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Ultimately, the story of this book is simple but profound: there are many ways that you can make a real, lasting, and meaningful difference in the lives of people who need only the opportunity to achieve prosperity. You can afford to provide that opportunity.

I’m going to tell you exactly how each of us can afford to transform the lives of folks halfway across the world or in our own communities. Together we’re going to help end extreme poverty. We’re going to treat and control the spread of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. We’re going to build bridges; ease asthma so children can go to school; help mothers give birth to healthy babies and survive their deliveries; get irrigation pumps to millions of subsistence farmers and help them create commercial enterprises; give families goats, or bees, or llamas that make them micro-entrepreneurs; provide clean drinking water that is accessible, safe, and affordable. This book tells stories from many places: heroes persevering in the face of unimaginable deprivation; people called to action by an encounter, an idea, even a photograph who founded an organization or a movement in response; services and technologies that produce tremendous impact for mere pennies. There are tales of transformation: of futility changed to hope, of families moving from barely surviving to thriving. Ultimately, the story of this book is simple but profound: there are many ways that you can make a real, lasting, and meaningful difference in the lives of people who need only the opportunity to achieve prosperity. You can afford to provide that opportunity.

Wave of small donations helps heal tsunami victims

Nothing stood a chance against the dual forces of the quake and the waves. Virtually everything that took a direct hit was annihilated – humans, property, the environment, everything. All told, approximately 230,000 people died that day. Twelve countries bordering the Indian Ocean reported a total of over $10 billion in damages to infrastructure, services, and industries.

We’d never seen anything like it. And we saw it all, almost immediately. With 24-hour news coverage from cable television, we watched it unfold before our very eyes. It was unbelievable. It was horrifying. We were overcome by sorrow and sympathy.

We jumped into action like never before – governments, aid agencies, and you and I. We knew what was needed. Everything was needed. The agents of relief and reconstruction needed cash. Immediately. So, we gave. And gave. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, as of January 2009, governments and civil society around the world had contributed a total of $6.2 billion.

What I’m going to tell you next, however, will seem unlikely. Maybe impossible. Yet it’s true. It just didn’t get any news coverage. $2.78 billion of the U.S. share, or 45% of total giving from around the world, came from ordinary American citizens. U.S. corporations gave $340 million, and foundations gave $40 million. But you didn’t hear reports about the tremendous generosity of everyday citizens - only the large donations made by individual companies or foundations.

And there’s more. According to a study by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University: “Despite the highly publicized million-dollar gifts from corporations and celebrities, most of the giving to the tsunami relief efforts came from gifts of less than $50 made by millions of Americans across the country,” said Patrick M. Rooney, director of research for the Center on Philanthropy. “These giving patterns are very similar to the charitable response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and what we believe occurred after Hurricane Katrina.” That’s right. One quarter of all of the 106 million U.S. households in 2004 donated to tsunami relief efforts. The median donation was $50, while the average donation was $135.

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