makes it possible for you to help and know that the money you&#8217;ve given is actually helping someone, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.modestneeds.org\/\">please take a moment and visit today&#8217;s Website pick &#8211; Modest Needs. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Normally I&#8217;d be rockin&#8217; and rollin&#8217; here &#8211; off on some wild tangent &#8211; yammering about totally crazy stuff. And after blathering for a few paragraphs, I&#8217;d make a seamless segue into today&#8217;s Website pick. Sometimes I find myself wishing things were going better, wishing the economy was better, wishing that things would improve for our business. And\u2026 <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/modest-needs\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[151],"tags":[1111,677,1113,1112],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1745"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1748,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745\/revisions\/1748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}