Many ways to leave a legacy
And it doesn’t have to come with dollar sign
The idea of legacy usually makes us think of the uberrich and famous.
Last year, Taylor Swift donated all the profits from one chartbuster to schools in New York City. Billionaire Bill Gates — co-founder of Microsoft — is leaving his vast fortune to charity. And through the Giving Pledge — which urges the world’s wealthiest to leave most of their money to philanthropy — Gates is influencing more tycoons to follow his exemplary altruism.
Many everyday citizens could soon be big-league givers, too. Baby boomers are poised to inherit as much as $1 trillion as their parents pass on. That amount is unprecedented among all previous generations.
Imagine the good that money could do if left as legacy gifts in boomers’ wills.
But a legacy doesn’t have to come with a dollar sign attached. And you don’t have to be an A-lister or international VIP to make a significant mark.
When Canadian Bryan Turner died in a tragic accident in early March, he didn’t leave a million dollars to charity. He left something far richer — a legion of people inspired to change the world.
Dropping out of his first year at university to start a drywall business, it seemed Turner was destined for life as an entrepreneur. Then a family member sent him an email with statistics on global poverty.
Turner found it both inconceivable and unacceptable that millions of children die every year because of poverty. “He had an epiphany,” says his father, Michael Turner.
Turner stopping building walls and started building a better world.
With a belief so strong you could bend iron bars around it, Turner knew the world could end extreme poverty by 2030, if only people had the will. His job was to help them find that will
Re-enrolled at Ottawa’s Carleton University in 2008, Turner rallied his fellow students to add $6 to their student fee. Every dollar goes to the Millennium Villages project to end extreme poverty.
Carleton students have raised more than $750,000. By 2030, it’s estimated the small fee will contribute $3 million to the cause.
Tim Inglis was one of the first students swept up in Turner’s anti-poverty movement at Carleton. “Like most people, I was under the impression poverty existed but there’s nothing I can do about it,” Inglis says. “Bryan made me believe we’ll see the end of poverty in our lifetime, and that I can do something about it.”
Turner wanted that fire to live on in his friends and family, even if he wasn’t there to stoke it. He enjoyed extreme sports like BASE jumping (a parachute jump from a fixed structure like a bridge), but knew there were risks.
Before he left on his last fateful sporting trip, Turner sent his family and closest friends an email to be opened if the worst should happen. It read:
“If I die BASE jumping, please, and I cannot emphasize this enough, do everything you can to help end extreme poverty by 2030 … Don’t waste time being upset about my dying; be upset about the seven million kids that die every year and don’t even get a chance to live.”
Zahra Aldünia remembers Turner as someone who wanted all those around him to enjoy better lives, lives with a purpose. “He’d get to know you, then he’d show you positive changes you could make in your own life.”
To honour Turner, Aldünia created a petition on Change. org that asks people to commit to doing everything in their power to eliminate extreme poverty by 2030. More than 1,200 people have already signed it.
“You could rely on Bryan to save the world. But if he’s not here to do it, we have to,” Aldünia says.
Katherine Rodrigues, Turner’s partner, recalls a complete stranger who approached her a few days after Turner’s death. In tears, the woman explained she had read about Turner and watched some of his online videos. “She said to me: ‘Bryan inspired me. I need to change the direction in my life.’”
For decades to come, many people will be striving to make a better world because of Bryan Turner.
What will your legacy be? Brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger founded the educational partner and international charity Free The Children and the youth empowerment movement We Day.