Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is not a new concept. Companies of all sizes take CSR very seriously, developing systems and programs designed to do good in the world, which in turn increase positive PR, sales, and customer loyalty. But there’s another side of doing good that’s often overlooked by companies—at a drastic cost to the bottom line. A 2013 report from Gallup estimated that employee disengagement, which is at an all-time high since Gallup first began polling employees in 2000, costs U.S. companies an astonishing $450-$550 billion dollars in lost productivity each year. Indeed, only 30% of U.S. workers are actively engaged, enthusiastic, and committed to their workplace. The remaining 70% of employees, who are either not engaged or actively disengaged, feel emotionally disconnected from their workplace and are therefore less productive and more likely to miss work, negatively influence customers and fellow employees, and even steal from their company. For business owners, these data are sobering. With Americans now working an average of 47 hours per week, it’s disheartening to think about how much of that time is spent working against profitability.

A 2013 study on employee engagement (Anik, et al) offers a ray of hope. Prosocial bonuses—incentives with a shifted focus from self to others—are shown to produce measurable benefits for employees and organizations.

In order to test the effects of prosocial bonuses, employees in several different experiments were given money and instructed to spend it either on themselves or on a teammate. Following reported monthly sales as an indication of performance, the researchers discovered that for every $10.00 an employee spend on his or herself, the company received $3.00 back. For every $10.00 an employee spent to benefit a teammate, the company received $52.00 in return.

In another experiment, the researchers gave bank employees charity vouchers ranging in value between $25.00 and $50.00. The employees that received the higher value vouchers to donate to charity later reported greater happiness and job satisfaction than those who received a lower amount or who did not receive a voucher at all in the control group.

“In almost every country in the world,” said one of the study authors during a TEDx talk on the subject of money and happiness, “people who give money to charity are happier than people who don’t give money to charity.” And happier employees, it turns out, are more likely to come up with new ideas, solve complex problems, and feel more actively engaged in the workplace.

So how can companies use this information to increase employee satisfaction, engagement, and company profit margins? Keep the following tips in mind:

1. Go slow. If company bonuses or rewards have previously come in the form of cash or material goods, a sudden change to a prosocial bonus may be jarring—even downright disagreeable—to employees. Instead, begin weaving prosocial alternatives in to the company’s existing bonus structure.
2. Choose your words. Messaging is important. Communicating to employees that the company cares about what they care about, and wants to support them in making a difference, will help employees feel valued and empowered.
3. Make it personal. Rather than making a company-wide policy to donate to a specific charity or cause, ask employees what matters to them and how they want to get involved. Giving workers a chance to make an impact in an area they feel passionate about will allow them to connect more deeply with the experience and with the company for providing the opportunity.

Read the earlier posts in the Science of Giving series:
#1: What we talk about when we talk about altruism
#2: Why elevation changes your behavior
#3: Transforming the classroom through generosity
#4: The secret to raising a generous child
#5: How giving can improve your health

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Science of Giving #1: What We Talk About When We Talk About Altruism. The six-month series kicks off with a blog post that explains the definition of altruism, where altruistic decisions originate in the brain, and how our brains reward us for acting generously. The post also highlights some of the heroic efforts made by Carlos Arrendondo in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013 as an example of altruism in action. >>Click to read

Science of Giving #2: Why Elevation Changes Your Behavior.  Research documents an important link between elevation, also known as the “warm glow effect,” and a person’s willingness to help someone else. This link has compelling implications for everything from family relationships to philanthropic behavior, which we explore in this Science of Giving article. >>Click to read

Science of Giving #3: Transforming the Classroom Through Generosity. In this post we uncover a surprising connection between student well-being and generosity, and present resources for parents and teachers to learn more about bringing generosity and altruism into the classroom. >>Click to read

Science of Giving #4: The Secret to Raising a Generous Child. This article explores new scientific discoveries about the role of generosity in promoting childhood health and well being, as well as research-based techniques for encouraging this behavior in children. >>Click to read

Science of Giving #5: How Giving Can Improve Your Health. Learn about the physical health benefits of financial giving and volunteering, such as a longer life span, fewer aches and pains, and better overall physical and mental well-being. >>Click to read

Science of Giving #6: How Giving Can Benefit Your Business. Discover how employee engagement affects the bottom line–and how engaging workers in charitable giving can increase productivity and profits. >>Click to read

The post TisBest Science of Giving Series appeared first on TisBest.

“[This should be a] wake-up call to parents,” says child psychologist and author Michele Borba. “We need to reprioritize our parenting agendas ASAP. The science reveals the irony of the situation: happier and more successful kids care about others, they are able to relate, be concerned, and respect differences, and a lack of empathy makes kids less successful, and less happy.”
This dilemma, which authors of The Children We Mean to Raise dub the rhetoric/reality gap, presents parents with an unforeseen challenge. Yes, we want our children to be kind, compassionate, and generous human beings. We probably even talk to them about the importance of these qualities. But how can we ensure these messages aren’t being drowned out by a louder, more persistent focus on achievement, happiness, and other forms of personal success?

An innate desire to share
Focusing on generosity may be the perfect place to start. From a holistic perspective, generosity in children means more than simply sharing a toy with a friend or sibling. When we think about raising generous kids, what we’re hoping for is that they will thrive in all sorts of relationships by being willing to give and share. We want them to learn to appreciate making a positive contribution to their community and develop a healthy sense of self that recognizes their individual capacity to create change as well as their fundamental connectedness to the world around them.
From an early age, children demonstrate an incredible capacity to behave generously. Even without parental encouragement, young toddlers will spontaneously assist a stranger or share their much-loved treats. Studies on this seemingly innate motivation to be generous challenge the prevailing belief that children must be taught how to give. Indeed, not only do children seem to instinctively understand how and why they should be generous, studies indicate that they find this helping behavior to be intrinsically rewarding. Being generous just makes kids happier.

A foundation for personal success
Prosocial behavior—behaviors intended to help other people, such as empathy, altruism and generosity—appears to directly connect to a number of factors important for our children’s personal success. Early demonstrations of prosocial behavior help boost later academic achievement, as well as contribute to stronger peer relationships. Children who give are happier, physically healthier, and more socially connected than their less generous counterparts. In short, The Children We Mean to Raise study claims we are focusing too much on the importance of achievement and happiness, rather than helping our children actually achieve such personal success by focusing instead on generosity.

Getting results
With this new understanding about the intrinsic nature of generosity, the burden has shifted for parents. Rather than preaching about the moral and ethical reasons for being generous, we can focus instead on providing our children with the guidance and tools they need to build on what they already know. The secret to raising generous children simply lies in consistently building on their innate capacity to give.

Here are a few suggestions for putting this into practice at home:

1. Keep generosity at the forefront of conversations. “Did you finish your homework?” and “How did you do on that test?” are questions we ask our kids on a regular basis, placing an unintentional emphasis on the value of achievement. Consider adding some new questions to your after-school conversations, such as “What was the kindest thing you saw someone do today?”
2. Turn giving into a family project. Picking charitable or volunteer projects to do together helps solidify generosity as a family value. Try spending one evening a month doing something generous as a family, such as spending time at a food bank or picking up trash in your neighborhood.
3. Ask questions that spark critical thinking and creativity. In The Children We Mean to Raise, study authors recommend that parents help children “zoom in” on issues affecting their close community, and “zoom out” on issues affecting the wider world. Discussing these issues (appropriately) with children helps develop empathy by practicing taking the perspectives of those affected, and gets the creative juices flowing about how to make a difference. Rather than telling your child that your elderly neighbor’s wife passed away and that you’ll be sending over a casserole, engage your child in a discussion about the situation. “Here’s what happened… what do you think we could do to help?”
4. Create a new tradition. Turn an existing tradition such as birthdays or holidays into an opportunity to practice generosity by including a charity gift card in your Christmas stockings or collecting donations of canned food along with birthday presents. Alternatively, try creating a new “holiday” by picking a date to be your annual Family Giving Day, and plan on using that day to give back each year.
5. Celebrate positive steps. Experts recommend against rewarding prosocial behavior, but finding other ways to celebrate acts of kindness or generosity can help reinforce your child’s intrinsic motivations to give. Telling your child how much you appreciate their contribution when they do extra chores or sharing stories about each other’s generous moments will help children feel valued, and further weave the importance of generosity into the fabric of your family.

Helping our children establish a strong, well-rounded value system is something we all hope to achieve as parents. However, the daily worries about grades, friendships, schedules, and other day-to-day details of parenting can sometimes color the overall message we send to our kids; we tend to talk most about what worries us most. Simply redirecting the focus of our daily conversations and family activities can completely change our children’s perception of what we value most. Focusing on generosity over personal achievement will not only help them succeed more in the long run, but they’ll be happier, more connected, and more deeply fulfilled along the way.
Read the earlier posts in the Science of Giving series:

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I needn’t have worried. From the opening group brainstorming session on examples of philanthropy (which we defined as “sharing time, talent or treasure to create positive change”) to the final enrichment vocabulary activity, the students were taking things very seriously. There was, after all, real money involved: each student received a TisBest Charity Gift Card worth $1.00 to donate towards a cause they felt passionate about. For many of the students, this was the first time anyone—much less an adult—sat down with them and asked them what they care about, and how they think they can help.

The charity gift card activity moved us to the computer lab, where one particularly quiet boy named Vincent caught my eye. As his classmates peppered me with questions about donating their gift card dollars, Vincent sat quietly in front of the screen, methodically scanning each category of charities. Finally, he motioned me over.

“Excuse me,” he said in a softly accented whisper. “My family is from Peru. Are there any charities that help people in Peru?”
“Let’s take a look,” I said, and a smile spread across his face. Later, as I was combing through my notes from the lesson, I noticed that Vincent had chosen to donate his dollar to Children’s Hunger Fund. During the donation process, students are asked to write a note to their teacher explaining why they donated to the charity they chose to support. I looked up Vincent’s note.
I gave to this charity because I think it is good that they fight hunger all over the world, Vincent wrote. I knew that in his heart, he made the donation for the children of Peru. 

A ripple effect
Recent research has shown that generosity is contagious, affecting others up to three degrees in human interactions: from person to person to person to person.  A study out of Harvard Medical School tracked the generous behavior of participants, which eventually tripled by the end of the intervention. One possibility? The powerful influence of elevation (that warm, fuzzy feeling we get when we see someone perform a good deed). By triggering the elevation response, one person’s good deed begins to travel quickly within a social network, influencing the decisions and behavior of others. Within the incubated setting of a classroom, the results of such a shift in attitude and behavior can be immediate and long-lasting.

The emotional effects of generosity and elevation are of growing interest to researchers. In children as young as 2 years old, studies have demonstrated a remarkable link between giving and happiness, indicating that from a very early age human brains are designed to find giving intrinsically rewarding. This link persists into adulthood and across cultures all over the world. Studies have also documented the benefits to those who are “elevated” by witnessing an act of generosity or compassion, showing that students who experience elevation have a decrease in anxiety, stress and depression, and an increase in levels of compassion and psychological flourishing.

For any teacher struggling to turn around a negative classroom atmosphere, these studies offer a welcome—and stunningly simple—solution.

Boosting academics
An increasing number of classroom programs focus on practicing prosocial behaviors such as generosity, empathy and compassion. In a classroom setting, a focus on prosocial skills has been shown to increase the level of helping behaviors in students, and decrease levels of aggression and bullying. Studies have also noted an important connection between prosocialness and academic performance, showing a positive correlation between early demonstrations of prosocial behavior and later academic achievement. Students who are helpful and generous with others may also experience stronger and healthier friendships, as well as decreased physical and verbal aggression.
The effects of engaging in service learning projects are equally remarkable. When students share their time or talent in the service of others, the positive benefits read like a laundry list of a parent’s deepest desires: service learning projects correspond with stronger student performance in math, reading, history, social studies and science. These students are more likely to complete high school, and less likely to engage in risky behaviors such as smoking, drugs and early sexual activity.
Programs like DiscoverGiving aren’t just about teaching kids how to donate money or volunteer their time, however worthy those activities may be. By tapping into the intrinsic motivations behind giving and generosity, students can begin to explore one of life’s most important and fundamental questions: What kind of impact do I want to have on the world? For an 8, 10 or 12 year old whose life is a carefully orchestrated series of events, considering what kind of difference they can make in the world can be deeply, powerfully transformative.

For Vincent, whose family traveled almost 5,000 miles away from home and began a new life on a new continent, the ability to give did more than reconnect him to his homeland: it helped him put down roots in his new life. In that tiny computer lab with its beat up old monitors and flickering fluorescent lights, Vincent learned that he matters. He learned that his choices are valued, and that what he cares about is valid and important. Multiply this experience by 24, and you’ve got a class full of students who see the world—and themselves—a little differently now. Academic benefits aside, can you imagine how things might be if every child came home from school having learned how much this world needs them? This, my friends, is an achievable goal. Go out and make it happen for a classroom in your neighborhood.

Resources for parents:

• Raising Happiness blog with Dr. Christine Carter
• Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child, by John Gottman, PhD

Resources for teachers:

• DiscoverGiving, a classroom philanthropy project from TisBest
• Learning to Give lesson plans
• Greater Good Science Center

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Brilliant marketing? Absolutely: within weeks of its debut, the ad had more than 6 million views from all over the world, ultimately landing a spot on TED’s coveted Ads Worth Spreading list. But what’s really going on in this commercial? Why did it resonate so deeply and immediately with each of those 6 million viewers? Watching the ad made me feel… different. I felt lighter, cheerier, and a little more optimistic about the human race. A warm, gooey feeling spread through my chest, and I had an overwhelming desire to hug someone. According to psychologists, the scientific term for this happy gooey feeling is elevation, sometimes referred to as the “warm glow” effect.

Elevation occurs when one person witnesses another person perform a good deed. In other words, if I see you do something nice, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. And here’s the clincher: studies have shown that when a person experiences elevation, they are in turn more likely to perform an act of kindness or generosity themselves.

One fascinating study asked participants to watch one of three videos. One group watched a neutral video, a clip from a nature documentary. A second group watched a clip from a British comedy, inducing feelings of mirth. A third group watched a heart-tugging segment from the Oprah Winfrey show, which sparked feelings of elevation. In order to determine whether or not those participants who felt the warm glow were more likely to pay it forward than their neutral or simply happy counterparts, the researchers devised a clever little trick. After participants watched their clip, a research assistant pretended to experience a problem opening up a file that she needed to complete the experiment. Exasperated, she told participants they could leave early, and then as an afterthought, she asked if they would mind filling out a questionnaire for another study. This questionnaire was optional, she explained, and they could leave at any time. Astonishingly, the participants who viewed the elevation clip spent almost twice as long helping the research assistant than those who had watched one of the other two clips. This study indicates that experiencing a feeling of elevation can lead to helping behavior.

Elevation activates the vagus nerve, which is a bundle of nerves in mammals that reach from the top of the spinal cord all the way down to the digestive system. The vagus nerve is responsible for several important physical jobs, such as neck movement, vocalization, and digestion. It is also closely connected to oxytocin networks and responses to stimuli such as images of suffering or inspiring stories. When the vagus nerve fires, we experience a stronger feeling of connection to humanity. This “self-other similarity” helps us become more willing to help others, even if we don’t know them.

The implications of this connection are far-reaching. It may be, for instance, that if nonprofits communicate stories and data intended to elicit elevation, as opposed to sharing information about need and suffering alone, they may receive more financial support from donors. It may be that teachers can increase classroom cooperation and prosocial behavior (such as sticking up for a classmate who is being bullied) by integrating activities that trigger an elevation in their students. We may even be able to develop stronger, more compassionate relationships with others by working to increase our own feelings of elevation on a regular basis.

In my work with TisBest, I am bathed in elevation every day thanks to the compassion and generosity of the people who use our charity gift cards. When someone spends a charity gift card to support a cause they feel passionate about, they have the opportunity to send a note back to the person who gave them the gift (or in the case of our DiscoverGiving program, students send a note to their teacher). These messages never fail to make me feel a little verklempt. “This is a tremendously thoughtful gesture,” a recent charity gift card recipient wrote to the company that sent the card. “Outward Bound was a pivotal part of my childhood development and I am pleased to offer them this contribution.” A fourth-grade student who used her $1.00 DiscoverGiving card to support The Moyer Foundation wrote, “I gave to this charity because when kids are going through the distress of any type its very hard to get out of the distress and look at the bright side. I want them to get help and know that everything ends and you can get out of the uncomfortable dark world that they are living in at the moment.” Seeing notes like this come through on a regular basis can melt even the hardest of hearts, and I am certainly no exception. Just like the Coca-Cola ad, these notes inspire in me a feeling of hope and faith in humanity, and a desire to do my part to help make the world a better place.

It’s natural to wonder if we’ve evolved to need elevation in order to continue caring for a widening circle of relationships, or if elevation is a simple byproduct of our beautiful human hearts. But the more I think about it, I realize that’s not really the most important question. The question I should actually be asking is: What can I do today to elevate others? With elevation’s power to motivate acts of great kindness and compassion, we never know how our tiny acts of generosity may end up changing the world.

Read the first post in the Science of Giving series: What we talk about when we talk about altruism

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“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”
— Mister Rogers

With this hopeful advice in mind, we began to notice one man who seemed to appear—over and over—in the photos that were slowly beginning to emerge from the aftermath of the blast. We called him “The Man in the Cowboy Hat” and it would be several days before we knew his name and the series of events that led him to be at the Boston Marathon that day. All we knew was that this man seemingly appeared out of nowhere and began doing what we couldn’t do as we watched powerlessly from our homes and offices: he helped.

Altruism, as defined by UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, “is when we act to promote someone else’s welfare, even at a risk or cost to ourselves.” Carlos Arredondo, our man in the cowboy hat, is a now iconic example of our potential to take selfless action in times of crisis, but each of us act altruistically in hundreds of different ways in our day-to-day lives. These actions, such as holding the door for someone or dropping spare change into a beggar’s cup, and those of Mr. Arrendondo, share the same origins in our brains. From monumental acts of heroism to everyday moments of kindness, research has been able to pinpoint precisely what’s happening in our gray matter when presented with an opportunity to give.
Imagine you’ve been handed $100 with the option to give some, all or none of that money to charity. Whatever you don’t give away, you get to keep. If we used an fMRI scan, a technique that measures blood flow to track brain activity, to look at your brain while you were deciding what to do with your money, we’d notice some fascinating activity in areas of the brain we typically associate with pleasure and reward. When subjects were asked to perform this task at the University of Oregon, neuroeconomist Dr. William Harbaugh noticed an interesting amount of activity in the nucleus accumbens, a part of the brain’s mesolimbic reward system which processes unexpected rewards and produces the pleasure chemical dopamine.
Dr. Jordan Grafman, a neuroscientist at the University of Chicago, performed a similar study by giving participants the opportunity to give money to charity or reject the charity and take the money home after the study. FMRI scans showed significant activation in the mesolimbic reward system as participants made their decisions. Dr. Grafman and his colleagues were surprised to find that the same areas of the brain reacted when participants gave to charity as when they placed the money in their personal account to take home. This research suggests that giving and altruism are inherently self-rewarding: our brains create a positive reinforcement for altruism in the same areas that reward food, drugs, money and sex. Additionally, Dr. Grafman noticed that an area of the brain that regulates the production of oxytocin, a hormone that plays a critical role in social connection, also played a key role in decisions about giving, suggesting that altruism and social relationships are inextricably related.
Drs. Grafman and Harbaugh’s research also helps explain why witnessing acts of altruism, such as Carlos Arredondo’s selfless heroism in the aftermath of the Boston bombings, gives us such warm feeling of hope, joy and pleasure. Our brains are not only wired to encourage our own generous behavior, but also to appreciate and be influenced by acts of kindness carried out by others, a phenomenon described by one study as the “social contagion” of generosity.
Altruism doesn’t appear to be limited to adults making a cognitive assessment of the choices at hand. Very young children who are unable to weigh the cost and benefits of acting altruistically have been shown, time and again, to seek out and enjoy opportunities for giving and helping behavior. In fact, dozens of species throughout the animal kingdom also display levels of altruism, from ants spending their entire lives in the service of the colony to vampire bats that routinely share food with members of their group that are in danger of starving.
All of this research helps to explain what we’ve known for generations, what Anne Frank eloquently described in one simple sentence: “No one has ever become poor by giving.” What we get when we give is just as essential to our well-being as what we’ve chosen to sacrifice. And although some acts of altruism may be motivated by the desire for recognition or simply because we want to feel good, this behavior is hard-wired as deeply and unavoidably as our yearning to be close to those we love the most.
Tragedies such as the Boston Marathon bombing may continue to befall our society. We may never be able to escape grief. But if we look for the helpers we’ll find that altruism manifests all around us in many unique and wonderful ways. With every act of generosity we shape our evolution as a species, ensuring that altruism remains deeply engrained in our biological and social fabric. Our own moments of kindness are just as heroic to the people in our lives as those of The Man in the Cowboy Hat. In the chaos and confusion of our daily lives, we are the helpers, the Carlos Arredondos for the people whose lives will be forever influenced by our presence.

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With Giving Tuesday occurring this week, did you know that there are 1.6 million tax-exempt organizations in the United States?
That number represents a lot of people striving to create a better world. From Civil Rights charities, organizations that help the homeless population, faith-based nonprofits, environmental initiatives, and more, there is no shortage of 501(c)(3) nonprofits to which Americans can donate their money and time. 
In fact, Americans wrote off $449.64 billion in charitable donations in 2019. Wow! 

Where Are You Donating This Giving Tuesday?

With Giving Tuesday and the end of the year approaching quickly, you’re likely considering a charitable donation toward an organization you care about. Or, perhaps you’re new to charitable giving and hoping to discover which nonprofits best reflect your individual moral compass.
With so many options in the United States, it’s wise to ask several important questions before donating money to a charitable organization.
If you need help deciding where to donate, TisBest is here to help with some decision criteria.

1. How Far Will My Giving Tuesday Dollar Go?

Healthy charities demonstrate transparency. You should be able to find information on an organization’s website regarding all costs and financials from each fiscal year. If you can’t find it online, ask for it.
Keep in mind that all nonprofit organizations have overhead costs. This may include salaries for employees, rent and insurance on office space, and more. That being said, the charity you donate to hopefully strives to keep their overhead costs low in order to spend more funds on their cause.
Before donating, find out how far your dollar will go by researching or asking what percent of each dollar goes toward overhead costs. Organizations that have more financial efficiency and sustainability are more likely to achieve their mission in the long run. 

2. Can My Giving Tuesday Donation be a Tax Deduction, and Does That Matter to Me?

There are lots of tax exempt charities out there, as we mentioned above. But let’s unpack the deductible type versus organizations to which donations do not qualify for tax deductions. How the organization is registered with the IRS and whether a donation can possibly result in a tax write-off are separate questions from whether your individual taxes will benefit from the donation. Here is a great breakdown on what deduction level it takes to itemize. Bottom line: even if the charity qualifies as deductible, everyone doesn’t benefit from writing off their charitable donations.

“Giving Tuesday” does not have to mean “Tax-deductible Tuesday”

When it comes to charitable donations qualifying for deductions, often this tax deductible designation is used as a litmus test for whether a charity is legitimate. And most of the charity listings on the internet will rely on the IRS 501c3 designation to source their list. There are a handful of reasons why some legitimate nonprofits are not included. 
For example, there are younger or smaller charities out there with lower overhead — think “startup scrappy” — which may be very impactful but simply do not have 501c3 status yet. In fact, when the IRS was restructured in 2017 it caused long delays for even those nonprofits that had filed for their federal status. 
In other cases, entirely legitimate, tax exempt charity organizations could have different IRS designation types like a 501c4, which indicates the donation is not deductible. There are over 150,000 501c4 nonprofits that often strive to bring systemic impact on a major issue you care about through political channels like lobbying. 

Helpful Resources for Charitable Tax Deductions

However, if you are considering this donation part of your annual income tax strategy, you should confirm before donating whether or not donations to an organization are tax deductible. If you aren’t sure, check the charity’s website for its Employer Identification Number (EIN) number and look it up on Charity Navigator to confirm the status.
And oftentimes, major nonprofit organizations will have separate arms or funds that are not 501c3. That’s also something to be aware of as you make your donation. Charity Navigator has compiled an additional list of considerations regarding the tax benefits of giving here.

3. What is the Underlying Issue and Does the Charity’s Mission Address it?

Most, if not all, charities are well-intentioned. 
However, as explained in the book When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor and Yourself by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, many charities do more harm than good by failing to consider the complexities of the larger issue in their efforts. 
A tangible example of good intentions actually hurting a local economy is told in the story of a Rwandan egg farmer who relied on his daily egg sales for income. When a well-meaning American church began sending free eggs to the community, the farmer was no longer able to make a living. The demand for his supply had disappeared overnight. 
Likewise, the Netflix film Poverty, Inc. examines problems within the multibillion-dollar poverty industry and urges viewers to ask how they may be part of the problem. It talks about having a mind for the poor versus just having a heart for the poor. Check out the trailer for this documentary.
With regards to complex foreign issues in particular, novelist Teju Cole eloquently personifies this controversial sentiment in a 2012 Atlantic article: 

“His good heart does not always allow him to think constellationally. He does not connect the dots or see the patterns of power behind the isolated “disasters.” All he sees are hungry mouths, and he, in his own advocacy-by-journalism way, is putting food in those mouths as fast as he can. All he sees is need, and he sees no need to reason out the need for the need.”

Diligence is the Key

But many charities truly do strive to improve systemic issues, empower people, and help them recognize their inherent dignity. This is why donors must critically examine the effect of a nonprofit’s work in a community. Supporting an organization certainly feels good — but the impact always extends far beyond that feeling. Dig in and do the research. Make sure the organization’s mission is one you believe in. As Cole puts it, ”If we are going to interfere in the lives of others, a little due diligence is a minimum requirement.”

4. What Are This Charity’s Accomplishments and Long-term Goals?

Before making a contribution, find out what milestones the nonprofit in question has already reached in its mission and what long-lasting impact it plans to make in the world. Questions to ask may include:

• What results have you already seen through your efforts?
• What are the organization’s goals for the next year, five years, and ten years? 
• Do you have a plan in place to accomplish those goals?
• What kind of results will my donation help with?
• How do you report progress to supporters and donors?

This will give you insight as to whether or not this charity is a good fit for your donation. If they can’t communicate a defined, actionable plan, it may not be worth partnering with financially. 

5. What Is This Organization’s Charity Navigator Score?

Charity Navigator is a helpful tool that uses a Rating Methodology on all nonprofits in the United States.
The goal of Charity Navigator’s system is to help generous people like yourself donate with confidence to effective and transparent organizations. 
You can search for any charity on the website to see its score, discover new organizations by topic, view Top Ten lists, and more.
Curious about which charities have perfect scores? Here are just a few of them:

All Hands and Hearts Smart Response

Mission: All Hands and Hearts effectively and efficiently addresses the immediate and long-term needs of communities impacted by natural disasters. We communicate directly with local leaders and community members and then deploy our unique model of engaging volunteers to enable direct impact, helping to build safer, more resilient schools, homes, and infrastructure.
Through community and volunteer engagement, we focus on helping families recover faster after natural disasters using our Smart Response strategy. In doing so, we strengthen both our volunteers and the communities in which we serve.
Visit the website | See Charity Navigator Score

Equal Justice Initiative

Mission: EJI is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, to challenging racial and economic injustice, and to protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society.
Visit the website | See Charity Navigator Score

WildAid

Mission: WildAid’s mission is to end the illegal wildlife trade in our lifetimes. WildAid works to reduce the demand for illegal wildlife products and to promote energy conservation, via global public awareness campaigns. WildAid also strives to create model field conservation programs and to strengthen marine protected areas around the world.
Visit the website | See Charity Navigator Score

ProPublica

Mission: Founded in 2007, ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. Our work focuses exclusively on truly important stories, stories with “moral force.” We do this by producing journalism that shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them. In the best traditions of American journalism in the public service, we seek to stimulate positive change. We uncover unsavory practices in order to stimulate reform. We do this in an entirely non-partisan and non-ideological manner, adhering to the strictest standards of journalistic impartiality.
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Ready to Create a Better World?

Of the millions of organizations, which ones resonate with you? 
By asking the right questions and finding an organization that is the right fit for your values, you’ll feel the true impact of partnering with a world-changing charity. 
Finally, to truly help create a better world, we encourage you to consider a lifetime of giving — not just a once-a-year donation.

See the Charities TisBest Partners With

The post Giving Tuesday: 5 Questions to Ask Before Donating appeared first on TisBest.

Mystified by the young people in your life?

Do you adore the teens and young adults in your life—but sometimes find them hard to understand? Do you want to communicate and connect meaningfully with a Gen Zer, but find yourself stumped by the world of TikTok & Snapchat? Are the young people in your life, well, kind of a mystery?

If so, you’re definitely not alone.

Every generation has its own unique take on the world, and of course its own challenges relating to the generations that come before and after. Shifts in cultural norms, emerging social movements, communications, and warp speed advancements in technology have further widened this gap in recent decades. It might seem like older and younger generations have never been further apart from each other.
 And then, there’s the holiday season: often filled with joy, but also a sense of pressure, right? It can be such a puzzle, during this time of giving, to figure out the perfect gesture for each of our loved ones—especially the younger people in our lives.

Not to worry; we’ve got you.

Imagine this: What if the holiday season, rather than being yet another stumbling block, offered a doorway? What if the gift-giving tradition were a unique opportunity to understand the young people in your life more deeply, to help them to understand you, and to connect with each other in a meaningful way?
 That’s what we’re here for. TisBest has done the research, scoped out the landscape, and is here to help you understand a little bit more about what it is that Generation Z wants and how to connect with them.

 So, who is Gen Z?

Let’s start with the basics. Generation Z (Gen Z) spans young people born between 1995 and 2010 (in other words, everyone in your life currently between the ages of 10 and 25 years old). Just like every generation, this is a group that’s comprised of unique individuals who in general share a unique set of perspectives and characteristics that influence how they perceive and interact with the world.
 According to data by McKinsey Research, Gen Zers share several defining behaviors in common. They:

• value individual expression over labels.
• mobilize for causes.
• believe in the power of dialogue to bridge differences and make the world a better place.
• are analytical and pragmatic in how they relate to institutions.

In other words, the Gen Zers in your life are likely looking for ways to express themselves as individuals and support the causes that they’re passionate about—perhaps even to support those causes as a way to express themselves. They also value understanding what other people care about, and look to meaningful conversation as a way of bridging the gap with people who hold perspectives different from their own.

How Gen Z Consumes

According to the research, Gen Zers are also likely to want their buying choices to line up with their values. Consumption, for them, is a means of self-expression and individual identity. This includes their ethical concerns. Therefore they align with companies that stand for the causes that they themselves believe in, and they expect companies to take stands on specific issues. Their tendency to be highly pragmatic and analytical when it comes to consumption means that they analyze not only what they consume, but the very act of consumption: in other words, asking “What does my consumption say about me as an individual, and how does my consumption impact the world around me?”
Another defining feature of Gen Z is that they are the first-ever generation of “true digital natives,” having been exposed to modern digital technology, social networks, and mobile devices from youth. This means that they’re WAY more comfortable with digital platforms and currency than many of the rest of us. Consumption no longer necessarily means physical currency and product. It can also mean ideas, values, individuality, and access.

What does all this mean? How do I relate to my Gen Zer?

What does this all add up to—especially for those of us who love our Gen Zers and want to connect with them? Well, it might just mean that there are more opportunities to meaningfully relate to one another than appear on the surface.
Start by asking yourself: Do you care about service? Do you volunteer in your community, or help your neighbors? Are there causes that you’re passionate about now, or were when you were younger? How have these causes helped to shape your identity? 
It’s likely that the young people in your life hold causes close to their hearts, too. 

Try connecting using curiosity-driven dialogue.

We know from the research that dialogue is valued by Gen Z—so, let’s try relating to one another by sharing our unique purposes through open-hearted conversation.
The next time you’re spending time with one of the young people you love, you might try starting a conversation with something like “I’d love to learn more about what you’re passionate about. What are you working toward these days?” Then, listen, with curiosity, as well as an open mind and heart. You may not share the same causes—but you’ll likely find commonalities in how passionate you each are about making the world a better place.

Link that dialogue to action!

An even more powerful gesture: pair that conversation starter with the gift of purposeful action. When you give a charity gift card, you’re opening the door to meaningful action and dialogue—an opportunity to empower your loved one to act on what’s meaningful to them, to share what’s important to each other, and perhaps even to come to understand one another in a deeper way. We hear consistently about conversations with children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews relating to treasured causes ranging from “helping the turtles” to “supporting human rights.”
With a TisBest charity gift card, remember that you’re also giving your recipient the opportunity to choose their causes, rather than you choosing their causes for them. Remember how much Gen Z values crafting their individual identities? What better way to encourage a young person to express their individuality than by helping them to support the causes they care about? They’ll also have direct access to their social media communities to share the news of their charitable giving.

Work together for a brighter future.

Now, more than ever, it’s so important to find what unites us in the midst of what seems to divide us. Let’s use this opportunity to learn from each other—to listen to what the young people in our lives have to say, to share with each other what we hope for the future of the world, and to honor how we’re working in our own ways toward that bright future.
This season of giving, ask your young people what they care about, what they’re working toward, and what their hopes are. Then, equip them to make the differences that they’re passionate about! Give them the currency they need and open the door to a shared, meaningful experience—an experience that might just bridge the gap between generations.

The post Get to Know Gen Z appeared first on TisBest.

“To see the earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold — brothers who know now they are truly brothers.”

— Archibald MacLeish, 1968

The picture in the header of this post is the iconic “Earthrise” photograph taken by Bill Anders during the Apollo 8 mission in 1968. It’s the first color photograph of Earth and, perhaps, the most famous image of our planet taken from space — and it came to us almost by accident.

Anders was tasked with taking scientific, black and white photographs of the lunar surface for the mission.  And that mission, with its focus on the moon, meant that the Apollo 8 astronauts weren’t looking for the Earth. We owe the photograph to the fact that Anders happened to have seen the Earth coming over the moon’s horizon during a maneuver to reposition the spacecraft.

Anders himself is reported to have said, “Look, we were trained to go to the moon. We were focused on the moon, observing the moon, studying the moon, and the Earth was not really in our thoughts until it popped up above that horizon.”

In many ways we’re often, like the Apollo 8 astronauts, not focused on the Earth and the precariousness and preciousness of our lives in the vastness of history and the universe. We don’t notice our home until we encounter a headline about the latest Climate Change findings, the latest environmental disaster, or the latest extinction.

On this Earth Day, we wanted to share, yet again, that Earthrise in hopes that it will still inspire us like it inspired people who saw the Earth from space in color for the first time. The photo created a wide shift in perspective about the world and our place in it — it pushed people into the realization that regardless of borders and nations we are all tiny beings on a tiny and fragile planet in a huge, inhospitable universe. This photo inspired environmental movements, highlighting the fact that our planet and its resources are all we have, and that taking care of it is necessary for us to continue enjoying healthy and meaningful lives.

Thankfully there are people and organizations that keep the planet and its needs in focus. Here’s a small selection of our Featured Environmental Charities. If you have an unspent Charity Gift Card, please consider donating it to one of them and doing your part to act as a steward of the “Pale Blue Dot” we all call home.

Environmental Defense Fund
Sustainable Forks
Water for People

Spend a Gift Card

The post It’s a Big Place to Be So Small: Earth Day Reflections appeared first on TisBest.