Family Holidays,
Family Giving

For the past few years, Thanksgiving Day at Ted and Nancy Biagini’s home in Willow Glen has been about more than just breaking bread and sharing thanks.

Together with their nine adult children, they discuss and decide which charities the family will support during the holiday season.

Each family member has the opportunity to recommend a charity or school. “They have to have a personal connection,” Ted says. “We want to encourage participation in actively doing something with the organization, whether it’s sitting on a board, or volunteerism.”

Once the family decides on programs to support, Ted and Nancy recommend grants from their Donor-Advised Fund at CFSV.

“This is just one small step. It gets our kids thinking about giving and volunteering,” Ted says.

The family has also taken on family projects in the past, including volunteering with Rebuilding Together (formerly Christmas in April) and at local soup kitchens.
“Philanthropy should be a part of your life. It’s giving both your time and treasure to help other people,” Ted says.

He has a few recommendations for launching a family giving tradition. “Children learn by doing,” he says. “Then volunteering becomes a habit.”

1. Parents and grandparents should talk to children and grandchildren about helping others, talk about why it’s important.
2. As a family, do group volunteer projects. Hands-on activities like creek clean-ups or walkathons can combine fun and philanthropy.
3. Create a separate “charity” account. “Doing this takes the angst out of giving,” Ted says. Instead of deciding how to spend it, you decide how to give it. When Ted’s mother passed away, he encouraged her grandchildren to pitch in from their share of the estate to create a fund at CFSV in her memory.

Ted encourages his family to ask about his own volunteer projects, and has taken family members on tours of Downtown College Prep, the charter high school in Downtown San Jose, where he serves on the Board of Trustees. He finds this work particularly gratifying because, like most of the kids at DCP, his own parents were immigrants and his father had only a third-grade education. Ted, was the first in his family to finish college, then went on to law school.

The first Downtown College Prep seniors were just accepted at San Jose State University and CSU-Monterey Bay and their accomplishments lauded in a Mercury News story. “You get a real sense of accomplishment when you see results like that,” he says. “Giving shouldn’t be a painful process because the giver is always getting something back.”