I’m one of those people who has a tendency to donate the second someone pulls on my heartstrings. Give me a national or local crisis, and I’m there with my credit card out, ready to offer up what I can. I’m also really good at showing up when it’s all preplanned, like an annual volunteer opportunity with friends or coworkers. But over the past two years, I started noticing a difference between operating from reactive mode—someone needs help! I can help!—and making an active, deliberate choice to regularly support the causes I cared about. I kept saying that certain organizations mattered to me, but I didn’t really do anything to show up for them until prompted, and only once in a while. And I started wondering if maybe I needed to do a bit more of the latter. I wanted to, for lack of a better phrase, put my money where my mouth was.
Because there’s something powerful about regularly showing up. It requires sacrifice, planning, and going outside of your comfort zone. Even though philanthropy isn’t about you necessarily, if you’re not committed to showing up, it’s harder to feel like your money and your time will actually make a difference. Over the course of, say, a month, how could you do this? Does it mean a bigger donation based on your budget? Volunteering a couple of times? Both? It’s totally up to you, but notice what changes when you adopt an attitude of stepping up more than you usually do.