“The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship With Money and Life,” by Lynne Twist (W.W. Norton & Company, 305 pages, $25.95

Early in her distinguished career as a fund raiser for the Hunger Project, global activist Lynne Twist, after much soul-searching, returned a major food company’s $50,000 donation to the project with a polite “thanks, but no thanks.”

Although that $50,000 was, at the time, the largest amount of money she had ever received from a single contributor, and she knew that everyone else at the Hunger Project would be ecstatic about it, Twist didn’t feel right about accepting the contribution.

She explains why in the chapter titled “Money is Like Water” of her provocative and insightful book, “The Soul of Money.”

Twist had been given just 15 minutes to make her case for the contribution from the giant food company. She spoke with conviction about the courage of hungry people around the world and the need for people in more developed societies to become partners with them and help enable them to provide for themselves.

When she finished, Twist realized that the food company’s CEO hadn’t even listened to her. He just retrieved a preprinted, $50,000 check from his desk and gave it to her.

“It was clear that he wanted me gone as quickly as possible. The perfunctory presentation and the tone of his voice told me that he had no genuine interest in our work, in connecting with resource-poor people or in making any kind of difference in the work to end world hunger,” Twist writes.

She surmised that the donation was nothing more than a public-relations device:

“He wanted to off-load the guilt and shame from public mistakes the company had made. And he wanted to have the company look good in the media. In purely financial terms it was to be a simple transaction; handing me this check for $50,000 brought his company and opportunity to mend its reputation. But as he slid the check over to me, I felt the guilt of the company coming right across that desk with the money.”

Later that day, Twist flew from Chicago to New York to address a small gathering in the basement of an old church building in Harlem. After Twist made her passionate plea, a woman, who appeared to be in her 60s or 70s, stood and said:

“Girl, my name is Gertrude and I like what you’ve said and I like you. Now, I ain’t got no checkbook and I ain’t got no credit cards. To me money is a lot like water. For some folks it rushes through their life like a raging river. Money comes through my life like a trickle. But I want to pass it on in a way that does some good for the most folks.”

Gertrude then proceeded to donate $50 that she said she earned doing laundry. Others contributed in amounts of $10 and $20. The total take came to about $500. But Twist said that was the most precious gift she had received for the Hunger Project up to that time.

“Gertrude taught me that the power of money is really derived from the intention we give it and the integrity with which we direct it into the world. Gertrude’s gift was great, and her clarity helped me regain my own,” Twist writes.

The Harlem gathering cemented her decision to return the $50,000. But there is more to the story.

About six years later, Twist received a letter from the food company CEO who had given her the check. He had, by that time, retired with a bountiful severance package. In his letter he told her he was swimming in wealth far beyond his needs. Over the years, he said, he still remembered Twist’s letter accompanying the returned check as a seminal act that flew in the face of all that corporate America had taught him.

The retired food company CEO said he had decided that he did want the money under his control to make a difference and that he did want to make a meaningful contribution to addressing world hunger.

“So from his own pocket, and in affirmation of his own commitment, he made a personal contribution to The Hunger Project many times in excess of the $50,000 that had been returned. He did it from his soul and it was for him, he said, a fulfillment of something that had been left incomplete,” Twist writes.

Although Twist, who has raised more than $150 million in individual contributions for charitable causes and has been honored by the United Nations, is unabashed about the business of encouraging philanthropy in this book, “The Soul of Money” transcends mere fund-raising. It moves the discussion of how people relate to money to a higher plane of reflection.

Giving, of course, is important to her. But Twist wants the giving to be done in the right spirit and for the right causes. In the same way, money should be earned and spent in ways that reflect the highest values of humanity. She is not against making money. Far from it. But the pursuit of money, in her view, should be carried out in ways that do not exploit and degrade other people, cause irreparable damage to the natural environment or leave people without time for family, friends and spiritual growth.

Twist asserts that there are enough resources to sustain everyone on Earth. But despite the abundance, she says, too many people are enslaved by “the great lie of scarcity” and its accompanying “toxic myths.” Those myths, in her view, are: There’s not enough; more is better; and that’s just the way it is.

It is the human embrace of the lie of scarcity, in Twist’s view, that prevents money from flowing like water and providing a life of sufficiency for all.

This is both a visionary book and a practical manual for enriching one’s life financially and spiritually. For many, reading it could be a life-changing experience.

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(c) 2003, Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

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AP-NY-10-09-03 0622EDT