October 23, 2009
Canadian Family Pioneers 'Guerrilla Giving'
If you find a $20 bill under a potted plant or a few dollars taped to a bench you may need to ask yourself: Is it simply good luck? Or is it a guerrilla gift?
A family in Vancouver, Canada, has created a media buzz with their “guerrilla giving” — leaving envelopes of money and other items at bus stops, in public parks, and other random spots around the city.
On a blog, the father, who prefers to remain anonymous, says he wants to revolutionize philanthropy. For one year, his middle-class family has pledged to give 10 percent of their gross income to strangers. The charitable project “calls into question our ego’s insatiable appetite for self-gratification. It lifts our sights to a higher vision,” he writes.
“We hope we could inspire others that we can all be philanthropists regardless of our income,” the father told the Canwest News Service in a recent article.
On the Web site, the family posts photos as clues to where the gifts are and explains the motivation behind the locations. Some people who find them have written online thank-you notes, sometimes saying they plan to donate the manna to charity.
“I want to say thank you and let you know the gift is appreciated, but even more so is the knowledge that people like you and your family exist,” writes “Mark R” who discovered his guerrilla gift at a bus stop.
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