We’re so glad you’re here! If you’ve been inspired by anything you’ve seen or read on our site today, we hope you’ll take the next step and get joy from your own giving!
Below are a few ideas to get you started. Use these or come up with your own.
The most important thing is to be on the look-out for opportunities to be generous, and then GO FOR IT when you get the nudge to do so. We can’t wait to hear your stories!
Level 1: Easy-peasy steps you can take THIS WEEK!
Buy someone’s coffee who is in the drive-through line behind you. They’ll never know who you are, but they’ll be totally blessed getting free coffee and they might just pass it along to the car behind them. You could start a drive-through of generosity!
Donate stuff: Take 20-30 minutes to go through a closet or a few drawers in your home and donate things you rarely/never use to someone who would use them a lot! If you search “donation drop off __your city name__” you’ll find several places that will gladly take your gently used goods. You could make someone’s day who is cold and needs one of your warm sweaters!
Give a 100% tip: Next time you go out to eat, give a 100% tip on your bill (e.g., if your bill is $35, give a $35 tip; if it’s $120, give a $120 tip). Bonus: find out your servers’ name and tell them what a great job they did. You could make a server’s day – through generosity with both your words and your money!
Engage your kids and put some envelopes of cash together ($5-$20 is great) including some of their money (so they get the joy of giving too!). Have your kids draw a picture or write something kind on the envelopes and then set out together to deliver them to whoever you come across. It could be the guy at the end of the off-ramp, it could be a gal at the grocery store – whoever your heart is prompted to bless. Bonus: if you’re planning to bless homeless folks who are outside…take along some plates of cookies to give them. We did this one year and gave a guy an envelope of cash and a small plate of cookies and he gave us a huge grin and said, “I LOVE cookies.” Made my year!
Level 2: Fun steps you can take when you’re ready to kick it up a notch.
Do a food drive at your workplace by contacting the local food bank and your company’s HR folks to get it approved and in place. Bonus: Find out specifically what the food bank needs and put a list on the collection bins so folks know exactly what to buy and the food bank gets just what they need for the folks they serve. Bonus number two: Create teams at your workplace to create some competition that will increase the food you collect – you could even encourage folks to “show their support for their favorite sports team” and have different bins for each team – so they will compete to make sure their team wins! Food is a basic human need, and you could bring LOTS of it to some hungry families by taking a few extra steps to engage folks in your workplace.
Invite your friends to support your favorite organization: Contact your favorite nonprofit and ask if one of their staff could come to your home or office for a short evening event to share about their work with your friends/colleagues – and then invite your friends/colleagues to support the organization. This is generosity of influence and relationships, and takes great courage, but could provide far more resources to the organization you love instead of only what you can give them. Be brave! Go for it!
Go on a site-visit: Do some research to find out a bit more about an organization you love and then go visit to see their work (around the corner or across the world!). This will open your eyes and heart even more to the needs the organization is meeting, and you’ll feel great about the donation you make afterward. Bonus: take your family or friends with you on the site visit so their hearts can be moved too!
Level 3: Meaningful steps you can take when you’re ready to take your generosity to a whole new level.
Invite Joelle to come speak to your company or group. Joelle has been doing joyful generosity for decades and has great insights on how to do this well as a company and as a family. She provides great strategy insights for creating a generosity plan as well as great stories to inspire you to be generous on every occasion! You can invite Joelle by getting in touch with us through our contact form.
Create your own giving model (see ours below). Spending the time and intention on this will help provide a great framework for all your giving going forward.
Open a Donor Advised Fund or start a Private Foundation to use as your giving vehicle. This will enable you to give in a more simple and potentially tax efficient way so you have more to give and spend less time managing your giving!
Hire a philanthropy advisor to help your family or company set up a giving mission, strategy, and focus areas, so you can say yes or no with confidence to any request or giving opportunity that comes your way and be on the same page as a family/company about the who/where you’re going to give to! (Contact us for a list of philanthropy advisors we know and trust.)
Most importantly, give where your heart is led, and then share the joy with others!
“Your spark can become a flame and change everything.” – E.D. Nixon
