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''The Power of Half: One Family's Decision to Stop Taking and Start Giving Back'', is a book written by Kevin Salwen and his teenage daughter Hannah in 2010.〔 The book describes how the Salwen family came to decide to sell its home, so that they could donate half the proceeds to charity. It discusses what the family went through in selling its home, donating half the sales price, and down-grading to a smaller home, and what they learned in the process.〔 Finally, the book details the Salwens' process in choosing a charity partner that would fit their values and effect a lasting change, and how their actual actions supporting and empowering a village in Ghana to help themselves, differed from their original idea of "direct involvement".〔 ==Synopsis== Hannah Salwen, 14 years old at the time, had a desire to do something to fix the world’s wrongs, and make a difference.〔〔 To do that, she had to convince her family— her father Kevin (a magazine start-up founder and former ''Wall Street Journal'' journalist and editor), her mother Joan (a former management consultant partner at Accenture, who had turned to teaching English), and her younger brother Joseph.〔〔 The book details why and how the Salwen family decided to sell their home in 2006.〔 〕 The home was a luxurious, 6,500-square-foot (600-square-meter), 1912 historic dream-house in Ansley Park, in midtown Atlanta, Georgia. It had Corinthian columns, five bedrooms, eight fireplaces, four ornate bathrooms, and a private elevator to Hannah's bedroom.〔 The family down-graded, by replacing their home with a house that was half as expensive, and less than half the size.〔 The Salwens donated the other half of the proceeds of the sale of their original home ($850,000) to a charity. They chose The Hunger Project, a charity that works to lessen the hunger of 30,000 rural villagers in over 30 villages in Ghana, and help the villagers move from poverty to self-reliance.〔〔〔〔〔 The book describes the egalitarian, one-person-one-vote, consensus-driven process that the parents and their two children used–over a period of time–to reach the decision to give away half the value of their home, and how they chose the charity from a number of non-profit organizations that they considered.〔〔〔 It also describes the challenges that the family had to overcome in turning their family project into a reality, from economic ones to keeping the project a secret for a period of time so that they would not appear to be "freaks" to their friends.〔 Before they embarked on the project, though the family members dined together they were otherwise each busy with their own activities, and drifting apart.〔 Hannah, for her part, opined that ''The Power of Half'' "is a relationships book, not really a giving book." She felt that while she made a small difference in the world, one great impact the project had was that during the process she and her family grew much more connected to each other. ''The New York Times Book Review'' described the book by saying it details how the family "became happier with less—and urges others to do likewise."〔 Kevin Salwen admitted: "We know that selling a house is goofy, and we recognize that most people can't do it."〔 Asked if he was suggesting that other people follow suit, he answered: "We never encourage anybody to sell their house. That was just the thing that we had more than enough of. For others it may be time, or lattes, or iTunes downloads, or clothes in their closet. But everyone has more than enough of something.”〔 He also clarified: We want our kids to be idealistic, but we also say, ‘Let’s not go too nuts here'. We’re not Mother Teresa. We’re not taking a vow of poverty, or giving away half of everything we own. We gave away half of one thing, which happened to be our house. Everybody can give away half of one thing, and put it to use. You’ll do a little bit of good for the world–and amazing things for your relationships.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Power of Half」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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