Giving Back to Those Who Saved Your Baby, Part 3

We've been addressing ways to give back to the people who played such an important role in helping our children survive. On Friday, the topic was giving back through Time. Yesterday, I offered some suggestions of ways you can use your Talent to give back. For today's final segment of this series, I want to talk about ways to give back through Treasure.

Without a doubt, this is the simplest of the three. Provided you have the resources. The simple answer to "How do I give back?" is "Write a check."

And that's not bad advice. Knowing that most of us are not in a position to, say, fund a new wing at the children's hospital, here is a list of ideas of ways to give back (monetarily) at a variety of dollar levels:

• Make a donation earmarked for the NICU at your hospital.
• Donate to a smaller group that works intimately with the NICU; e.g. at our hospital, there is a group known as the Cheer Guild that provides toys, books, etc. to sick children.
• Create a scholarship fund for a student going into nursing or pre-med.
• Consider making a donation to a community like CaringBridge , an online service that enables parents of critically ill children to journal their stories and share pictures.
• Start a "White Envelope" tradition with your family at Christmas- in lieu of (at least some) gifts, take on a project and donation as a family.
• Think about other foundations that helped- maybe you stayed at a Ronald McDonald House. These places rely on donations big and small to operate.
• Coordinate a fund-raiser at work, school, or with a scout troop.
• Hold a bake sale or help your children set up a lemonade stand to raise funds.
• Contribute an unexpected (and thus, hopefully, unbudgeted) holiday bonus to a hospital or cause.

Keep in mind that many donations are tax-deductible. Also remember that if everyone who only had five dollars actually gave it instead of saying "Why bother?", as a group we could raise a whole lot. A drop in the bucket still helps fill it!

I hope those of you who were looking for ideas were perhaps able to find one or two of use over the past few days. I would love to hear what other ideas the rest of you have for great ways to give back to those amazing men and women who helped to save our children!