My Experience of Setting Up TFAC Trust Funds for The First Three Children

I have brought the first three children into Trust Funds for All Children. Let me tell you some of the things I learned.

Lucy very much wanted to do it for her one-and-a-half-year-old grandchild Alexander, whom she adores. She decided to do the entire $110 a month herself, the equivalent of ten people at $11 a month, because she could afford it. She will take her time to talk to others about participating.

I then talked to the parents of my two grandchildren, Lila Pearl and Gram. They were at first reluctant to participate. They said, “People are involved with many children and we wouldn’t feel good asking people to do this for only our children.”

This made me realize that I, as the grandfather, was the best person to do the inviting of people to participate.

I then told them, “I would be happy to do the inviting.”

We then created a list of potential contributors and quickly got to twenty people, potentially ten for each child. They thought many people on the list would not participate.

I did the asking, we rapidly got fourteen contributors, and some they thought would say no contributed for both children. As nearly all learned about it, they loved participating.

Only two people said no. Let me tell you why each said no.

An aunt, who works with very poor people in the Black community in Hartford, said she supports it but thinks these two children would probably have enough money their entire lives. She would rather have her money immediately go to the poor people she works with.

I immediately responded, “Tell me how I can help? This is all about ending poverty as well as providing minimum monthly financial security for my grandkids when adults.” I will thoroughly enjoy supporting her work in those neighborhoods with some of my annual charitable contributions.

The second person who said no was a grandmother. She responded, “I have nine grandchildren. I do not feel right doing this for two of them and not the other seven.”

I responded, “Then let’s do it for all nine!”

She is not sophisticated in these matters and thought that would not be easy to do, to get ten people for each child. I was about to explain that we could start small with just a few people for each of them and see if others want to join as we go along. Also, once it was set up, people could then contribute on birthdays and holidays. However, I realized that would be more than she would want to talk about at this time. I also knew her son had contributed to both of his children, her two grandchildren. I did not want her to experience me as selling her on it. I wanted to leave her with our conversation being a positive experience within which, if he wanted to, her son could talk with her about it at some point in the future. Plus, we will be seeing each other at family gatherings and surely talking about it with the many other family members who have chosen to participate.

 What my first invitations taught me is, first, it is good to invite all the people on the list prepared by the parents and me at the same time. They will talk to each other, as the people I asked did, and that is a good thing — they know many others are being invited to participate as well and will let each other know their intentions. This can build momentum for all to experience themselves participating together out of care for the children. Also, there is then only a couple of weeks when this is happening, and it is over.

Secondly, I discovered what is most important is to make sure, whether they choose to participate or not, all have a positive experience. That way they will both have good things to say about being invited and can more easily consider participating later when I or others may bring it up to them.

Thirdly, it was good to have the invitation be for $11. That is a number nearly all could afford and could easily say yes to. I usually let people know it could be more or less than $11, but everyone chose to contribute $11 a month rather than talk about another number.

Finally, what also became obvious to me was how important it is to set up a TFAC Trust Fund for every child. Even if only a few people initially participate at the $11 a month, it now exists. Thus, whenever it feels appropriate, others can then be invited to participate at any time in the future.  More important, one-time contributions into it can be invited at any time and particularly on special occasions such as birthdays, holidays, graduations, and in people’s wills. If it doesn’t exist, that can’t happen. At the right time, I plan to circle back to say this to Susan, the grandmother who could not imagine ten people choosing to contribute $11 a month for all nine of her grandchildren.

Lastly, it was fun! Everyone thought it was a beautiful thing I was doing and nearly all participated. It also felt good to be appreciated by all for doing this for Lila Pearl and Gram.