Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Matt EmersonApril 01, 2014

Anyone who's worked in the non-profit world knows the challenges of fundraising. It's a non-stop, year-round process. For organizations that receive no government money and lack large endowments (like Catholic schools), there is no end to the appeals, the phone calls, the lunches, and the outreach to current and potential benefactors.

Raising money is difficult and, for most people, it's awkward. Few things are more socially stifling than asking people to give. Even if it's for noble causes, people struggle to make the "ask." 

It's because of this context (and my own experience as a nascent fundraiser), that I appreciated the encouraging news from Arthur C. Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. Writing in Sunday's New York Times in a column titled, "Why Fund-Raising Is Fun," Brooks makes the case that fundraisers generate happiness:

In 2003, while working on a book about charitable giving, I stumbled across a strange pattern in my data. Paradoxically, I was finding that donors ended up with more income after making their gifts. This was more than correlation; I found solid evidence that giving stimulated prosperity. I viewed my results as implausible, though, and filed them away. After all, data patterns never “prove” anything, they simply provide evidence for or against a hypothesis.

But when I mentioned my weird findings to a colleague, he told me that they were fairly unsurprising. Psychologists, I learned, have long found that donating and volunteering bring a host of benefits to those who give. In one typical study, researchers from Harvard and the University of British Columbia confirmed that, in terms of quantifying “happiness,” spending money on oneself barely moves the needle, but spending on others causes a significant increase.

Why? Charitable giving improves what psychologists call “self-efficacy,” one’s belief that one is capable of handling a situation and bringing about a desired outcome. When people give their time or money to a cause they believe in, they become problem solvers. Problem solvers are happier than bystanders and victims of circumstance.

Fundraising not only creates happiness, says Brooks, it "creates meaning. Donors possess two disconnected commodities: material wealth and sincere convictions. Alone, these commodities are difficult to combine. But fund-raisers facilitate an alchemy of virtue: They empower those with financial resources to convert the dross of their money into the gold of a better society."

Brooks's research on this matter changed his life. He said he and his wife began giving more to charity; increased their volunteering, and even adopted a child. Eventually, his appreciation for the social value of fundraising prompted him to leave his teaching position to become a fundraiser himself; thus his move to AEI. 

Brooks's piece nicely counters the conventional opinion and offers something of a paradigm shift. It puts me in mind of something I once read in the pages of this magazine. In her splendid article "Imagining Abundance" (July 21, 208) Kerry Robinson wrote:

Once development is understood as a ministry, priests, religious and laypeople can approach what they might have previously thought of as distasteful work and "a necessary evil" as an opportunity for mutual conversion of heart and mind. Grant maker and grant seeker are collaborators in a life-giving mission, rooted in faith, both seeking to use their resources to benefit others. This process brings meaning to the beneficiaries, to the donor and to those working in development.
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

Brazilian Cardinal Leonardo Steiner told America that Pope Leo would carry forward Pope Francis' legacy of synodality in the church.
Gerard O’ConnellMay 29, 2025
Like my discernment to enter religious life, it was a gut reaction I acted on and did not look back.
Rose RucobaMay 29, 2025
Pope Francis shares a laugh with Margaret Karram, president of the Focolare movement, at the end of a meeting with participants in an interreligious conference sponsored by the movement at the Vatican June 3, 2024. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
Margaret Karram, president of the Rome-based Focolare movement, visited the United States to discuss current issues in peacemaking.
Connor HartiganMay 29, 2025
Nazario Gerardi plays Francis in “The Little Flowers of St. Francis” (The Criterion Collection)
We should seek to live simply, to take only what we need and share what we have, to see ourselves in kinship with all of creation.
John DoughertyMay 29, 2025