The One Thing We Can All Give Today, For #GivingTuesdayNow

Today is #GivingTuesdayNow, a ‘pop-up’ initiative celebrating unity and generosity in the time of Covid-19. It is organized by GivingTuesday, the not-for-profit whose one-day event catalyzed over $2 billion of charitable gifts on December 3, 2019, just in the United States. They have a powerful global grassroots network as well as influential partners like PayPal, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, United Way Worldwide, LinkedIn, and NBC and MSNBC.

This ‘bonus’ initiative, the first activation that GivingTuesday has led outside of their annual day of giving on the Tuesday after American Thanksgiving, emerged as a way to avoid a ‘social recession’. Ezra Klein described that concept as “a collapse in social contact that is particularly hard on the populations most vulnerable to isolation and loneliness.” This is a worrying potential outcome amid the social distancing we are wisely practicing to reduce the physical risk of Covid-19.

Why Generosity In A Pandemic

GivingTuesday’s CEO, Asha Curran, wrote that “Generosity is a powerful countervailing force to isolation and loneliness, which already are prevalent in our society and bound to worsen now. Our ability to give help and hope gives us agency, dispelling feelings of powerlessness.” Indeed, there is robust scientific evidence that giving of our own free will increases vitality, self-esteem, and happiness. Giving someone something that they value, whether a thing or a feeling, demonstrates that we have something worth giving.

Giving also strengthens social relationships. It creates webs of gratitude and obligation that may never be paid off tit-for-tat in transactional exchanges, but bond people in a community to each other as they naturally seek reciprocity. Indeed, experiential gifts are particularly effective for this effect of relationship-building, more than gifts of objects or money.

Finally, when we give things – physical or experiential – that people need, we improve lives and make the world a better place. Whether it is healthy food for a family that needs it, medical-grade masks for essential service staff, or validation and encouragement to someone who’s facilitating a weekly meditation for your team, these gifts have measurable positive impact. Generosity leads to more of this giving, and we all need that right now.

How Generosity Can Help In A Pandemic

Covid-19 has made our interdependence viscerally obvious. We all benefit from each others’ care not to unnecessarily expose ourselves to the virus, thereby reducing the spread and minimizing the burden on our healthcare system. Our carelessness can be a direct cause of a neighbor’s illness.

We, as individuals, organizations, and nations have things that the others need. Given our interdependence, we will all weather this crisis better if we share what we have to give that others need. Incredible examples of creative generosity are emerging, from furloughed workers being engaged by growing firms via Accenture’s People + Work Connect platform, to spontaneous neighborhood leave-one-take-one boxes of food, books, and other supplies.

Others risk not going so well, including vaccine production and sales, which could become an example of hoarding and self-interest more than generosity. Radical generosity, as described by Vicki Saunders and embodied in her global SheEO community, is what we’d need to avoid that risk. Saunders suggests we can invent new models for our teams, organizations, and nations by adopting this spirit of radically generosity, giving people purpose and dignity, as well as all of the material support they need to reach their potential.

What We Can All Give

There are profound material needs to be met right now, to replace lost wages, food supplies, childcare, and more. If you have the goods or money to help meet those needs, please do. And do so generously.

But regardless of who you are, as humans, we all have the power to give other people a sense of worth. Anyone can take a minute to recognize another person’s impact, whether they provided a service or a meal, taught you something you didn’t know, or inspired you to improve something about yourself. It could be communicated as simply as a moment of eye contact – possible even while wearing a mask – or a more formal gesture like a thank you note or a public acknowledgment at an event or on social media.

And in some ways, this simple recognition is the most generous gift there is. Because in appreciating someone’s impact, you are recognizing their basic dignity, as well as their larger purpose in this world. Dignity is a requirement for survival, and purpose is what enables human thriving, particularly in times of uncertainty. What’s more, giving others purpose in this way meet Simone de Beauvoir’s definition of ‘true generosity’: “You give your all and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing.”

How We Can All Give

So how can we all do more of this free and fulfilling generosity? Curran’s colleague Jamie McDonald, Chief Strategy Officer at Giving Tuesday, lays out four practical steps: set an intention of what your generosity will contribute to; take an inventory of what you have to give – remember that any of us can give others purpose at any time; instigate your generosity by just doing it, and inviting others to join you; and finally recognizing your own impact.

So today, or any day this month, join Curran and McDonald and the global #GivingTuesdayNow movement by giving someone purpose in an #iseeyou post. It’s as simple as taking a picture or telling a story of something someone did that had an impact on you, thereby gifting them dignity and purpose. As Curran says, “It’s not about size: we all have something to give, and every act of human consideration and kindness matters.”