Something near and dear to my Heart…is giving back to my Community-We know, it isn’t all about selling Real Estate…it is about “Community”.  Two things I had on my Heart to share today, one was a Facebook invite I received today, about “Pay it forward” day-January 17th…actually, the invite said pay it forward weekend, the 17th-19th 🙂  Hopefully we will all go out there and find someone more in need than ourselves, and “Pay it forward!”

On another note-

I read an article today by “National Philanthropic Trust”.   It mentioned that the top National “Volunteer Activities” are fundraising or selling items to raise money. (26.2 %), food collection or distribution (23.6%), general labor or transportation (20.3%), and tutoring or teaching (18.2%).

The top four Volunteer Areas are for Religious (34.4%), educational (26.6%), social service (14.2%), and health (8.2%) organizations.

88% of U.S. households give to charity.

62% of high net worth donors cite “giving back to the community” as a chief motivation for giving.

Americans gave $298.3 billion in 2013.  This reflects 3.9% increase from 2012.

Corporate giving held steady in 2013 at $14.55 billion. WOW! Very cool…

Foundation giving increased in 2013 to 441.67 billion-a 1.8% increase over the year prior.

The worst part of our Market is behind us…and even for some market areas still lagging…the only way it will ever get better, is for us to all get out there, and buy something-and “Pay it forward”…