| If you look for wealthy donors in all the usual | | | | homes, luxury cars, exotic vacations). |
| places you'll receive the usual result. | | | | Stanley also discovered that a great number of |
| Disappointment. | | | | people who have wealth don't live in upscale |
| Why not learn a lesson from the authority on the | | | | neighbourhoods. Instead, they live in houses |
| wealthy, Thomas Stanley? When the author of | | | | valued at around $420,000 and have lived in the |
| The Millionaire Next Door and other books about | | | | same house for more than 20 years. They live |
| millionaires began studying these folks and how | | | | well below their means. Their neighbours don't |
| they got rich, he figured the best place to find | | | | know how wealthy these folks are. And neither |
| millionaires to interview was wealthy | | | | do most of the children of millionaires know how |
| neighbourhoods. Places like Manhattan and Beverly | | | | wealthy their parents are until these children are |
| Hills. | | | | old enough to receive an inheritance. |
| But Stanley made the same mistake that many | | | | The lesson for you to learn from Stanley's |
| non-profit organizations make in hunting for the | | | | research is to look beyond the obvious when |
| wealthy. Stanley assumed that the people who | | | | looking for wealthy prospective donors. Look |
| live in wealthy neighbourhoods are wealthy. He | | | | beyond the mansion. Look beyond the Cadillac. |
| was wrong, as he himself admits. | | | | Look beyond the annual income. |
| What Stanley discovered from his research was | | | | Wealth is not what you paid for your house. |
| that many people who live in expensive homes in | | | | Wealth is not what you earn. Wealth is not what |
| upscale neighbourhoods do not have much wealth. | | | | you spend. Wealth is what you save. Most |
| Plenty of them are living beyond their means, and | | | | millionaires are accumulators and investors, not |
| have only the trappings of wealth (expensive | | | | spenders. |