Deal-Making For Good
by Dick Rathgeber and Janis Williams
Dick Rathgeber is a plain-talking Austin developer and business owner who has found a way to link his business endeavors to charities. In Deal-Making For Good, Dick reveals his secret for joining entrepreneurism to philanthropy.
How did this son of a Lutheran minister in small-town Texas become a major player in Austin and beyond? What brought him into position to give away half his income to benefit social service organizations such as the Austin Children's Shelter, the Salvation Army, the People's Community Clinic, the Boy Scouts, Meals on Wheels, the Seton League House (and a baker's dozen other hospitality houses at hospitals in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Louisiana), as well as countless other charities?
He often quotes Bob Buford, who writes, "People spend the first half of their life trying to be successful, and the second half trying to be significant." What does that mean to Rathgeber, and what can readers learn from his story about how to live a significant life?
Read an article from the Austin American-Statesman about Deal-Making For Good, the book I wrote for Dick Rathgeber. The profile, written by Michael Barnes, appeared on the front page of the January 22, 2009, “Life & Arts” section.
"Janis Williams has an uncanny ability to capture a person’s voice in the written word. Many people, after reading Deal-Making for Good, have commented that they felt they could ‘hear me speaking’ as they read."
—Dick Rathgeber