What You Can Do

You’ve already begun to make Mag­ic by vis­it­ing this web­site. Now you can do more.

Learn

Thor­ough­ly explore what we offer here—class­es and work­shops, and pub­li­ca­tions—if you’ve yet to do so. You’ll find a wealth of infor­ma­tion about ideas, peo­ple, and programs.

Mag­ic res­i­dent asso­ciate teach­es a bacha­ta dance class.

Expe­ri­ence Mag­ic first­hand. Become a client. Take a class. Vol­un­teer. Vis­it for a meal or event. We serve about a thou­sand guest meals and host sev­er­al dozen events each year.

You might learn to

  • devel­op your under­stand­ing and prac­tice of valuescience,
  • com­mu­ni­cate val­ue­science to friends and colleagues,
  • plan your life and live your plan,
  • become calmer, more relaxed, more endur­ing, more flex­i­ble, stronger, and more loving,
  • cre­ate a greater sense of com­mu­ni­ty at home, at work, in a neigh­bor­hood, and else­where, and/or
  • pro­tect the city or town where you live from overbuilding.

Advocate

Mag­ic relies almost entire­ly upon word-of-mouth com­mu­ni­ca­tion to spread aware­ness of its exis­tence. Any who speak appre­cia­tive­ly of what we are and do are crit­i­cal to our con­tin­u­ing suc­cess. If you like what you’ve learned or oth­er­wise expe­ri­enced with us, please tell others.

Give

Each year Mag­ic is gen­er­ous­ly sup­port­ed by hun­dreds of vol­un­teers and oth­er donors whose gifts of labor, mon­ey, and mate­r­i­al typ­i­cal­ly account for about half of its budget.

Res­i­dent Fel­low Robin Bay­er and Board Mem­ber Dinesh Dutt work to ensure our com­put­er sys­tems run smoothly.

We con­sid­er the struc­ture and oper­a­tion of Mag­ic to be vehi­cles for demon­strat­ing the prin­ci­ples on which it was found­ed. By rely­ing heav­i­ly upon gifts, freely giv­ing many of our ser­vices, and coop­er­a­tive­ly nego­ti­at­ing fees based upon clients’ abil­i­ty to pay, we aim to exem­pli­fy some of the ways that we apply val­ue­science to dis­cov­er and to fur­ther com­mon inter­ests of humankind.

If you find the mod­el we’re devel­op­ing at Mag­ic wor­thy, we’ll wel­come all that you do to make it more robust. Mag­ic exists today because those who’ve asso­ci­at­ed with it have given.

Volunteer

Mak­ing Mag­ic entails a great deal of “chop­ping wood and car­ry­ing water.” If you enjoy hands-on work, either alone or with oth­ers, you can help. Plant and care for trees and oth­er native species. Sal­vage usable mate­ri­als from waste. Pick fruit. Build. Paint. Repair. Cook. Clean. Enter data. Take pho­tos. Main­tain infor­ma­tion­al infra­struc­ture. Make copies. We’ll do our best to match your skills and pref­er­ences to avail­able tasks.

Mag­ic vol­un­teer waters native oaks we’d recent­ly planted.

If you’ve spe­cial exper­tise, you may be able to apply it to fur­ther Mag­ic’s pub­lic ser­vice. Because key Mag­ic per­son­nel are full-time vol­un­teers, we’re very grate­ful to health care providers who serve at reduced or no charge. Gifts of ser­vices from lawyers, accoun­tants, mar­keters, writ­ers, artists, graph­ic design­ers, edi­tors, pho­tog­ra­phers, archi­tects, struc­tur­al engi­neers, researchers, pol­i­cy advo­cates, car­pen­ters, plumbers, elec­tri­cians, and com­put­er con­sul­tants have lever­aged Mag­ic’s mod­est mon­ey resources. If you’ve any of these skills or a host of oth­ers we omit­ted, please con­sid­er giv­ing ser­vices to Magic.

Contribute Money

Mag­ic needs mon­ey for tax­es, util­i­ties, prop­er­ty acqui­si­tion and ren­o­va­tion, and for mate­r­i­al and pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices we pur­chase to oper­ate a res­i­den­tial ser­vice learn­ing com­mu­ni­ty that deliv­ers a broad spec­trum of pro­grams for pub­lic ben­e­fit, often with­out fee or oth­er direct sup­port, and for tools, equip­ment, sup­plies, and pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices we pur­chase to oper­ate pro­grams. Make a sin­gle gift or an ongo­ing pledge. Ask your employ­er to match your gift. Hon­or friends or rel­a­tives with gifts to sup­port pub­lic ser­vice through Mag­ic. Please con­tact us for infor­ma­tion about planned giv­ing through trusts and bequests.

These peo­ple serve in sev­er­al roles, learn­ing, advo­cat­ing, vol­un­teer­ing, and con­tribut­ing mon­ey. They’ve cel­e­brat­ed birth­days by bring­ing groups of friends to vol­un­teer with Magic.

To become a Mag­ic affil­i­ate, make a pledge of month­ly, quar­ter­ly, or annu­al con­tri­bu­tions of mon­ey, mate­r­i­al, labor, or pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices. Affil­i­ates enjoy reg­u­lar inter­ac­tion with oth­er Mag­ic per­son­nel, updates on our activ­i­ties, pref­er­en­tial access to Mag­ic class­es and ser­vices, and sat­is­fac­tion shar­ing ongo­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for Mag­ic’s work to fur­ther com­mon good.

For gifts of mate­r­i­al, labor, or pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices, please con­tact us.

For mon­ey gifts, click here.

Donate and of the fol­low­ing items: land or a build­ing; a car, boat or plane; office and house­hold fur­nish­ings, equip­ment, and sup­plies: food; build­ing mate­ri­als; cloth­ing; event tick­ets; vehi­cle or facil­i­ties use, etc. We rely heav­i­ly on gifts-in-kind. Some we use; oth­ers we sell to raise funds. Please ask us before you dis­pose of unwant­ed items.

Res­i­dent Fel­low David Schrom gives a tour of Mag­ic’s newest res­i­dence, built and fur­nished with exten­sive use of in-kind gifts, With our phys­i­cal infra­struc­ture we reflect both our eco­log­i­cal analy­sis and lives ground­ed in it.

Our cur­rent wish list includes

  • Con­struc­tion tools and equipment,
  • Fit­ness-club qual­i­ty exer­cise equip­ment (ellip­ti­cal train­er, row­ing ergome­ter, tread­mill, pow­er lift­ing rack, free weights),
  • Mac­in­tosh com­put­ers, and
  • Rur­al land with­in fifty miles of Palo Alto.