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Generosity
The Monitor's View

Reviving the spirit of giving

A major report looks at causes for the drop in charitable giving. One remedy: Look at all ways of giving, especially those driven by spiritual thinking.

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A Salvation Army member n Los Angeles rings a bell to alert passersbys to donate to the charitable organization.
  • By the Monitor's Editorial Board

The celestial start of autumn on Sept. 22 may remind Americans to prepare for the major end-of-year holidays tied to giving: Halloween (giving treats to costumed children), Thanksgiving (giving gratitude over shared meals), and Christmas (giving gifts to reflect unselfed love). Surprisingly, these annual expressions of affection are not counted in formal tallies of generosity. Holiday giving is, well, a given. And too vast to total up.

Yet that accounting flaw might change with a broad-based report released Sept. 17 from leaders in the philanthropy sector. The report from the 17-member Generosity Commission mainly focuses on the reasons fewer people are donating time or money to traditional nonprofits. (Think the “bowling alone” phenomenon, red-blue discord, and the Great Recession.) Yet it does acknowledge that generosity has “found other venues and taken other forms.”

For starters, “The introduction of online fundraising and payment platforms expanded the practice and introduced generous individuals to an ever-wider swath of giving opportunities.” And younger people prefer giving directly to individuals rather than to institutions.

Yet that is not the only shift. The report suggests that “newly expanding forms of spirituality” are revealing “other expressions of generosity.”

Nearly 3 out of 4 Americans self-identify as “generous.” And measures of spirituality are growing, the report states. A 2023 survey by Pew Research Center, for example, found that 70% of U.S. adults “think of themselves as spiritual people or say spirituality is very important in their lives.” Other recent research ties spiritual thinking directly to charitable giving.

The report recommends that spiritual leaders along with other public figures speak “openly and proudly about how they seek to ‘give back.’” Perhaps most Americans are already ahead of them.

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Mark Sappenfield
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