Author Archives: Bret Bicoy

As many a commercial tells us this time of year, “Tis the season of giving.”  While those advertisers want us to think Christmas is about generosity, their idea of “giving” is for us to go out and buy something. While many of us are still digesting our Thanksgiving turkey, Black Friday will begin in theContinue reading “Tis the Season of “Giving””

My wife Cari teaches third grade in a public school in downtown Green Bay. You’d be hard pressed to identify a more wonderfully diverse group of kids anywhere in Wisconsin. In her classroom you’ll find the children of immigrant families from Mexico. Many of her students are the kids of Somalian refugees. Several others areContinue reading “Cari’s Holiday Store”

The S&P 500 has hit a new all-time high more than 50 times this year.  The good news is that there is a way for you to avoid some capital gains taxes, earn a substantial tax deduction, and do a tremendous amount of good for the community you love.  Consider using some of your highlyContinue reading “Maximizing Your Charitable Deduction”

Several years ago, one of my children wanted to participate in a Rotary Youth Exchange and spend a year of high school studying overseas in Chile.  As one of six children, he knew that his parents were more focused on paying for college than giving him money to live in another country.  Thus, our sonContinue reading “Crowdfunding Fails Those in Greatest Need”

The other night I was sitting next to my wife Cari on the couch, scrolling through Google News on my phone. The top story was about some inarticulate comment made by some public figure. What followed were a series of articles and videos of commentators on one side of the political aisle feigning indignation andContinue reading “Let’s Assume the Best of Each Other”

As the fifth of our six children moves into her first apartment this weekend, I cannot help but pause for a moment to celebrate the giving person she has become.  This daughter of ours spends hours dreaming up wonderfully imaginative birthday celebrations for others because she knows how much it will make them smile.  WhenContinue reading “Giving is a Key to Success”

Frank Benford was a physicist in General Electric’s Research Laboratory almost a century ago. In that era, data sets were typed or written out by hand. One day, as he was looking through pages and pages filled with numbers, he noticed a fascinating pattern that was consistent across all his voluminous ledgers of work. First,Continue reading “An Accounting Fraud Tool Applied to Non-Profits”

There’s something wonderfully lyrical about the idea that beauty and generosity are inherently linked.  Perhaps the classical Greek poet Sappho said it best: “He who is fair to look upon is good, and he who is good will soon be fair also.”  Numerous studies over the years have demonstrated that giving and perceived attractiveness areContinue reading “Generosity: The Next Beauty Trend”

A few seasons ago I came across a wonderful t-shirt at Mann’s Mercantile on Washington Island. On the front of the shirt was map of Door County with highways 42 and 57 prominently highlighted. Below the map were the words, “Two Roads, One County.” After the cacophony of the presidential election, I cannot get thisContinue reading “Two Roads, One County”

This June marks 10 years that I’ve been writing columns for the Peninsula Pulse. If I collected all of the feedback I’ve received to everything I’ve written in the last decade, it would not equal the response to my most recent column, “We Must Hold Together as One County.” This last column was about theContinue reading “The Choice to Call Door County Home”