Tag: Generosity

How generosity spreads

~ Sasha ~ 2 Comments

One thing I’ve noticed about generous action is that it can be hard to talk about.  More specifically, doing something generous and then telling folks about it doesn’t necessarily feel natural.

The interesting part is to watch what happens when you spread a story about someone being generous to you.

For example, when I told people about my wonderful, outrageous experience of a stranger buying lunch for me and my family in Nashville over the holidays, people couldn’t help but share their own stories of wonderful, outrageous generosity they’d experience.  One of my favorites was from a colleague who recalls to this day the time she pulled up to a toll booth and was told that her father, in the car ahead of her, had paid her toll for her.  In her words, “What’s so funny about this is that my father was wonderful, caring…heck he paid for me to go to college…and yet that time he paid my 80 cent toll really sticks in my mind as a moment he did something special for me.”

Our critical brains are so adept at explaining why a small gesture of generosity – money, time, a smile or an open ear – is small, limited, maybe inconsequential.  Yet our own experience of generosity holds the real wisdom.  When we experience generosity, we feel noticed; we understand that we are not so separate from everyone else; we suspect that people around us are there to support us; we don’t feel alone.

When you hear about someone experiencing generosity, it’s almost impossible not to recall and share that day when someone made you feel special, noticed, worthwhile and lucky.

Don’t forget, we’re still on the hunt for a handful of additional Generosity Day volunteers.  Spread the love.

Generosity Day 2013 – Rally the Troops

~ Sasha ~ 2 Comments

One of the highlights of this time of year for me is that people start reaching out to me more regularly to talk about their plans for Generosity Day – which is coming up on February 14th.  I love the stories I get to hear about what they’ve done in past years, or what they just did or saw last week that inspired and grew their practice of generosity.  I learn from and am humbled by each of these people.

I’ve known since the start that Generosity Day is held by all of us – my role and the role of my co-conspirators has just been as catalysts.  That said, one of the things I’ve learned is that big ideas, new ideas, great ideas, they need some nudges, pushes, and a bit organization around them.  This is the fuel that allows them to catch fire.

So it felt like a HUGE gift when, 10 days ago, I got an email out of the blue from Parker Mitchell, one of the co-Founders and co-CEO of Engineers Without Borders Canada for the last 11 years.  The email was titled, simply, “Offering Help with Generosity Day.”

Some excerpts from Parker’s note:

“I love generosity Day. When I heard about it last year, I told everyone I knew. I gave money to homeless people, tipped wildly, bought food to share for an organisation I was volunteering with, leant my cell phone to a stranger – and made a commitment that later became an initiative called ShareThanksgivingDinner.org.

I’d like to help out this year. I’m a bit of a social change “free agent” these days, so I could put in a fair amount of time helping…”

Needless to say, Parker’s note hit a perfect note for me, and I am thrilled that he’s offered to lead the organizing effort for Generosity Day 2013, and to help make the day an even bigger success.

Right now, Parker is looking for a mini flash-mob of volunteers to make a big push over the next two weeks, and he’s created the Spreading Generosity Day website to help organize it all and make 2013 the biggest, best year yet.

If you’re interested in volunteering in ANY way big or small for Generosity Day 2013 (everything from writing a few Facebook updates to pitching an article in your local paper to organizing a massive Generosity Day Meetup), please sign up now!

And Parker, thank you.

30 Days of Courage

~ Sasha ~ 1 Comment

Christen writes, “Sasha, I know Generosity Day is coming up, and I wanted to share something with you. Last year I noticed that others, along with me, struggled with fear when they contemplated radical generosity.”

Thanks Christen.  I agree, and I think you’re on to something.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the fragility of generosity.  I find that my own generous actions can easily be quashed – by fear, doubt, self-criticism, breaking barriers, social risk or vulnerability:

Fear that I’m making a mistake (“should I really give?”) or that my generosity will be rejected or mocked.

Doubt that I’m doing the right thing.

Self-criticism because, let’s face it, I’m great at criticizing, especially myself.

Breaking barriers, because often generosity requires face-to-face interaction with and acknowledgment of someone with whom you don’t have a strong connection (I think this is why I’m interested in the social distance we create with our iPhones and other devices).

Social risk, because you’re breaking about 10 different norms simultaneously (unless you’re part of a community, religious or secular, in which generosity is expected and valued).

And vulnerability because at a moment of giving you are open, you are tapping into something deeply human, you are acknowledging that you’re not so different from the person to whom you are being generous.

Just looking at this list also reinforces my conviction around the importance of cultivating a practice of generosity.  My own chorus of self-criticism is great at recruiting new members, and it’s so easy to belittle the practice of generosity – to think of it as sweet or nice but not truly important.  I think the next time my chorus of critics, internal or external, starts singing, I’ll remind myself that what I’m practicing encompasses everything from overcoming fear to being comfortable with vulnerability.  That feels right.

At the end of his email to me, Christen suggested that anyone who finds themselves confronted by fear – whether in their practice of radical generosity or otherwise – should try out Marianne Elliott’s 30 Days of Courage course.  I didn’t know Marianne before Christen introduced me, but she’s the author of Zen Under Fire, the account of her humanitarian work in Herat, Afghanistan; and is also a teacher of yoga and mediation.  Marianne’s walking the walk.

Generosity Day is less than 30 days away, and your generosity practice, my generosity practice, all of our practices of generosity could probably use a boost.  Maybe 30 days of courage is just what the doctor ordered.  I’ve signed up.

Thanks, Christen.

Happy New Year – 2013

~ Sasha ~ 10 Comments

As the father of three young kids, vacations (and even weekends) are never “relaxing” any more.  They can be invigorating, joyful, replenishing, exhausting – just not relaxing.  There’s just too much going on.

Last Thursday our family was in Nashville, TN to visit my in-laws.  We were having a typical family vacation day: getting up early with the kids, the grandparents took them to Cracker Barrel for breakfast (they were thrilled), then at 10am we bundled everyone up to head to the Science Museum – where I don’t think I was the only adult who found that the planetarium show made me queasy.  After a bunch of climbing, of the kids bouncing in zero gravity and exploring giant-sized replicas of organs of the human body, we corralled our tired, hungry crew and drove off to Burger Up, an upscale burger place with locally sourced meats and a mean black bean and quinoa burger.  My 8-year old son, once a picky eater, has recently discovered bacon cheeseburgers.

Burger Up

Burger Up was filled with a lunchtime crowd and we found ourselves waiting for a table.  As a defensive move, I took our 19 month-old daughter away from the front entrance to entertain her, and she and I ended up standing next to a couple that was halfway through their meal, a guy with a long red beard and a black cap, and fair woman with jet-black hair eating a veggie burger.  My daughter was smiling and giggling a lot, and I joked with her that if she smiled big enough they might even let her steal a French fry.  They did offer a fry, which we declined, and we took a few steps towards the other end of the bar to let them eat in peace.

A few minutes later we found our way to a table, ordered six burgers (I got the veg one) and a starter of fried oysters; and, as we always do, we asked the waiter to bring everything all at once since the kids can only sit still for so long.  The waiter got it – he’d seen crews like ours before.  A few minutes later, he came back with our drinks and, after setting them down, he said with a smile, “I wanted to let you know that that gentleman over there (the guy with the beard who offered us a French fry) has picked up your tab for lunch.  He said you are such a nice family and he wanted to wish you a happy new year.”

Gasps ensued.

I’ve read a lot about people paying for random meals, at restaurants or at Starbucks or the drive-through line, or even at Karma Kitchen where the bill comes for $0 and you pay what you want to keep the chain forward and pay for the next person’s meal –  but it’s never happened to me.  It was really an incredible experience – something brand new that no one in our group really knew how to address.  We all were a little giddy, feeling both shy and elated.  And as the meal wore on we started saying things like, “C’mon, if we’re all such a nice family let’s sit still and wait for our food to come without shouting…!”

It was a joke at first but it did feel like the gift bestowed some sort of truth upon us, at least for a little while.  Things that afternoon felt charmed, easier.  By seeing ourselves through someone else’s eyes and by being exposed to a gesture that didn’t make “sense” in any traditional way – and because it didn’t make sense in any normal way it was uniquely pure and full of joy – our perspectives shifted, our reality shifted.  We were living up to that gift.

As that gentleman stood up from his meal, I walked up to him, looked him in the eye, shook his hand and thanked him.  I told him we would pay it forward, which we did, but mostly I just wanted to be grateful and gracious without putting him on the spot or making him at all uncomfortable.  With the kids clamoring in the background and all the newness of that situation, I didn’t manage to have a proper conversation with him, I didn’t manage to ask too many questions or get to know him or do anything that would allow me to see him again.  But maybe it’s better that way.  He got to be an angel for a day, I got to have an angel in my life for a day.  It didn’t change the course of my life or of his, but it touched me and it taught me – and that was all very real.

My and our forever struggle with generosity is: are we using our heads when we are being generous?  I think the answer to that question is “sometimes,” and I think it depends on where you are in your practice of generosity.  Some people have an advanced practice of generosity – it imbues who they are, and the spirit with which they walk through the world.  I bet those peoples’ generosity muscles are so well-developed that they can flex in all sorts of situations.  For me, well, I know that I’m still cultivating generosity, still working at not having analysis squash the heart-full practice of generosity.  For me, a regular dose of pure, unadulterated, unanalyzed generosity every now and again is just what the doctor ordered, both in giving and in receiving.

Here’s wishing you a happy and generous 2013.  And if you find yourself in Nashville this year, I’d recommend a stop at Burger Up.  You’ll probably have to pay for your own meal, but it will be delicious.

Living up to the gift

~ Sasha ~ Leave a comment

It’s December, which means that nonprofit end-of-year fundraising is in full swing.  It’s an exciting time of year as checks roll in at a much faster clip – the fruits of your labor, and payoff for a year’s worth of tremendously hard work by your organization and your fundraising team.

Back before I’d ever raised any money, I thought fundraising meant going to black tie, rubber chicken dinners and having conversations as dull as the food.  It was the necessary evil of putting fuel in the tank for doing your real work.

It’s good to be so wrong about something.  It provides perspective, acts as a stiff shot of humility.

This year more than ever, as the checks have been coming in from people I’ve known for years now, I can personally feel their support in a new way.  Knowing who they are and how much they give of themselves, knowing how seriously they take their donation and how much trust they are placing in us to make a difference in the world with their money – it fills me with a profound sense of duty and of respect.  It makes me want to work harder, to work smarter, to do more to make them proud.  It makes me realize that my job (our job), now, is to live up to their gift.

To all of you out there (you know who you are), let me say, again: thank you.

Better

~ Sasha ~ 1 Comment

I was having a tough day.  Lots of work requiring real emotional energy.  I was feeling drained.

On my way home a guy is jamming on the jazz piano.  Just jamming.

I keep on walking.

Then I stop.

I turn around.

I drop $5 in the bucket.

We exchange a few words.  We both smile.  Both our days get better.

There’s joy in giving.  Real, actual joy.

Nothing intangible about it.

Bok choy, not chicken

~ Sasha ~ Leave a comment

One of the things that I’ve discovered about being a (mostly) vegetarian / (sorta) vegan* is that if I don’t plan accordingly I will nearly always be starving whenever I fly anywhere.  The vegetarian options on a plane are inevitably either very sad salads or cheese plates, hence the hunger.

Last week when getting off a plane in San Francisco I had an extra 10 minutes before being picked up at the airport, and I found a small place to get Chinese food, mostly stir-fry.  You’ve been to this place and its many cousins: pick the entrée (chicken, beef, etc.) to go with your noodles or rice for $10.  As usual there was no non-meat option, which to me means no lunch option, so I asked the woman behind the counter what I could do and she told me that they’d be happy to whip up a vegetable stir fry (for $16, but that’s another story).

This got me thinking about doing what I want versus following rules that I set for myself.

The omnivore I used to be would have happily and without a second thought ordered the chicken or beef entrée.  The vegetarian I aspire to be saw nothing to eat and asked a different question that led to a different outcome – one that I was just as happy with (and my omnivorous self would have liked just fine as well, but would never have dreamed of asking).  With the pre-existing rule in place I behaved differently and got a better outcome for me.

Reflecting on my ongoing exploration of the practice of generosity, it’s impossible to ignore that virtually every major religion has specific norms and expectations around generosity, giving, caring for others. When I think about what my generosity exploration is a reaction against, part of the answer is the modern, progressive, liberal, often not-so-religious worldview that is all too familiar to me as an American northeasterner who went to a liberal arts college.  In this worldview I’m supposed to be aware of and care about the world, supposed to believe in the role of government and believe in social safety nets, but in terms of how I individually am supposed to act, what’s considered right and wrong, sacred and profane, how I fit into a broader group (my community, my religion, my extended family) and how and when I subjugate what feels right to me to rules or expectations or group norms or tradition – it’s a conversation we rarely have and often don’t even know how to start.

What have we lost in this world free of constraints?  What do we give up when we shed rules, expectations, obligations, a sense of duty or service or respect for traditions?

The balancing act is that I am a huge believer in bucking tradition, in unshackling ourselves from a set of norms that keep us from contributing to our full potential, to recognizing all that we have to offer and all that the world needs from us.  At the same time I know from my own experience that creating a set of expectations – of rules – whether around food or a practice of generosity or, yes, religion causes me to take actions I wouldn’t otherwise take, actions that expose me to different experiences and different people and different behaviors….not each one exactly what I hope it will be, but more often than not I’m discovering wisdom and connection and a sense of place and belonging along the way.

How much do I really know what is best for me and how I carry myself in the world?  And how much are we all giving up when we give up our obligations?

 

 

* “(sorta) vegan” is what I’m able to pull off without embracing meat/cheese substitutes and/or avoiding nearly all foods and restaurants.  It essentially equates to low dairy.

The risks of economizing generosity

~ Sasha ~ 2 Comments

Another surprising revelation from Sandel’s book was hearing how some prominent economists think about generosity and civic action.

In Chapter 3 of What Money Can’t Buy, Sandel talks about Richart Titmuss’ The Gift Relationship, published in 1970, in which Titmuss compared the US and British blood collection system.  The British system is entirely voluntary and the U.S. system is part voluntary and part paid.  According to Sandel, “Titmuss presented a wealth of data showing that, in economic and practical terms alone, the British blood collection system works better than the American one.  Despite the supposed efficiency of markets, he argued, the American system leads to chronic shortages, wasted blood, higher costs, and a greater risk of contaminated blood.”

Titmuss goes further, arguing not just against the inefficiency of the U.S. system but its morality.  Paying for blood, he argues, is unfair and corrupting.  It preys upon those not in a position to strike a fair bargain (the poor) when deciding whether to give something as vital and inviolable as their own blood.

Famed economist Kennith Arrow’s retort was striking – all the more so because Arrow was known for his work on market imperfections. He was no free market purist.   Nevertheless, Arrow stated that Titmuss’ argument was flawed on two fronts.  First, Arrow didn’t believe that creation of a market would have negative spillover effects on the voluntary market (my take here is that, for blood, it probably depends on how the two systems are set up, and the impacts could be studied empirically).  More surprising was Arrow’s argument about the risks of a voluntary market, and his claim that if something could be solved by a market mechanism it should, so that ethical behavior could be economized.

In Arrow’s words, “I do not want to rely too heavily on substituting ethics for self-interest.  I think it best on the whole that the requirement of ethical behavior be confined to those circumstances where the price system breaks down….We do not wish to use up recklessly the scarce resources of altruistic motivation.”

To paraphrase Bill Clinton, “this is important, so I’m gonna repeat it.”

“We do not wish to use up…the scarce resources of altruistic motivation.”

Amazing that Arrow could actually write this, and that anyone could take it seriously as a model of human behavior.  Generosity is generative, altruism is an orientation towards the world and a pattern of behavior that creates more kind action, both by the actor and by others.  Sure, it’s not limitless – everything must remain in balance – but one of my biggest revelations is that that shifting my own attitude about generosity didn’t exhaust some small, limited supply, it cracked open a door to a whole different way of being (and no, sadly, I don’t live it every day, it’s a lifetime project).  Generosity isn’t scarce and finite.  Indeed, in its earliest forms, newfound generosity is delicate and prone to being easily cowed.  Generosity can only grow if properly nurtured and cultivated, but if it is nurtured, it blossoms, it doesn’t run out.

Taking a big step back, and thinking about the commodified world we live in, I think that Titmuss has it right.  The risk we run, in Sandel’s words, is that “the declining spirit of giving made for an impoverished moral and social life” and that, as Titmuss continues, “It is likely that a decline in the spirit of altruism in one sphere of human activities will be accompanied by similar changes in attitudes, motives and relationships in other spheres” and that ultimately we might undermine altruism and a sense of community.

As Titmuss concludes:

The ways in which society organizes and structures its social institutions – and particularly its health and welfare systems – can encourage or discourage the altruistic in man; such systems can foster integration or alienation; they can allow the ‘theme of the gift’ – of generosity towards strangers – to spread among and between social groups and generations.

What does a society look like that encourages the altruist in all of us, that fosters integration?  Certainly it is one with strong communities and groups, a sense of connection and of shared responsibility.

Harder still, how does one measure and track the supply of altruism, of generosity, in a society, and is there a risk that as market efficiencies populate every corner of our economic and social interactions, that the notion that one would do anything for anyone “for free” would become such an alien concept that it would erode the very fabric of society and the underpinning of strong communities?

(BONUS:  the nice folks at Macmillan Audio reached out after yesterday’s post to let me know that there’s an audio version of What Money Can’t Buy.  Here’s a clip.)

What Money Can’t Buy

~ Sasha ~ 1 Comment

Harvard Professor Michael Sandel’s recent book, What Money Can’t Buy, is a critical look at the commoditization (economification?) of everything in our society.  We’ve gone from a world with first class and coach tickets (which, to Sandel, apparently was mostly OK) to a world where people pay for blood, pay second graders to read, pay homeless people to stand in line to hold spots for public congressional hearings, and pay people to tattoo advertisements on their foreheads.

The book is long on questions and short on answers – the central question being whether the potential utilitarian improvements that result from market transactions (both sides participate, so both parties must be better off) is corrupting to society as a whole.  As Sandel puts it, “In deciding whether to commodify a good, we must therefore consider more than efficiency and distributive justice.  We must also ask whether market norms will crowd out nonmarket norms, and if so, whether this represents a loss worth caring about.”

Sandel argues forcefully that in order to resolve these questions we need to get comfortable having normative discussions about the kind of society we wish to create and live in – and I was longing for a last third of the book that would equip me as a reader with tools to have those conversations.  That critique notwithstanding, it’s impossible to read the book and not start to notice how everything (everything!) seems to be for sale, and the prevailing wisdom is that this has to be a good thing.

The counterargument is that putting a price on things crowds out civic behavior.  The moment you offer $50 to people to give blood is the moment people stop showing up to donate blood out of a sense of duty and generosity to their fellow man.  As a wise friend of mine once said, “I’ve considered donating a kidney, but I’d never consider donating a kidney and getting paid $500 for my troubles.”

With this as context, I wonder if part of my interest in generosity was a backlash against everything being monetized and maximized – a desire to create a space in my life, connected to a sense of service, where market norms don’t prevail, where I act from a sense of duty first.

Duty means you don’t get to ask clever questions…you just act.  And these days, just acting is a welcome respite from the Chase review of line calls at the U.S. Open, the football games at Invesco Field, people buying the future income streams of young people instead of just finding great people and giving them our support.

Even in impact investing there’s a quiet whisper (getting louder every day) that if it something has a market-based solution then it HAS to be better.

Maxims are nice because they make the world simple and they ask little in the way of judgment and nuance.  But let’s just be clear: markets are great at efficiency, markets instill discipline, and markets give us quick feedback.  But the premise never was that markets alone have all the answers, and if we as a sector are going to make large-scale change, we need to learn the lessons of history – today’s (read: 2008 crisis) as well as yesterday (the building of the U.S. interstate system) – of where markets have worked and where they haven’t; what are their strengths and what are their limitations; where markets empower and where they marginalize.

The lines aren’t bright, but there are important lessons out there, and most of them weren’t written by Milton Friedman.  As our sector grows up, we will all have to start becoming better students of history, and becoming more versed in talking about where markets work, where they don’t work, and why.

The thing about being generous

~ Sasha ~ 1 Comment

Is that most of the time the generosity comes right back at you, except when it doesn’t.

You can lean into that rejection too.

That tiny sense that someone just took advantage of you? It’s a reminder that this isn’t a zero sum game.  It’s also a chance to remember that there are times when you, too, were less generous than you could have been.

Whatever you do, don’t let these rebukes stray you from your path.

(and speaking of paths, here’s Nipun Mehta’s beautiful UPenn Commencement speech on generosity – the transcript of which has been read more than 100,000 times)