Generosity can be contagious in a healthy way.
Brother David Steindl-Rast

Christian Smith is a professor of sociology and the director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame. The university gained funding to start the Science of Generosity initiative from the John Templeton Foundation. The initiative tag line is “exploring an essential human virtue” and they consider this the infancy of a new science focused on human generosity.

In a recent article in Science and Religion, Smith tells of the current research projects they have going:

• Ariel Knafo, a psychologist at Hebrew University is working on “The Family Cycle of Kindness and Generosity.” This uses studies of identical twins to find how nature and nurture (child development, genetics, and environment) work together in children in the development of a generous disposition.

• Carolyn Warner , a political scientist at Arizona State University,  is working on “The Role of Religious Beliefs and Institutions in Generosity” by looking specifically at Catholicism and Islam. She hopes to help us better understand how specific religious beliefs and practices differ between these religions, how they help foster or create obstacles to generosity, and investigate whether they encourage generosity toward outsiders or toward their own communities.

• James Andreoni, an economist at the University of California, San Diego has a project called “The Inherent Sociality of Giving and Altruism.” It takes his research on the positive emotional experience charitable donors experience (the “warm-glow”) and expands it to understand the relationship dyadic between the donor and recipient. He regards generosity as a principally social act and seeks to understand the role that empathy plays in the donor-recipient relationship.

• Nicholas Christakis is a sociologist at Harvard University who focuses on social networks. He hopes to investigate how much social networks rely on generosity to keep them solvent and functional. He will also research how generous acts can spread and cascade through social networks.

Here we have the fields of psychology, human development, political science, religious studies, behavioral economics, sociology, and communications all studying the trait of generosity. And the John Templeton Foundation is funding research beyond just the work going on through Notre Dame. It seems that generosity studies have become popular. Smith says, “The science of generosity is in its infancy.” Indeed!

It’s not that you’ve got to be generous, but you get to be.
It’s not haranguing or threatening. It’s liberation.
Dr. Martin E. Marty

The great challenges of our time — poverty, the environment, war — should inspire humility, but also creativity and bold action. They cry out for large-minded generosity — that is, the magnanimity that springs from wholesome self-esteem. Without humility, we elbow others aside. But without magnanimity, we bury our talent in a napkin.
- Dean Brackley

Here comes the rainy season! Governments and organizations from all over the world have sent people, equipment and supplies, and funds into the country.  These organizations are there for the long haul and hope to better Haitians lives well beyond pre-earthquake levels. Many individuals from all over the globe have contributed as well with generous donations. What do we know about how that giving has continued beyond the initial response, when the Haiti earthquake was the lead story and horrifying pictures were in the media every day?

Data about giving by individuals beyond the first few days is hard to come by. Historically, individual giving has dropped off as soon as the initial crisis is over. It is possible to imagine many people sending an initial donation, one that is as generous as the person can afford at the moment. This may give the feeling that an appropriate response has been given and nothing more needs to be done.

Network for Good reported on January 22nd of this year:

After the Haiti earthquake, donations peaked within two days of the event and then steadily declined. New media coverage of aftershocks and on-the-ground response complications slowed the decline of giving one week out. The House of Representatives bill to include Haiti donations on 2009 tax returns may encourage more charitable contributions in the weeks ahead, further slowing the donation drop-off that usually occurs post-disaster.

Here is a chart from Network for Good, showing the donation amounts per day following the disaster:

Now the United Nations and the Red Cross are warning that on top of their other troubles, the rainy season is coming to Haiti and, if they cannot improve sanitation, water, facilities, etc – falling water and standing water will just add to people’s illness and suffering.

What have you decided about your contributions to Haiti earthquake relief?

• Make a single donation, as large as I can make
• Work with an organization to help gather donations, supplies, etc.
• Make regular donations until the Haitians are out of danger
• Leave it up to governments and the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to support disaster relief

The donor does not go without reward.
-The Buddha

Bill & Melinda Gates, photo © 2009 Kjetil Ree, some rights reserved

For the second year in a row, Bill Gates has published a rather sprawling annual letter. It is about what the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is seeing in all of the worldwide data they have access to, and the foundation’s activities. Gates is frank, appreciative and optimistic about what we can achieve together with our generosity. In light of the tough problems the foundation is directly confronting, this is inspiring.

Despite the tough economy, I am still very optimistic about the progress we can make in the years ahead. A combination of scientific innovations and great leaders who are working on behalf of the world’s poorest people will continue to improve the human condition.
- Bill Gates

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation takes a more global view than countries or even groups of countries (the European Union or United Nations for instance), so the letter is pretty broad in perspective. The 2010 Annual Letter from Bill Gates covers 12 “chapters”, including of the foundation priority areas. This makes it easy to read the parts that are of most interest to you on the web.

One thing that particularly concerns Gates is the amount of foreign aid given by individual countries. He measures this “generosity” by taking foreign aid as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). By this measure, the United States, although the largest giver in total dollar amounts, falls far below other industrialized countries.

The United States is the biggest giver in absolute terms, but in percentage terms gives only 0.19 percent. In recent years, a significant portion of this assistance went to reconstruction in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. If Congress passes President Obama’s proposal to double giving, however, the United States will get up into a very respectable range.
- Bill Gates

Here is the chart showing the 2008 figures:

As part of their efforts, Bill and Melinda Gates are working to spread the word about how highly successful aid effort have been. Gates says,

The public may not prioritize keeping foreign aid at high levels because so many of them have not heard how effective it is. Some formed their image of foreign aid during the Cold War, when money was sent to buy the allegiance of a dictator with very little control to make sure it was well spent. We need to get the successes to be far more visible than they are today.

To that end, they created the presentation, Why We are Impatient Optimists. This is available in its entirety on the web, in parts according to topic and there is a highlights video if you want get an idea of what type of information is covered. I have embedded the entire video below but if you click through on the hotlink above, you can select just a potion to watch if you wish. Enjoy!

UN Photo/Logan Abass

The habit of giving only enhances the desire to give.
- Walt Whitman

The recent tragedy of the Haiti earthquake has resulted in an amazing outpouring of generosity on the part of Americans. This has included charitable responses by aid organizations, medical and emergency rescue assistance and supplies, the US military lending its resources, and the contributions of countless private citizens. This is a bright spot in a bleak catastrophe, one that provides the potential for people’s generosity to keep growing.

The most recent total of financial giving for Haiti is $560,000,000. This is an astounding amount of generosity, especially when you consider that these donations are over and above people’s existing responsibilities and charitable gifts. This is $560 million dollars donated by Americans, most of which would not have been donated before the tragedy – which still continues. Hopefully the giving will also continue to sustain the effort until Haiti gains some rebuilding.

What does this mean for the average person (who may or may not be experiencing financial difficulty herself during this time)? What might she learn through responding to the Haiti earthquake disaster?

• She may understand in a new way that her money can be a blessing to someone else.
• She may feel as if, in the face of this unspeakable horror, that she can contribute to making the survivor’s lives better – even in a small way.
• She may use this as an opportunity to teach young people (her children or others’) about being generous.
• She may realize that, no matter how much or little she has, she has something to give to people in need.
• She may learn something about doing basic research to ensure her donations are made skillfully.
• She may understand that she has more resources than she thought.

Cynics may decry that human tragedy is needed to free up people’s generosity, that we are reactive givers instead of responsive givers. There may also be doubts about how well these donations can be managed to make the most difference. Concerns over the sovereignty of the Haitian people and government may arise as they are surrounded by aid efforts. Eventually there may be stories of mismanagement, and scam artists are already trying to take advantage of people’s desire to contribute.

Still, a door has opened in people’s hearts. Something is moving that was not moving before, and new levels of charity mean that some of those donors will discover something in this process. Neuroscience teaches us that as we do new things, our brain can develop new neural-pathways, new links, to accommodate those actions. Each new action is an opportunity. In this case, hundreds of thousands of opportunities to grow in our generosity have occurred.

Nothing, no amount of money or aid or support, will undo the terrible devastation, the hundreds of thousands of lives lost, the actual collapse of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The good things that may grow out of the Haiti Earthquake are incidental and will be shadowed into darkness by the suffering the Haitians are enduring. Still it is worthwhile to keep our spirits up, and theirs as much as we can by noticing any bright spots in the grief. To me, the generosity of thousands of Americans like you is a bright spot which bodes well for our future.

The practice of generosity is about creating space.
We see our limits and we extend them continuously,
which creates an expansiveness and spaciousness of mind that’s deeply composed.
- Sharon Salzburg

Photo www.giselagiardino.com.ar

Generosity is more charitable than wealth.
- Joseph Roux

This is the time of year when many people are focused on giving gifts, be they Christmas, Hanukkah, or year-end gifts from many other traditions. It is a time to be generous to the people we care about. It is also the time to think about our final charitable gifts of the year; for many people December is when they give most of their donations. So how do you decide where to give your charitable donations? If your resources are more precious this year, in light of economic challenges, your focus may be even more important. Here are some ideas.

First of all, your resources are not limitless so give your gifts to causes and organizations that you really care about. You can make a difference in the world with your charitable gifts, as you can with your time, energy, intelligence, and muscle. The greatest benefit will occur where you give all of these, so learn to say no to charitable causes that you don’t care about and give your all to those you do.

Take a risk! Be more generous than you think you can be and be willing to fund efforts that may or may not “cure” the problem. Organizations that are really trying to make a difference may be trying new tactics or may be taking a real risk themselves. That is when they need our generosity the most. If you care about an issue, do not let your need for success limit the creativity and vision of people who are committed to addressing that issue.

Consider making fewer and larger gifts instead of many smaller gifts. This will allow you to make a real connection with the organizations you support and be more thoughtful in your contributions. It will not only make more of a difference, it will also reduce the amount of solicitation mail and other wasted communications you get from other charities.

Do you want to support organizations that work outside of systems or those working inside the system? For instance, if you are interested in childhood education, you may want to support a charter school, which works outside of the public school system. Or you may want to support an organization like Teach for America, which places talented young people in low-income area public schools. Almost any issue will have organizations that are finding a new way, and ones that are trying to support the systems in place to work better.

Consider what kind of results you are looking for. Are you interested in engaging as many people as possible, in leveraging the most resources to make a difference, or are you more interested in measurable change for those who are affected? For instance, if you are passionate about childhood hunger, would you support an organization that works worldwide and moves a large amount of food aid into needed areas? Or would you support an organization that works more directly with a specific population area to reduce the number of children living with malnutrition? These are complex situations and help is needed everywhere; you must decide what makes the most sense to you.

You may also want to think about your own role over time. Are you someone who wants to support an ongoing issue and see it through your entire lifetime or are you more inclined to try and do something about an urgent and topical problem? If you are someone who needs to see clear results quickly, you might keep that in mind when deciding on an organization to support.

An organization’s cost to raise a dollar (CTRD) is something donors are often encouraged to consider. However, this equation is not as simple as it appears. All donors want to ensure that most of their donation is going to the cause of beneficiaries, and there are industry standards about the maximum amount that should go to fundraising expenses. However if an organization is changing it scale to try to have a broader effect, or is reorienting its mission, the CTRD may for a time be justifiably higher. If it is an organization that uses has a public communication mission (to raise awareness of AIDS for instance), their fundraising may be more costly, since it may include public campaigns as well. The best way to understand these issues is to know as much as you can about the organization you are supporting.

Many donors also want to know that their donations are going directly to a program and not to pay for running the charity; thinking this will ensure their donation will have the greatest effect on the problem. Although this may be true, it is also important to consider that if you support the capacity-building of a nonprofit, they may be better able to address the issue you care about. After all, you are contributing to an organization because they do something. Without the capacity, they cannot do it.

This list of factors to consider may be overwhelming. However, if you are willing to do a little research and communicate with nonprofit organizations that you are considering, you will gain the knowledge that will make your decisions easier:

• Learn as much as you can about the issue you care about; this will inform you about which organizations are making a difference and how
• Find an organization’s annual report on the web or request that it be sent to you
• Research the organization on the web and on charity rating websites
• Make a small initial donation to see what kind of information is provided to donors
• Volunteer with the organization; this personal contact will tell you a lot about the issue and how the organization is addressing it

This is also the season for thanks. Thanks to you for carefully considering your charitable gifts – and for being so generous!

If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time.
But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine,
then let us work together.
- Lilla Watson, Murri (Aboriginal Australian) visual artist, activist and educator

Over time a theme has emerged on this blog; that is the relationship between charitable contributors, organizations who engage them, and the beneficiaries who are supported by their efforts. This can be seen in many of the postings under the category Contributor Relationships (in the gold bar on the left).  Kim Samuel-Johnson recently posted a frank and poignant essay about her struggles as a philanthropist to be in relationship as a contributor. She says:

I’ve noticed that isolation, or at least a feeling of bleak separation, can occur in the very act of philanthropy; that sometimes the manner in which the gift is made diminishes and isolates both the person who is seen as giving and the person who is seen as receiving.

Ms. Samuel-Johnson is the president of the Samuel Foundation and a board member of The Synergos Institute. Synergos publishes the online newsletter Global Giving Matters and this essay is the first to look at the inner journey of a philanthropist.

Samuel-Johnson is concerned with the isolation that comes from having financial resources out of scale with others; this can make her feel like an outsider. She is advocating that the contributors, service providing organizations, and beneficiaries join together as a community of concern. This is reflected in postings on this Generosity Path blog such as A Relationship with Beneficiaries. She says is beautifully here:

So, far from feeling separated out as “the person with the money,” or the outsider in some other way, I feel the boundaries between the “me” and the “they” disappear. I feel welcome as part of, if you like, the family. This means a lot to me.
And yet – and this is important – there has to be a clarity and an honesty about what it is that each of us can bring. In my case, I try to bring a lot of passion and very high standards, two qualities I consider essential for philanthropy, because we all need to engage both the heart and the mind. I’ve also brought monetary resources, which are generally not unimportant.
In the case of others, though, they have brought resources of comparable or greater value, including knowledge of the community, management or other skills, creativity, hard-won knowledge, or a commitment to see the project through. In a way, mine may have been the easiest contribution to secure!

In the essay Samuel-Johnson also connects giving and receiving into one dynamic, where both givers and receivers benefit in their own way. She says,

I finally understand that if the giving and receiving is done with the right spirit, from all corners, bearing in mind that we are all giving and receiving simultaneously, then money is a facilitator, not my “gift” per se but instead an expression of my commitment, and an important one at that.

And here she lays out a vision of how this contributor/beneficiary relationship can honor everyone’s contributions and reduce isolation for all of the collaborators:

If the giving and receiving is shared and if everyone is able to come to the table, roll up his or her sleeves, and work together with an understanding of the interests, experience, passion, and goals that brought us together, then each of our needs will have already been factored into the initiative.
What is left then is simply a group of people creating something new together, in harmony, where no one at the table and from there outwards to the various partners or constituents feels like they are ever alone. I interpret this kind of collaboration as stemming from a wholesome and generous spirit of giving and receiving, a place of being included.

This is beautiful, brave, and counter-cultural work Samuel-Johnson is doing. It is also a spiritual journey, where she is working to live out her values. BRAVO!

A true vision of peace sees a continuous mutuality between giving and receiving. Let’s never give anything without asking ourselves what we are receiving from those to whom we give, and let’s never receive anything without asking what we have to give to those from whom we receive.
- Henri Nouwen

People are spending lots of time in online social networks and many nonprofit organizations are looking for ways to engage those networks. Nonprofits know that they can help with advocacy efforts; can they also support the organizational fundraising? A recent study using Facebook and Harvard undergraduates explored financial altruism behaviors within existing social networks. The results may not surprise you: people are more altruistic to those closer to them in the network, and friends who cluster together tend to have the same relative level of altruism.

In the study, Directed Altruism and Enforced Reciprocity in Social Networks, a group of researchers from Harvard , Iowa State University, and Singapore Management University (Leider, Möbius, Rosenblat, & Do), engaged Harvard undergraduates, examined their online social network (to decipher how near or distant they are were to friends), and then engaged them in a number of games. Surprisingly, a total of 5,576 out of the 6,389 undergraduates at Harvard participated, either by being a player in a given task or in being named by a participant. In these online games, subjects made unilateral allocation decisions for several types of named partners and one anonymous partner (a randomly selected participant from the subject’s dormitory).

These experiments with real subjects in their own social network were conducted solely online. All communication with the subjects was by email and they submitted all of their choices to a password protected website through their own web browsers.

Here is how one of the games went:

In the helping game, each decision-maker was endowed with $45, and each partner was endowed with $0. The decision-maker was asked to report the maximum price that she would be willing to pay in order for the partner to receive a gain of $30. A random price between $0 and $30 was determined, and if her maximum willingness to pay was equal or greater than the random price the partner received $30 and the random price was deducted from the decision-maker’s endowment. Otherwise, the decision-maker’s payoff equaled her endowment of $45, and the partner’s payoff equaled his endowment of $0. Effectively, the decision-maker revealed how much she valued a $30 gain for the partner.

Results:

• Close social ties induce directed altruism (toward someone you know). Allocations to friends are substantially higher (on average 52 percent more money) than allocations to distant partners/strangers.
• Giving is motivated by the prospect of future interaction. The data showed that future interaction effects increase giving by an additional 24 percent. This implies that the partner would rather repay the favor than damage the friendship.
• Baseline altruism and directed altruism are correlated, that is subjects with higher baseline altruism have friends with higher baseline altruism. Subjects who give more to nameless partners also give more to specific named partners, and are treated more generously by their friends. However, the data shows that friends do not reward intrinsic kindness, but rather, that kind people tend to have friends who exhibit greater baseline altruism themselves.

Using online methods, the researchers are able to document and distinguish altruism to close friends, more distant acquaintances, and strangers. However, the results correlate with what traditional fundraising experience and donor studies in other formats document. That is, people tend to give more to people they know, that the idea of future engagement also increases giving, and that if there is no personal connection, giving can be expected to be low. What is true in traditional methods of personal interaction is mirrored on line. What is not studied here is how easy or difficult it is to create social closeness online as compared to developing social closeness in live meetings, phone calls, and other formats. That is where many nonprofits see the advantage of online relationships lies, and where, since the phenomena is so new, not as much is known.

Our result that friends cluster by baseline altruism raises another interesting question for future
research: do our friends shape our social preferences (treatment effect), or do we seek out friends with similar social preferences (selection effect)?

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards;
they try to have more things, or more money,
in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier.
The way it actually works is the reverse.
You must first be who you really are,
then do what you need to do,
in order to have what you want.
– Margaret Young

This is another posting about how our social networks affect our financial generosity. In this case, a study was done at a large US bank organization and analyzed giving to the United Way, which allowed the researcher to track giving behaviors based on where someone worked (and who worked near them), by the team she/he was assigned during the United Way campaign, and by demographic factors.

The researcher, Katherine Grace Carman is an economics professor at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. She did the study while she was at Harvard University as a health policy research fellow.

Carman found that the individuals in the study were strongly influenced in their decision to give or not give based on the participation of their colleagues.  She also found that when workers were deciding what amount to give, they were also influenced by both the people that worked near them (mail code in the building where they worked) and by the people on their United Way team:

A $100 increase in the mean contribution of the mail code is associated with a $1.70 increase in individual contributions, and a $100 increase in the mean contribution of the team is associated with a $7.00 increase in individual contributions.

Carman also found that people with the same salary range tended to have more influence on each other’s giving behavior; this also held true for people of the same gender. However, interacting with people in the same age did not seem to influence giving behavior.

Most interestingly, Carman actually tracked individuals when they changed physical office locations to work around a new set of people. What she found that when these people moved from an office area where people did not contribute as much to an area where people gave more, that their giving increased toward the giving of the new work group they joined. Her study might lead us to conclude that not only is our giving behavior influenced by the people who we interact with on a regular basis, but that our friends shape our social preferences (sometimes called treatment effect), more than our social preferences being determined by the people we seek out (sometimes called the selection effect).

You may know a man by the company he keeps
- Proverb

Halton Region Employees, Ontario, Canada

A social network map of 2,200 people, James Fowler

We practice generosity with others and with ourselves,
over and over again,
and the power of it begins to grow
until it becomes almost like a waterfall, a flow.
- Sharon Salzberg

How altruistic is your social network? In their experiments, Christakis and Fowler have found that when people in their studies were on the receiving end of a generous exchange, they were likely to become more generous to the next people they were paired with — until their larger study group was “infected” with altruistic behavior. This might help explain why altruists are able to continue being generous without constantly being taken advantage of my other community members, possibly leading to more subdued altruistic behavior. It also might point ways to increase generosity in our communities. According to Christakis and Fowler’s work, we can improve our world by both acting in pro-social ways and networking to other people who are living well and doing good works. How are you choosing to grow your actions and influence your network?

James H. Fowler is an associate professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego. Nicholas A. Christakis is a physician and a professor in both the sociology department and school of medicine at Harvard University.  They have based their recent co-authored book Connected on The Framingham Heart Study data. The famous Framingham Study is a cardiovascular study that has been running since 1948 (now on its third generation of participants) with over 5,000 adult subjects from Framingham, Massachusetts. As part of the collected materials, the study regularly asks the subjects for the names of family members and one friend – although people often list more than one friend. This rich mine of data historical has allowed Christakis and Fowler to chart the social networks of a whole community and track their behavior on a range of variables. You can read more about their work in the recent New York Times article by Clive Thompson (source for the quotes in this posting).

Christakis and Fowler have found that we can affect people three degrees away from us  - that is your friend’s friend’s friend (or brother’s friend’s sister), so we actually may have a lot more indirect influence than we think:

…they conducted a laboratory experiment in which participants played a “cooperation game.” Each participant was asked to share a sum of money with a small group and could choose to be either generous or selfish. Christakis and Fowler found that if someone was on the receiving end of a generous exchange, that person would become more generous to the next set of partners — until the entire larger group was infected, as it were, with altruistic behavior, which meant the altruist would benefit indirectly.

Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler

Statistics show that most of us are connected to more than 1,000 people (within three degrees of separation). This is the pool of people whom we can theoretically help make healthier, fitter, happier, and possibly more altruistic and generous - just by our contagious example. So what can you do, among your network to be generous and grow generosity? Studies show it will make a big difference.

If someone tells you that you can influence 1,000 people,
it changes your way of seeing the world.
- James Fowler

photo: www.flickr.com/lieliel

What do they really mean when they say philanthropy? The word literally means ‘love of humankind.’ The definition we use comes from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which says philanthropy is ‘the giving of time, money, and know-how to advance the common good.’ This definition complements the one commonly used by scholars, who treat philanthropy in all cultures throughout history as giving outside one’s family.
- from Looking Out for the Future

Katherine Fulton and Andrew Blau have written a wonderful orientation document for people who are making financial gifts now and considering their future roles in philanthropy. The previous post was about Katherine Fulton, so look there for more information on her and click on Mr. Blau’s name above for more information on him.  The guide is partially geared toward an audience in the world of charitable foundations but is well worth reading for anyone who makes charitable donations and plans to continue doing so. Do you consider yourself a philanthropist based on the definition above? Whether you do or not, read on for more information about Looking Out for the Future: An Orientation for Twenty-First Century Philanthropists.

Philanthropy is all about choices: the choice to give, the choice of how to give and who to give to, even the choice of when to declare victory or admit failure. It’s a profoundly voluntary act with profoundly important consequences. The choices matter not just because donors contribute to important causes and inspiring people, but because philanthropists contribute to shaping the future for all of us.
- From Looking Out for the Future

Andrew Blau, photo: Global Business Network

In a section called Seeds of Change in Philanthropy, the Orientation has a series of suggestions as to how you might respond to patterns they see emerging of how innovative philanthropy is done in the U.S. Among the changes detailed in the sub-section Experimenting with Grantmaking Strategies are these that might apply readily to individual donors:

Supporting organizations, not just programs. Concerned that the bias toward project support (that itself emerged from an earlier call for focus and accountability in philanthropy) oft en leaves grant recipients without resources to operate and respond eff ectively, some funders have moved to providing core operating support.

Becoming more focused and persistent. The alignment of interests between the funder and recipient is also reinforced by an emphasis on becoming more focused and persistent, thereby creating a lasting and collaborative relationship between a donor or collection of donors and an organization or group of organizations devoted to a shared set of goals and objectives.

High-engagement giving.

Funder as initiator and operator. Some grantmakers are no longer waiting for ideas from the field, but are initiating their own projects, identifying strategies, and soliciting organizations to pursue those strategies.

In a later section called Imagining the Future, the authors recommend creating scenarios as a way to challenge ‘our assumptions about what might happen and why, and our strategies for adapting to change.’ The document contains a number of provocative scenarios by the authors, which are really worth looking over, before you consider your own.

Two final pieces are worth pointing out. The first is their inspiring list of other resources; some of these are published in hard copy and some are web resources. The other is their helpful diagram of Putting All the Pieces Together, which captures the interrelatedness of our gifts to other forces of positive social change. The whole document is available on the Future of Philanthropy web site and many of the individual pages of the report are also available as individual pdfs on the site. It is a rich resource.

Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.
- Albert Camus