Ways of Giving

You give every day. You give time to keeping up your health and appearance. You give support to friends who need comfort or attention. You give money to merchants who rely on your business. There are many ways to give, and they’re all good.

When it comes to community giving, the story is the same. Money, time, counsel, clothes, food, education, and solidarity: these are all ways of giving. We should never hoist one way over another – to write a check and to feed a child are equally noble and worthy.

But here we are in 2008, and there are nearly 2 billion people in poverty and AIDS ravages Africa and one estimate says that half of all health problems in the world are caused by unsafe drinking water and our natural resources are hitting their limits and climate change is a nice way of saying our time on Earth is limited – and we’re speeding toward the deadline.

Wow. (Deep breath.) We’ve heard it all before, and it’s overwhelming.

The good news is: We can solve these problems, and in our lifetimes. This generation has the technology and the resources. Do we have the will?

There are people and organizations doing outstanding work to make our world more just, safe, and sustainable. Invested Citizens wants to connect you to them: so that you can know their efforts and help support them. These leaders will show you the ways of giving with the most social impact.

And Invested Citizens wants you to know how the way you give each day matters. We see money as the most powerful vehicle for change: everyone uses it, and our social systems are based on it. When we give money, we give support. Who do you support?

On the smallest scale: you can go through Styrofoam coffee cups each day (supporting the environmentally harmful Styrofoam industry), or you can buy a mug. That’s impact. On a mass scale: that’s power.

For decades, our society has sold us the easy-but-not-always-ethical. What’s the global result? Contaminated air, water, and food; starved energy and education; bankrupt housing and health care; fear instead of safety, minimum instead of fair wage, rights restriction instead of rights expression.

Today, the tide is changing (note the rise of corporate accountability and surge in community giving) and we can help it change. It’s time to do the difficult: choosing lifestyles that protect our values and our rights. Doing things right in the short-run will pay off big time in the long-run.

Think about your buying power. Become an invested citizen in your own respect. With smart spending, we not only take control away from the entities that would control us, we make a definite decision about the world we want to live in, and the world we will make for our children.