Giving Back

Record highs for the stock market. Record lows for unemployment. Record prices for mergers and acquisitions. Record multiples for IPOs. A good year for getting and having -- but what about giving? Every holiday season, in our Unit of One section, we talk to leaders from a wide array of industries and backgrounds to learn how they use their time, skills, and money to give something back. Our goal is not only to identify various ways in which one person can make a difference but also to suggest that making a difference is something that all of us can do. Here are 17 leaders, doers, and change makers -- 17 givers -- who offer instruction and inspiration on giving back. At a time of unparalleled getting and spending, they testify to the power of giving and sharing.

Michael Roux

President and founder
Crillon Importers Ltd.
Paramus, New Jersey

The best way to give is to give much, often, and anonymously. Don't speak about your giving, and don't think when you give. Just give, both with your means and with your heart. And give spontaneously. Real charity can happen at any moment in life. I came to this country from France with a couple of hundred dollars in my pocket, and I started working as a dishwasher in a Houston hotel in 1964. At one point, I had to buy a car, and a coworker -- someone I barely knew -- offered to cosign for the loan. Was this charity? I don't think so, because he didn't give me anything material. Instead, he gave me his confidence, which was the greatest gift in the world. If you have the resources to give away a lot of money, then by all means do so. But don't underestimate the value of personal charity.

I've always operated on the principle that your first real dollar isn't the first dollar that you earn. Your first real dollar is the one that you give away. Since I've had the good fortune to become successful in America, I want to depart with no more than the $200 that I had in my pocket when I arrived here. By the time I die, I want to have given back to this country just about everything that I've received here. I have a family, so I have to give something to them, but I'm not going to spoil them for generations. They must build something of their own. Once I've fulfilled my responsibility to them, I'll give the rest back. The world is your larger family. You have a responsibility to provide for its future as well.

Michel Roux took an unknown Swedish vodka -- Absolut -- and turned its squat, short-necked bottle into an American icon. This year, he founded his own company, Crillon Importers, which distributes imported products, including such fanciful concoctions as Elisir du Dr. Roux, a 94-proof herbal liqueur that is said to have aphrodisiac qualities, and Le Vin du Coeur, a wine that features same-sex couples on two of its three labels.

Elsie Meeks

Executive director
Lakota Fund
Kyle, South Dakota

I run a small business and a microlending program on the Pine Ridge Reservation, in the poorest county in the United States. We provide loans of up to $25,000 to the Lakota people, as well as ongoing technical assistance and a seven-week training course that covers basic business topics. Our main function is to lend money, but our mission is to develop people. Yes, we want to build a private-sector economy here, but what we really want is for people to learn to be good managers and to run their own lives. We're starting businesses, but we're also building a nation. If you want instant gratification, working with a struggling community isn't the way to get it. But there are some very simple ways that you can make a difference. Make yourself available to whatever economic or small-business development program is in your area. Explain what it took to get your business up and running, and how your type of business works. And consider hiring people from a welfare-to-work program. Then teach them what you know. How else will they learn?

Elsie Meeks (info@lakotafund.org) is co-owner of the Long Creek Grocery, in Wanblee, South Dakota, and executive director of the Lakota Fund. Established in 1986, the fund has distributed 500 loans, which are worth a total of more than $1.5 million. The fund also operates an arts-and-crafts marketing program, which introduces artisans to basic business concepts and which serves as a wholesale distributor for their work. Lakota quill and beadwork products are available on the fund's Web site (www.lakotafund.org).