CASE STUDY : In and Out of The Green Closet

Select Organizations That Meet Your Passion and Goals

He worked as a young adult, and held several jobs at the same time in order to pay his bills. Suddenly, without any prior (or subsequent conversation), his parents started disbursing large sums of money to him. How did he discover this? Because one day he found that the balance in his checking account was drastically higher than it had ever been before.

How to deal with this? In addition to dealing with the emotional realization that he no longer needed to work, he also began to wrestle with the impact of wealth that was vast and continually growing. His first step was to find someone with whom he could talk about these life-changing events. If he quit his job, would people suspect? Should he let his friends and close work buddies know? Would they start treating him differently? With whom could he talk to who might empathize or understand his plight?

An Example of One of His Many Issues:

One of his favorite organizations embarked on a much-needed capital campaign. He really wanted to support them, because he and his friends volunteered for this nonprofit. He was hesitant to do so for fear of being “outed;” and, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to publicly “come out” as well off, much less “rich.” Plus, there were many other organizations doing the type of work he cared about. Trying to decide which organizations to support and at what level, became an issue

Solution

Through his values and needs work, especially the exploration of his workrelated/aspirational values, he discovered that “community” was important to him. He learned to narrow the scope by selecting organizations that met his passion and goals, and had boards and committees composed of individuals with whom he enjoyed spending timing. By recognizing his need to build community and truly feel engaged, he grew comfortable saying “no” to those that did not fulfill his needs and values; and very happy to say “yes” to those that were in alignment with his personal goals and purpose.