| Adventures
in Giving is a philanthropic advisory services firm that
specializes in international grantmaking and related adventure travel
for individuals and family foundations. For six years Adventures
in Giving has worked closely with family foundations to create
informed, targeted and effective international gifting programs that
are powerful in impact as well as exciting and fulfilling for the
families and individuals involved. President Susan Cornell Wilkes is a frequent speaker on microcredit and high-impact international grantmaking. Her clients value her extensive practical experience in international economic, social and human development during a thirty-five year career in the United States and over twenty countries. As a Trustee of her own family’s foundation, The Peter C. Cornell Trust, Susan is able to help donors find programs and projects that engage their passions and help create sustainable change in their fields of interest. Often a donor’s dollars can be leveraged many times over to bring in substantially greater levels of funding from other donors or private and public sector sources. Adventures in Giving organizes adventure travel for individuals and multi-generational family groups to developing countries to learn about needs and solutions, visit existing or potential grantees and experience available adventure opportunities, such as hiking the Inca Trail, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, trekking in Nepal, visiting jungle safari lodges and many more. A particular area of the firm’s expertise is microcredit or microenterprise lending, a major anti-poverty movement that is one of the world’s most powerful tools for the transformation of lives, families and communities. For millions of the world’s ambitious poor, one small loan opens the door to new lives. Microcredit helps people help themselves. As loans are repaid, the money is recycled multiple times. Microcredit turns hunger, despair and humiliation into hope and action and helps alleviate the causes of alienation that can lead to terrorism. For his work, microcredit pioneer Muhammad Yunus was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. Adventures in Giving provides clients with tools for successful international grantmaking such as:
Individuals, families and their children who undertake international giving and visit their grantees’ overseas consistently say that their own lives are transformed. They gain new perspectives, a broader understanding of the globe and their role in it and a commitment to helping build a more just and equitable world. And they have fun doing it! |