APRIL 2003

2003 — Year of the Investor
Why I Invest

The Hunger Project is funded almost entirely by committed individuals who stand as coequal partners with hungry people in the work of ending hunger. The return on investment is immediate and lasting — the joy and satisfaction that come from using one’s resources in a way that benefits all humanity.

Sharon Knoll, Seattle:

My financial investment in The Hunger Project buys me the privilege of standing in the sacred space in which each life matters, where each human being is the solution and not the problem. My travels to Hunger Project villages in Africa, and meeting my partners from Bangladesh, India and Mexico, witnessing their courage, have opened my eyes in a way that they can never close again.

 

Greg Skyles, Albuquerque, New Mexico:

What had me become a charter investor is that it would be the expression of my legacy. And to me, The Hunger Project is the most powerful, the most effective, the highest-leverage way of causing something in the world that I want to have caused — the end of human suffering.

 

Malgorzata Smelkowska, Toronto:

I invest as my expression of my commitment to humanity. What investment means to me — it is a gift to me. It opens my heart to the world. And that’s how I can get in touch with who I am. I now have a way to respond when I see suffering. I’m no longer passive. I’m doing what I can.

 

Mick Crews, London:

I’ve been very privileged to work all around the world and in particular in Bangladesh. I invest because it’s the best game in town. It’s the only game that’s really hitting at the grass roots at the conditions that keep hunger in place, and I really don’t know a better place to be.

 

Jasa Porciello, Portland, Maine:

Investing in The Hunger Project sets the standard for value in my life to measure everything else by. So when I go to invest in something else in my life, I look to see if there is a match between this investment and the value I will get when I invest in The Hunger Project.

 

Christina Eulenkamp, Frankfurt, Germany:

The reason I invest is because I know that my money makes a big difference in people’s lives. And this empowers me and inspires me and touches me. And also, considering to be an investor, it shapes my relationship to money and how I look at my life.

 

Mariko Furuya, Tokyo:

There are several reasons why I invest in The Hunger Project: I love The Hunger Project, and I love Hunger Project people. It empowers women who have been subjugated all their lives. I can create partnership with you all, and that is the greatest honor in my life.

 

Jennifer Hunter, Santa Monica Zen Center, Los Angeles:

When I was ordained as a Zen Buddhist priest, I took a vow. The vow was to end all needless human suffering. For me, The Hunger Project is an outward manifestation of that vow.

 

Dorothy Stingley, Scottsdale, Arizona:

I have to say very selfishly that my investment in The Hunger Project gives me my whole life. I’m an entrepreneur, and out of my investment in The Hunger Project, I’m becoming an entrepreneur-philanthropist.

 

Nancy Juda, Chicago:

For me, investing in The Hunger Project is a structure to take action consistent with the things I love to think about and the distinctions I love. And it’s a reminder for me — of what a lucky life I have — and it’s an opportunity for me to spread a little luck.

 

Tom Lemons, Colorado:

The Hunger Project reached out to connect with me, and that made a huge difference in my life — to hear what was going on in the world, and to reach out of my own little world to connect with my brothers and sisters that are suffering out there.

 

Mary Emeny, Amarillo, Texas:

The Hunger Project takes it right to the heart of the issue, which is that we all have the capacity to do for ourselves what needs to be done. All we have to do is to help break through the stereotypes, the now-useless paradigms that create oppression. So it’s really been, for me, a movement from the emotions to the head to the heart. The deepest hunger is in the heart. That we all share, no matter what our economic and social status. So as we work together to identify and transform outmoded paradigms, we are feeding each other at a very meaningful, life-affirming level, which in turn unleashes the spirit in all of us.

 

Why Do You Invest?

·        Does your investment call you forth? Does it illuminate your life? Is it consistent with your values?

·        Are you richer for having made this investment? I don’t mean — do you have more money? I mean — are you richer for having made this investment?

·        A family earning $50,000 in the United States is in the top 5 percent of world income. Clearly, we have the money. The question is, are we going to step up to the plate — first, with our own financial resources and then giving the opportunity to others — to benefit all humanity?

·        Do we have the courage to go against the grain, to not just consume more and more because everything in our environment says that’s what we should do?

·        Can we acknowledge that we’ve been blessed by an abundance of financial resources, and that we see this as an opportunity to pioneer — for the world community — what’s possible when one invests not only in the well-being of one’s nuclear family, but in the well-being of our global family?

·        If the only thing we knew about you was your investment, would that speak potently and powerfully to who you are?

At a Hunger Project global fund-raising conference held in New York City in January, Joan Holmes posed the following questions as a way for us to look closely at our own investment and its significance in our life.