Neroli moved to Seattle from South Africa in September with her partner, who’s now working in tech. Their annual household income is between $70,000 and $100,000. While she waits to get a visa that’ll allow her to work here, Neroli told us she wanted to get involved in local causes.

“I don’t want to be one of those people who just passes through,” she told us. “I am eager to help contribute towards building and strengthening the collective and learn more about the community that I am now a part of.”

One week after she met with Ben, Burke, and Frank, here’s a breakdown of how Neroli’s thinking about giving her time and/or money to Seattle…

Issues of interest: Equity, human rights, cultural history, and government transparency

Budgets:

• Available to volunteer between 10 and 20 hours per month
• Currently able to donate about $100 annually

Neroli’s challenges:

• Being new in town. “Currently, I’m not earning [an income]. My partner is able to earn, so we’d have to have that [monetary giving] discussion together,” she said. “It’s [part of] the general chaos of rebuilding your life in a new place and figuring out basic things like grocery shopping, how much things cost, and finding a community.”
• Living on a budget. “I’m early in my career so I don’t have a lot of disposable income,” Neroli said. “[Giving] hasn’t been a consistent thing and I haven’t been able to give a lot of money.”
• Researching local needs. “Doing my homework is really important to me. I don’t want [donations] to be a pat on the back, but it to feel right to [my] values and giving to organization that’s filling a gap,” she told us. “Some organizations start at $5 and some want more substantial contributions. I’m trying to figure out what really resonates with me.”

Neroli’s three key takeaways from her giving audit:

• Helping out doesn’t have to cost a lot. “You don’t have to be very wealthy to be able to make meaningful financial contributions to a cause that you care about,” she told us. Pro-tip from Burke: “Being a monthly sustainer for even a few groups is a good way to get to know organizations… Even small donations do make a difference for these grassroots groups.”
• Trust local advocates to show you how you can best contribute. Even when it hasn’t been fully ironed out. Pro-tip from Ben: “Sometimes the best organizations are the messiest because they aren’t well resourced enough to have a volunteer coordinator… But you can build trust with [them] by showing up, being flexible, being positive, and doing things proactively.”
• There are a lot of ways to give back. “Once you realize that, it opens up so many tangible opportunities to building a more equitable world,” Neroli told us. “This is very empowering in a world where it’s so easy to be cynical and despairing given the current growing inequality, the climate crisis and the political climate in the U.S. and many other parts of the world.”

What’s next for Neroli’s giving plan?

To figure that out, Neroli created a handy spreadsheet of the Seattle orgs she loved learning about during the audit, like The Seattle Globalist, the Coalition of Anti-Racist Whites, and the Washington Coalition for Open Government. “I plan to attend their events to get a better sense of what they need and what I could contribute with either time or financial support,” she told us. “My goal is to identify two or three organizations that I could meaningfully contribute to on a regular basis either by volunteering my time, by making charitable donations, or subscribing to their publications to support their work.”

Thanks to Neroli, Frank, Ben, and Burke for being part of our giving audit experiment. We’ll update more from our auditees as we hear more about their plans. Thanks to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for making our Evergrey Giving Guide possible — and check out the rest of our Giving Guide.

This building ‘literally saves people’s lives.’ Seattle’s Central Library in downtown was named the most Instagramed library in the world last week. This week, it got a bigger, better shoutout in a British magazine. “The library literally saves people’s lives,” Andrew Constantino told the New Statesman. He’s lived homeless here for six years and loves that the library gives him a warm place to be, read, get training and counseling, and not feel judged. “It’s an oasis, a refuge for thousands of people,” he said. Fun fact: It even installed free phones this summer specifically to help its homeless visitors. ♥️ (New Statesman)

Tell your homebrewer friends: Reuben’s Brews in Ballard is taking submissions for Hop Idol, a huge homebrew competition now in its third year. They got 116 hoppy entries last year — from as far away as Alabama — so you’ll have to meet a high bar 😉. The winner gets to brew their beer with Reuben’s and sell it in around the Northwest. Give it your ale, all. 🍺 (MyBallard, Reuben’s Brews)

Oh look, your life story’s on. If you haven’t read Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman, the best-selling memoir from big-time Seattle culture critic Lindy West, you can watch it on TV starting March 15. Hulu is making a series based on the book that stars Saturday Night Live’s Aidy Bryant, and the first pics from the show are out this week. They filmed it in Portland instead of Seattle (👎) but used the same crew as Portlandia (👍) (BuzzFeed)

The Seattle Sushi, huh? Nothing sparks a good brainstorm like a new, nameless pro sports team. And you can add uniforms to the list of things that sports fans are suggesting for the Seattle pro hockey team that’s going to hit the ice in 2021. ESPN asked amateur designers for their best suggested threads and logos, and scrolling through the results are a good way to spend a coffee break. Their pick for presentation? This Seattle Kraken concept from designer Jim Brewster, a.k.a. “Sparky Chewbarky.” (ESPN)

Oops. The bad news: We had a bit of a tech hiccup yesterday that you might have noticed in the form of a new “welcome” email months after you subscribed (sorry about that!). The good news: Our tech team caught the bug and is here to help. Notice something that doesn’t look quite right about your subscription? Hit reply to let us know and we’ll get it sorted out as soon as we can.

P.S. — YOU WON AN AWARD!

We are pumped to let you know that the homelessness project you worked on with us — the one where you sent in hundreds of questions about a complex, critical issue — won the 2018 Hearken Curiosity Award for “Best collaboration between organizations.”

Huge props to every single one of you who shared your deep down honest questions, and to the fellow Seattle journalists who huddled up with us to plan some solid, community driven reporting all across the city to answer them: Monica Nickelsburg at GeekWire, Cambria Roth and Mason Bryan at Crosscut, Jill Jackson at KUOW, Ashley Archibald at Real Change, Daniel DeMay at Seattlepi.com, Neal McNamara at Patch Seattle, and Beth Kramer at ParentMap.

Stay curious, all. — The Evergrey