How We Give Now: A Philanthropic Guide for the Rest of Us

From Go Fund Me to philanthropy- the everyday ways that we can give our money, our time, and even our data to help our communities and seek justice. From Go Fund Me to philanthropy- the everyday ways that we can give our money, our time, and even our data to help our communities and seek justice. In How We Give Now, Lucy Bernholz shows that philanthropy is more than writing a check and claiming a tax deduction. For most of us--the non-wealthy givers--philanthropy can be a way of living our values and fully participating in society. We give in all kinds of ways--shopping at certain businesses, canvassing for candidates, donating money, and making conscious choices with our retirement funds. We give our cash, our time, and even our data to make the world a better place. Bernholz takes readers on a tour of the often-overlooked worlds of participatory philanthropy, learning from a diverse group of forty resourceful givers. Donating our digitized personal data is an emerging form of philanthropy, and Bernholz describes safe, equitable, and effective ways of doing so--giving genetic data for medical research through a nonprofit genetics organization rather than a commercial one, for example, or contributing photographs to an online archive like the Densho Digital Repository, which documents America's internment of 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent. Bernholz tells us to "follow the money," however, when we're asked to "add a dollar" to our total at the cash register, or when we buy a charity-branded product; it's more effective to give directly than to give while shopping. Giving is a form of participation. Philanthropy by the rest of us--across geographies and cultural traditions--begins with and builds on active commitment to our communities.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1 1 Philanthropy by the Rest of Us 11 2 The Givingscape: Old and New Come Together 39 3 Crowdfunding and its Ancient Cousins 61 4 Giving is Political 79 5 Investing Across Generations 95 6 The Good, Bad, and Unknown of Giving Data 111 7 Retail Therapy 133 8 Navigating the Givingscape 149 Conclusion: Whose Problem is it, Anyway? 171 Acknowledgments 183 Appendix A: Methods and Mapping Conversations 185 Appendix B: Glossary and Buzzwords 187 Notes 195 Bibliography 211 Index 221

About the Author :
Lucy Bernholz is Senior Research Scholar at the Stanford University Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, where she directs the Digital Civil Society Lab. She is the author of Creating Philanthropic Capital Markets- The Deliberate Evolution.

Review :
2022 PROSE Award Winner, Economics “How We Give Now offers anyone interested in a fuller understanding of how we participate in society, whether it be with our time, money, or data, a lot to consider — about what our shared futures can look like, if we were to pause to think more deeply about how we do things.” —Philanthropy News Digest “Dr. Lucy Bernholz has written the most important book on philanthropy this year… Bernholz’s biggest contribution with this book is the demonstration of how much generosity is happening outside the transaction of writing a cheque to a charity, and how much oxygen is taken up in the charity sector by this narrow framework.” —The Charity Report "An impressively thought-provoking and inspiring work, this timely synthesis of ideas and practicality has relevance for public policy, economics, sociology, the sciences, and more. Anyone interested in contributing to the greater good should consider reading it." —CHOICE