Tiny Buddha

Tag: charity

  • HumanKind: A Feel-Good Book That Can Lift Your Spirits & Change the World

    HumanKind: A Feel-Good Book That Can Lift Your Spirits & Change the World

    We’re approaching that time again, “the most wonderful time of the year,” they say.

    Some love the holidays because they appreciate the comfort of tradition—the regalia, the reunions, the rituals.

    Others delight in the nostalgia of holidays past, when all was calm and all was bright, even if just for a day.

    As for me, I love the spirit of giving and the way the season often brings out the best in people.

    It’s the seat given to someone with an armful of bags, the donation offered to someone with a head full of worries, or forgiveness extended to someone with a heart full of regrets.

    Yes, for me it’s kindness that makes the holidays magical because it reminds me that people are good—that’s their warmth and compassion and tenderness in the world.

    The truth is, it’s always there. People love and give and care every day, we just have to pay attention. And when we do, we generally feel better about life, and inspired to do better for the people around us.

    This is why I love Brad Aronson’s book HumanKind: Changing the World One Small Act at a Time, which ranks high on my gift list this holiday season.

    Given the barrage of demoralizing news updates lobbied at us daily, it would be easy to grow cynical and fall into despair. But our inflammatory, polarizing media only highlights part of the picture. HumanKind Is the antidote to news-induced despondency—a beacon of hope that will brighten your outlook and restore your faith in humanity.

    With heartwarming stories and practical tips, HumanKind will have you smiling, crying, and opening your eyes to the countless ways you can make a difference for your family and community. And all the author’s royalties go to Big Brothers Big Sisters—so just buying a copy does some good!

    Brad was inspired to write this book after supporting his wife through leukemia. The silver lining of tragedy is that we often see just how many people care, and this was true for the Aronsons. Friends, family members, and colleagues alike all showed up and helped however they could.

    Brad’s experience isn’t unique, as HumanKind reveals. The book is a treasure trove of real-life, feel-good stories that show how small acts, when committed with love, can make a massive difference. And it’s chock-full of ideas to make a positive impact and find both joy and meaning through simple acts of kindness.

    Imagine if more people gave others a chance when they were down—like Nick Bayer, who changed homeless teen Dante Wilson’s life when he hired him for his café in Philadelphia, inspiring Dante to mentor youth from difficult backgrounds.

    Visualize a world in which we all created light where once we only knew darkness—like six-year-old Gabriel Alijalian, who inspired thousands of people to commit acts of kindness on November 3rd, the anniversary of his leukemia diagnosis.

    How might it impact us all for the better if more people made it a goal to brighten someone else’s day—like event planner Heidi Berkman, who started the Bloom Project to give leftover flowers to people in hospice and their loved ones?

    These everyday heroes from HumanKind all have in one thing in common: the simple decision to do what they could to make life better for someone else.

    That’s something we all can do—starting with ourselves. Reading one story daily during your morning or nightly routine will ensure you start or end your day encouraged and full of optimism.

    Then I highly recommend you start your own chain of hope by grabbing a copy of HumanKind for a friend, who may be inspired to do the same.

    Just like we don’t have to wait for the New Year to start a new habit or create positive change, we don’t need to wait for the holidays to spread a little goodwill. At any time, we can “be the change” we wish to see and be the reason someone believes that people are good.

    And the beautiful thing is that is caring is contagious. Much like good news, it only takes one tiny spark to make kindness spread like wildfire.

    **If you’re looking for personalized holiday gifts, Brad will send you a FREE bookplate (a sticker you place inside the book) inscribed with a message for your loved one and signed by the author. Click here for more details! If you buy six or more books directly from the author here, the books are only $10 each and you can get each copy signed and inscribed for free. 

  • 7 Simple Ways to Give Back to the World When You Have Little Time or Money

    7 Simple Ways to Give Back to the World When You Have Little Time or Money

    “I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catchers mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back.” ~Maya Angelou

    Being charitable is often seen as a zero sum game, giving away our time or money for the benefit of others. As uplifting as it may be to give to a cause you care about, most of us feel we lack the authority to truly make things happen.

    I discovered the transformative power of helping others when I was eight years old. My friends and I had imaginations like other children, but in the summer of 1989 our ideas became action—we organized an event to raise money for a local leukemia charity.

    Every day, on a patch of grass by the river, in the shadow of a 10th century abbey, my friends and I would play soccer. As it was the summer holiday and we had never stayed up all night, we conceived of a marvelous plan to organize a sponsored, all-night soccer match.

    What we lacked in official charity affiliation, we made up for in enthusiasm. We walked for miles, knocking on every single door to obtain sponsors for our unconventional soccer match. We asked anyone that sponsored us how many goals we’d score during the night. The person who came closest would win a signed ball from the local professional soccer club.

    Within two days we managed to collect over 100 pounds in sponsor funds. More importantly, we had planted a seed in ourselves, a raison d’etre.

    People arrived to show their support, cheering with each goal that we scored well into the balmy summer evening. As the sun set, only we kids were left, with my dad as the sole spectator. Our motivation never waned as we played into the early hours of Sunday morning.

    The pride and sense of achievement we gained from helping that leukemia charity led me to a profound realization: Positively impacting others is far more meaningful than the satisfaction of a personal goal that wears off after a day.

    Time after time I hear people say that either a lack of time or money prevents them from volunteering or donating to a cause. It isn’t that they don’t care; it’s just that they don’t feel empowered to actually do anything. After hearing this collective frustration from so many people who wished they could do more, I decided to compile this list.

    What if there were various ways you could help others without sacrificing your already-tight budget or precious free time? Below are six small changes you can make in your daily life that have a stunning social impact over time.

    1. Amazon Smile

    As the light of the laptop glows upon my face and the dopamine rush of retail therapy hits, my late night Amazon shopping spree is an unexpected source of social good. With their low prices and free two-day Prime shipping, Amazon is my go-to source when shopping online.

    Over 250 million people use Amazon, but only a fraction use Amazon Smile, a simple and automatic way to support your favorite charity. When you shop through smile.amazon.com, you’ll find the same selection and low prices with an added bonus: Amazon will donate 0.5% of the price of your purchases to your favorite charity. The donation is automatic after checkout.

    Over the past twelve months I have spent an embarrassing $2,800 at Amazon, and often, when buying impulsively, I would forget to visit smile.amazon.com. But since installing a Google Chrome extension, I am automatically redirected to smile.amazon.com when I click on any Amazon link or navigate to amazon.com in my browser.

    Annual Impact: $2,800 x 0.05 = $14

    2. Charity Miles

    Most of us walk, some of us run, while others prefer to cycle. What if we could not only improve our health from daily exercise, but also do social good as we sweat? Over the past few years I have been on a quest to run a marathon on every continent to help raise awareness and funds for refugees, and the Charity Miles app has helped to multiply my fundraising efforts.

    Charity Miles sends money to a charity of your choosing for each mile that you walk, hike, run, or cycle. Simply download the app for your Android or iOS device, select a charity, and then perform your exercise as you normally would.

    The charity that you select earns money for every mile completed. Walkers, hikers, and runners earn $.25 per mile; bikers earn $.10 per mile. The app even has an indoor mode if you prefer to use the treadmill.

    Total Effect = 1,200 miles of running = $300
    600 miles of walking = $155
    600 miles of cycling = $60

    Annual Impact: $515

    3. GoodSearch.com

    The most common online activity besides browsing social media is searching. We use search engines to help us at work, with our personal lives, when shopping, and in just about every scenario imaginable. Search engines are how we find information.

    GoodSearch is touted as a philanthropic search engine. Instead of instinctively heading to Google, start using GoodSearch instead and contribute to the millions of dollars already raised for charity. To remember to do this, just replace Google as your browser’s default homepage. In addition, shopping through GoodShop allows you to donate to charity just like Amazon Smile does.

    Annual Impact= 5 searches a day x 365 = $18.25

    4. FreeRice.com

    Brain-training games have become a big business over the past few years with companies such as Lumosity and Elevate dominating the niche. But rather than paying money to exercise your brain, flex your neurons and help a charity at the same time with FreeRice.com.

    For each question you answer correctly, Freerice.com donates ten grains of rice to the World Food Programme. The game is surprisingly therapeutic. It helps me to decompress after a long day, and it allows me to multitask: learning new information while effortlessly donating to charity. After just five minutes of game-time I earned 750 grains of rice for the World Food Programme.

    Annual Impact: 750 x 365 = 273,750 grains of rice or 9.4lbs

    5. The Hunger Site

    The Hunger Site allows users to donate food by simply clicking a button! No actual donation is required. Simply click the yellow button on the main page and repeat daily. After clicking you can see the results for that day – including how many people clicked and how much food was donated in kilograms, tons, and pounds.

    Annual Impact: 0.14 lb x 365 =51lbs of Food

    6. Satorio.org

    The growing body of evidence supporting meditation has already been widely publicized by mainstream media outlets. Not only can meditation reduce stress, anxiety, and blood pressure, but it can also boost creativity, focus, and the immune system.

    Using Satorio.org, you can obtain these benefits while simultaneously helping to end world hunger—no effort or money is required.

    When you start hitting the gym, you observe small improvements and gradual changes along the way. The same is true with meditation. It is a workout for your mind that can have ripple effects on your life and the people around you. The idea behind Satorio is to show, in a more tangible way, the beneficial impact that your meditation can have on others.

    By meditating for twenty minutes a day, you give 73,000 grains of rice to Oxfam annually:

    Annual Impact: 20 x 10 x 365 = 73,000 grains of rice or 2.5lbs

    7. Forest

    As you are reading TinyBuddha, you no doubt appreciate the art of being mindful with your time. Forest, an app I started using recently, not only helps me be more mindful, but also increases my productivity massively.

    Forest encourages you to resist the temptation of leaving the app to check Facebook, text, or to play a game, by making your virtual tree wither away when you do. The Tamagotchi sense of achievement I get from nurturing my forest, motivates me to stay away from the distracting element of my phone when I am supposed to be working.

    I would gladly pay the $1.99 for the app’s productivity boost alone; however, the added social benefit are the real trees that are planted after achieving certain milestones.

    Total Effect:

    2 x 25 minutes sessions per day = 2 trees planted a year

    —

    Over the course of a year, using these websites can provide $547 and over sixty pounds of food. Imagine how many millions of people would be fed and helped if even 1% of the world did this.

    So if you’ve been stuck in a defeatist mindset, assuming there is nothing you can do, think again. These incredibly simple efforts can fuel positive change and support programs that save lives around the world.

  • Use Your Voice for Kindness

    Use Your Voice for Kindness

    Use Your Voice for Kindness

    Source: LiveLifeHappy.com

  • How to Give Yourself and Others the Gift of Happiness

    How to Give Yourself and Others the Gift of Happiness

    People holding hands

    “It is every man’s obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.” ~Albert Einstein

    My son recently returned home from college with a new demeanor.

    He was helpful, considerate, interested in others, and genuinely happy. The change was a far cry from the boy who had left for college just a few short months before.

    Don’t get me wrong, he has always been a good kid, but up until now he’s been a typical teenager. He was a bit messy, a bit lazy, and if it wasn’t part of his video game he was mostly uninterested.

    So what changed?

    My husband and I began discussing it over dinner. I told him I thought it had a lot to do with the philanthropic efforts of the fraternity he joined. Now instead of playing video games all weekend, he was volunteering at animal shelters and helping the less fortunate by providing physical labor.

    My husband was intrigued. He had always associated philanthropy with money. After all, it’s a word often associated with wealth or large foundations; was it possible for an average person to be philanthropic?

    We began doing research on philanthropy and found that anyone can be philanthropic.

    The word philanthropy actually means “love of humanity.” To be philanthropic means to care, nourish, develop and enhance the human experience.

    Philanthropy is different than charity. The easiest way to explain the difference is that charity takes care of an immediate need, where philanthropy tries to solve a problem.

    Think of it as you can give someone money so that they may buy a meal (charity), or you can teach the person a skill so that they may make a wage and pay for their own meal (philanthropy).

    Research suggests one of the keys to happiness is the act of helping others. It is known as the “helper’s high.” This would explain the change in my son’s personality.

    Medical research into the “helper’s high” phenomenon has shown people who volunteer experience feelings of euphoria. They also found this “high” has possible health benefits that far outreach the act of giving.

    Research suggests people who regularly participate in charities have less pain, sleep better, and have a personal sense of reward and fulfillment.Giving leads to a happier life.

    Philanthropy goes beyond the basics of giving time or money to a cause. It is a foundation that when regularly practiced builds relationships and strengthens self-worth. It is a circular action that builds momentum. We give because it makes us feel good. We feel good because we give.

    Like anything worthwhile in life, there has to be balance. Sometimes too much of a good thing can cause harm. In order to maximize the benefits of philanthropy it’s important to understand how to be a healthy giver.

    Here are five things you should know in order to maximize the benefits of happiness from philanthropy.

    1. Understand philanthropy is selfish.

    Some people find fault in giving to receive, but how else can you give? It’s like eating without satisfying hunger. Yes. We receive and emotional high when we give, but the happiness experienced from giving is natural.

    Some research suggests that you cannot fulfill happiness without giving. Philanthropy is a route to give happiness away in exchange for our own new recharged happiness.

    2. You cannot save the world.

    Some get discouraged because they think too big and their efforts become unrealistic. This can actually have the adverse effect and brings unhappiness. You cannot change the world by yourself, but your efforts, in conjunction with others, can change a life.

    Concentrate on the smaller benefits of giving to maximize the cycle of happiness.

    3. Don’t give to the greatest need unless your heart is in it.

    Only choose causes that speak to your heart. If you love animals, volunteer in a shelter or become a foster home for a kill shelter. If you love children, become a mentor to a high-risk child. The closer your heart is to the cause, the more benefit for your natural cycle of happiness.

    4. Make giving a regular part of your routine.

    Not being consistent in giving your time or money will not increase your happiness. It’s like diet and exercise. If you don’t practice the change consistently, you cannot maximize the benefits.

    Benefits come when relationships form and strengthen over a time of regular giving. This is the best way to see your efforts at work and receive the valuable feedback regarding the difference your efforts make.

    5. Never give too much of yourself to help others.

    Balance is a key in giving just like in all things in life. Never sacrifice your own needs for the needs of others. It’s just like the flight attendant tells you before the plane takes off. Secure your own oxygen before assisting others.

    After seeing the difference giving has made in my son’s life, I’m ready to begin incorporating regular giving into my own life. I hope you join me.

    Do you have a cause that’s close to your heart where you give regularly? How has it made a difference in your life?

    People holding hands image via Shutterstock

  • 99-Year-Old Woman Makes a Dress Per Day for a Child in Need

    99-Year-Old Woman Makes a Dress Per Day for a Child in Need

    She’s almost 100 years old, but that hasn’t stopped Lillian Weber from making a massive difference in the world.

    Every day she starts and finishes a unique dress for Little Dresses for Africa, a non-profit that distributes dresses to impoverished young girls in Africa and beyond. She’s made more than 840 so far, and hopes to keep going to reach her goal making 1,000.

    What an amazing woman, and what an inspiring goal!

  • Pause for a Cause with Mindful in May

    Pause for a Cause with Mindful in May

    Today’s video is more than a cute cartoon (though I find it adorable!)–it’s an introduction to a global meditation campaign for social good.

    Mindful in May is a one month online meditation campaign delivered to your inbox daily in May, to motivate you to bring a new healthy habit into your life, while raising money to help nearly one billion people on the planet who struggle daily without access to clean, safe drinking water.

    Starting on May 1st, participants will commit to regular meditation through a mindfulness program delivered by daily e-newsletters. This will include weekly guided meditation downloads, cutting edge science, prizes, and curated links to inspire your day and keep you connected to the challenge.

    While you meditate, your donations and fundraising will bring clean, safe drinking water to thousands of people living in the developing world. Money raised will go to Charity Water to help build clean water wells in the developing world.

    Join the mindful revolution by registering for Mindful in May here. Clear mind for you, clean water for others.

  • The Pay As You Feel Cafe

    The Pay As You Feel Cafe

    Chef Adam Smith serves perfectly good food that would otherwise go to waste, on a pay-as-you-feel basis. As for why he decided to do this in Leeds, in the UK, Adam says, “You can’t change the world unless you change your hometown first.”

    What a beautiful mission! Follow the Pay As You Feel Cafe on Facebook here.

  • Charity Water: How Your Birthday Can Bring Clean Water to the World

    Charity Water: How Your Birthday Can Bring Clean Water to the World

    Scott Harrison started the non-profit Charity Water on his 31st birthday to help bring clean, safe drinking water to developing countries (where 800 million people live without it). If you’re looking to make a major difference, consider pledging your birthday. I know what I’m doing on mine!