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you are” in the Xhosa language). Zethu lost both her parents to AIDS a few years ago and assumed the responsibility for raising her two young siblings with no idea even of how to feed them. An Ubuntu caseworker, Fezeka Mzalazala, helped Zethu to stay in school and work through her emotional and financial problems. After experiencing how Fezeka’s support enabled her to turn her life around, Zethu said she wanted to “spread the spirit of Ubuntu” by creating a support group for ten younger orphaned girls to discuss the issues they face, help them cope, and bring them the benefits of Ubuntu counseling. Zethu found a way to pass on her gift.

In the United States, the best example I’ve found of passing on the gift is the Page Education Foundation. Founded in 1988 by Alan and Diane Page, it offers scholarships to deserving students of color in Minnesota to help them with the costs of a post-secondary education. During his fifteen-year career in the NFL, which earned him a place in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Alan earned a law degree. After leaving professional football, he was elected a justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court. He and Diane wanted to give other young people of color the chance to develop their potential: “We know there is no shortage of potential—only a shortage of appropriate support and encouragement.” Since its inception, the Page Foundation has provided more than $6 million in grants to 3,000 Page scholars, almost 600 in 2006 alone.

In return for the grant, every Page scholar agrees to spend at least fifty hours an academic year mentoring or tutoring younger children of color from kindergarten through eighth grade. Many volunteer well above the fifty-hour requirement in established programs operated by schools, libraries, and community organizations. In 2006, the scholars helped more than ten thousand children. In so doing, they provided young children with both academic support and vivid role models of what they can become if they stay in school and apply themselves. It’s a wonderful way of passing on the gift.

Bernard Rapoport, the legendary ninety-year-old Texas philanthropist and social activist, and his wife, Audre, agree. They give about $400,000 a year in “service learning” scholarships—with a community-service component—to University of Texas students. Students are required to immediately pass on their gift, and in so doing, to enhance their own learning.

If you’re already involved in service work, I hope you’ll think about whether and how those you’re trying to help can also pass on their gifts.

EIGHT

Model Gifts

ONE THING THAT makes programs as diverse as Heifer International, the Self Employed Women’s Association in India, and New York’s Chess-in-the-Schools so appealing to givers is that they’re repeatable models that virtually always work. You know that if there are more animals, more microloans, more chess programs, those who receive them will be better off in predictable but gratifying ways. You don’t have to invent or reinvent the wheel; you just provide the money or volunteer time to bring the benefits of such programs to more people. Whenever I read about, observe, or participate in an exciting new project, I ask myself whether it can be replicated with predictable positive results and, if so, how.

In cases where different kinds of resources are required to achieve multiple goals, constructing such models is more difficult. That’s what Dr. Paul Farmer’s Partners In Health and my foundation’s HIV/AIDS Initiative are trying to do in Rwanda. Yes, we want to bring quality health care to people in isolated villages. But we also want to be able to say, “It works in Haiti. It works in Rwanda. This is the best, fastest, most cost-effective way to get health care to poor people everywhere. Please give money and time to spread it to everyone who needs it.”

In this chapter, I discuss some important efforts that could become repeatable models. Those that pursue several objectives at the same time present significant challenges to donors in terms of time, skills, or money, but they’re