Generous Benefits

There are too many benefits of living generously to list them in this single document. So we focused on select benefits listed below.

People in institutions of higher education, medical research groups, and commercial entities have done study after study of the benefits related to living a life of generosity. Their findings show a very posititve benefit for people who practice giving in their lives.

You do not have to take our word for it. Check out the studies below:

• The Science of Generosity - Berkeley
• A Neural Link Between Generosity & Happiness - Nature.com
• The Health Benefits of Giving - Rush University Medical Center
• Science of Generosity - Notre Dame
• The Case for Kindness - American Psychological Association
• Being Generous Next Beauty Trend - Indiana University
• Why Giving is Good for Your Health - Cleveland Clinic
• How Generosity Changes Your Brain - Big Think

The list of potential studies go on and on with studies being conducted back in the early 1900's.

Having the studies and all of the data to back up what we understand naturally is a good thing. But at Mite we want to keep it simple. The benefits we outline in this resource are real. We know this because we have experienced them.

We found a new reason to be generous in a health article in U.S. News and World Report! The last comment in the article really caught our attention, and it implies you'll use fewer drugs when you give of your time and resources. Hear us out!

Stephen G. Post is quoted in the article, "On a scale of 1 to 10 – and 10's a really powerful drug like insulin in the treatment of diabetes – this stuff [charitable giving] is probably up there around a 7 or 8. And the amazing thing is, you don't need to go to a drugstore for it." Now that is a benefit we had not considered before - reduced drug expenses! It makes sense, though. If a person's generosity benefits their health, they would spend less on medicine and other medical costs.

If giving is an elixir that calms the heart, brings fulfillment and purpose to one's life, and reduces such ailments as stress, depression, and anxiety, it's premium stuff! But if giving were a drug, there would need to be a legal statement on its effects. Something like this:

"Common side effects from giving may include reduced hypertension, increased optimism, higher self-awareness, better relationships, greater purpose, and the undeniable fact that you have contributed positively to people's lives and the world in which you live."

Generosity, as a drug, would also need to have a prescriptive use statement. Maybe something like this:

"For maximum benefit from giving, ensure that it is heartfelt. Note that your intentions in giving do affect the benefit received. For best results, give freely, willingly, joyfully, and whenever possible. In all instances, understand the impact of your giving."

As Mr. Post further states in the article, "If it's a meaningful donation, it can have a significant impact." The way you give will make a tremendous difference in the potency of its benefit to you. Awareness of how your contribution has made an impact enhances that benefit. This is why, at Mite, we make our donors fully aware of how their donations are used and celebrate the difference made.

Did you ever consider the compounding impact of a gift? Just consider a Mite. Say one of our awesome Miters gave a $5 gift to a project that built a classroom for poor children in the Philippines. Now, it should be obvious that the single mite was not responsible for the entire construction of the classroom. However, that mite placed with thousands of others did build the classroom! That is serious multiplication and that single mite shared in the whole thing!

But, the math does not stop there. Let’s say in that same classroom 50 children could be taught, and throughout the day there were five classes held. Then let’s say that the classroom was used for over 50 years to teach those children as they grew. Well, let's do the math: 5 classes of 50 different children taught per year for a total of 50 years. So 12,500 children would have been taught in that classroom, and over 60,000 different class sessions would have been held. The Miter would be part of all that!

Not done yet though. Let’s say that every one of those 12,500 children taught in that classroom went out into the world and did something positive, like raising a family, working, living productive lives and helping others, and each one of them positively touched the lives of 10,000 people during their lifetimes. That would be 125,000,000 additional people affected by the recipients of that Miter’s donation.

So $5 impacts over 125 Million people… and counting. That is exponential!

Sound like a stretch to you? Give a Mite and see if our math works.

Des Toal, our founder's father, was a wise and successful businessman. Due to God’s blessing and for God’s glory, Des finished his corporate endeavors by managing several major business turnarounds and creating a large amount of wealth. At the same time, he made a commitment to give a significant part of what he made to charity.

This is where we run into the Inheritance benefit of giving. Des died a little early as far as we are concerned, but by the time he died, millions of people were impacted by his giving. Orphanages, medical facilities, feeding programs, educational programs and more were part of the impact that this man's life produced through giving. It was fantastic! A dirt poor boy from the U.S. Depression years turned into the funnel of such wondrous benefit and impact on lives around the world.

The ironic thing is, Mr. Toal's life of 69 years, with all its incredible events, tremendous providence and amazing successes in business, was celebrated in memorial primarily for its final 10 years - the years of exponential giving and impact. From Des' life we understand:

The legacy of a person’s generosity is significantly greater than the legacy found in their accomplishments.

No, there is no Des Toal day. But there are literally millions of human beings around this globe that have been touched by the blessing poured out on his life. That is legacy, and that legacy won’t fade away.

Interested in legacy? Start one by giving your Mite today!

Have you ever seen a mad giver? We haven’t. All the givers we know are happy. They enjoy life and particularly enjoy helping others. There is something about the act of giving that brings joy to the heart of the giver. That joy should be reciprocated by an equal joy in the heart of the recipient so that all involved are simply enjoying themselves.

What a wonderful way to live life - joyous and helping others. There seems to be a power formula here. Have some fun today - give your mite!

Everybody from the Huffington Post to Berkley.edu to John Stossel at Fox News have written about the happy benefits found in the act of giving to charity. There are as many qualifiers provided in the innumerable scribbles on the subject as there are authors on the topic. We will not attempt to further hammer home the neurological effects of charitable giving illuminated by the numerous studies performed in recent years. Ours is a much more elementary level approach - although a tad bit deeper.

At Mite we prefer to characterize giving as a fulfilling action. While others approach giving from the happiness meter, we find this measure to be a bit too fleeting. Happiness comes and goes. But fulfillment is something that, once accomplished, cannot be diminished. You may or may not obtain happiness from fulfillment. But if you fulfill your purpose; you are not able to remove the impact of that fulfillment. It stands eternally.

We propose that giving, the act of helping others in need, is an essential component in a fulfilled life. There is no doubt that Giving is dependent upon even greater attributes in a person, such as the greatest of all, love. But as love brings about giving, it is giving that brings the expression of the love that encourages the act. We hail love as greatest because without love our existence is worthless - at best. But it is through giving that the love we possess is expressed and it is through this expression that fulfillment is derived in our lives.

You are a blessed person. You may or may not believe this statement, but your belief in the statement does not affect its validity. We have a tendency to look at others when reflecting on our own value and on the value of our possession. Unfortunately, the others we tend to look at are those who have more stuff than we have. That stuff becomes a filter through which we devalue our own blessed existence.

Giving of ourselves can have a reversing effect on the stuff filter. It is in giving that we see others in need and their need helps us understand that we are indeed blessed. Of course, the act of giving does not in any way change our situation, except maybe to remove some of the stuff we have. But giving does allow us to release some of what we have to aid the relief of another person in need. This action reveals 3 things:

1. It reveals that we have some stuff that can help others.
2. It reveals that others have needs, probably greater than our own.
3. It creates a blessing for recipient and giver to share.

If you don’t believe me, just try it out. Give a Mite and see if you are blessed.

There are very few ways to truly expand your horizon more effectively than giving.

Here is a brief case study:

Judy gave a $2.59 donation to a project that helped provide nutritious meals for people suffering from malnutrition in Malawi. When Judy first encountered this giving opportunity she had a vague recollection of a place called Malawi, maybe on the continent of Africa?

Her donation connected her to Malawi in a distinct way. She learned that it is a small country in southeastern Africa bordering Zambia and Mozambique. The country’s population is 17 million people with the capital city being Lilongwe. Through her studies Judy discovered that Malawi was one of the world’s least developed countries and that foreign aid was extremely important. The people suffered from a low life expectancy and high infant mortality rates. Their population is ravaged by HIV/AIDS.

Judy now had an interest in finding nonprofits working in Malawi. Who was engaged in helping the people with health care and other humanitarian outreach? After all, Judy recently gave to help people eat some nutritious food, maybe there were other areas she might be able to help affect positively. She found many large and small organizations working in Malawi and doing good for the people. After studying the situation and what organizations do the best work, Judy decided to give to a health care provider working with Malawians afflicted with AIDS.

After a few years of ongoing donations to help the people of Malawi and communications with organizations working in the country, Judy finally decided to visit the country and get hands on with her giving. Landing in Lilongwe, Judy experienced the sights and sounds of the country that she began studying several years before. Judy was impacted by the opportunity to assist people in need in a country so far away from her home. Her giving had opened doors that she had never considered possible, allowing her to share her life in ways that truly touched those in need.

There you have it - Horizon Expansion through giving. Widen your horizon! Try giving a mite today and see what happens.

Giving sets our mind right on priorities. It is easy to get sidetracked in this world by our daily living. We can easily put too much weight on things that frankly do not deserve the honor. Giving takes us back to the point where we focus on what is more important. There is little of greater importance in this world than the human life. When you make the action of giving to help a life in need, you are aligning your priorities based on what is truly important.

If you are looking for a priority adjustment, give a Mite and see what happens.

Giving is a relational activity. In fact, giving is one of the most intimate relations that we as humans can share.

Giving forms bonds between the donor and the recipient. Our giving in modern times is often too impersonal to form much of a relationship, but even in the age where we give through computers there can be shared experiences in the act of giving. These shared experiences are beautiful and contain blessings for all involved.

Giving inspires! Ever read an article or viewed those tear jerking videos about selfless acts done by people to help others in need? They are simply awesome. We love watching those. Each and every one of those accounts shows that we as humans are inspired when our fellow earthlings reach out to love on others.

Heck, we even cry watching those videos where the dog stays with its trapped companion! Any act of giving is beautifully inspiring. Give some inspiration today! Give your mite and be an inspiration to us all.