Last Thursday in the United States (back on October 9 for our Canadian friends), the Thanksgiving holiday was celebrated.
This holiday has evolved into a time for pausing to feel gratitude, to count one’s blessings, and to focus on the positive, even when the negative may be surrounding us.
Yesterday was “Giving Tuesday.” A day, since 2012, that has always occurred 5 days after the U.S. Thanksgiving. It is a day that has grown into a global movement to encourage people to be charitably supportive of nonprofits, their causes, and the communities they serve.
This close calendar link between the Thanksgiving holiday encouraging people to feel gratitude and Giving Tuesday which invites people to act generously is no coincidence, of course. Many human behaviors can be linked to feelings that came before and prompted an action. Once people take the time to feel gratitude, the thinking goes, perhaps they will be more inclined to act or behave generously.
In fact, many readers of this blog participated professionally in this process yesterday. Aiming to benefit from the “feelings to behavior connection,” your institution most likely invited people to give yesterday during the Giving Tuesday event.
But, what about you, personally?
Have you paused and gratefully reflected on the good fortune of your life? Just as importantly, have you leveraged those feelings of gratitude to springboard your generosity over the next several weeks?
We often ask our donors to give more, to give again, or to give for a first time during the month of December. Those encouragements and invitations will only be more compelling, more enthusiastic, and more effective if we, too, are following the “gratitude to giving link.”
I hope your calendar year end fundraising efforts more than meet your aspirations.
And, just as importantly, I hope you, too, experience the deep joy that comes from sharing your feelings of gratitude with others by giving generously.