Love Let Go: The Book

Adam Grant’s book Give and Take discusses givers (and takers) in the workplace. Givers do things like mentor, share networks, and promote others’ ideas. His research supports social contagion theory, including this finding, “When the groups included one consistent giver, the other members contributed more. The presence of a single giver was enough to establish a norm of giving.” Where might you establish a norm of giving today?

By now you know that we are a bit wonky about social science research. The World Happiness Report is the latest to catch our attention. This Washington Post article summarizes the findings, including this one: “Helping others can take you outside of yourself and help you, too: The global “happiness effects” of generosity increased last year, the report found, and making a donation correlated with higher life satisfaction and positive affect. That finding tracks with a number of studies that testify to the well-being boosts of acts of kindness and volunteering.”

All of us are philanthropists, whether we are giving our time, money, skills, or influence away to change the world for the better. Ami has been part of a World Vision midwest women’s group for the past year, and the women in the group recently wrote philanthropic mission statements. Ami’s is to liberate the greatness of women and girls, through inspiration, education, and economic empowerment. What’s yours? Maybe start by filling in the blanks: My mission is to ______ by doing ______ for _______.

Read the final installment in Laura’s series of devotionals on fear for Red Letter Christians.

Read the fourth in Laura’s series of devotionals on fear for Red Letter Christians.