What if I told you that you could help more people every year– without feeling deprived, drained, or stretched beyond your limit? That with a little effort over time you could help hundreds or even thousands more people throughout your life?    

Everyday people perform amazing feats by pushing themselves further like running marathons or mastering musical instruments. Why not extend this idea of performing amazing feats to other areas of our life?

We could set amazing goals of helping other people. We could aim to run a marathon of saving lives or master a concerto of compassion.

And how do we achieve this level of helping others? Same as running a marathon or mastering a musical instrument. Practice.

One of the inspirations for this blog was the idea of philanthropic giving as a “practice.” Like a medical practice, or the practice of meditation, it is something to be developed over our lives. It can be both the act of helping others and a way of life.  

Although we can never reach perfection it is worth being inspired by the idea of improving our Personal Best year after year.

We will begin with a four-part series. It will cover ways we approach improving our personal best. It will offer specific strategies that you can use in your own practice of giving.

Part 1: Why We Give

Understanding our motivations for giving has helped us stick to our goals. It has also focused our giving priorities and our career aspirations. Reflecting on giving is a powerful step to take.

Part 2: Giving Better

If we can find organizations that do more good than others, then we can improve our impact simply by changing where we give. This is important because different organizations or “cause areas” have drastically different impacts. Some charities have been shown to even cause harm.

Part 3: Giving More

If you are giving to organizations (with time or money) that do good, finding ways to give more is a simple way to help more people.

Part 4: Career Choices & Impact

It is important to make use of one our most valuable resources: our careers. From direct service to “earning to give” there are multiple ways to make a difference with our careers.