One thing I’ve learned in life is you can just do things. Most activities are permission-less. It’s one of the reasons I love reading, it kicks off a new idea that I haven’t thought of. I came across this blog by Money with Katie a few months ago - ‘3 Steps for Building Your Personal Philanthropic Plan’
I found it interesting because in my mind, philanthropy was something for billionaires. Turns out you can start it at any point in time! I liked the article because it showed a step-by-step process.
I have thought about giving back to society many times but never knew how. I started by committing to donate 1% of my annual income to a couple of charities I care about - Feed Ontario and CNIB. Both have a monthly subscription model along with a lump sum method. I liked that and setup a monthly subscription deduction.
I decided to start tracking my contribution amounts compared to my income - I work in sales so my income varies quarterly.
The biggest takeaway for me was - It’s hard to give away money. I’d like to think I am fairly generous - I tip a standard 20% at restaurants , I won’t think twice before paying for my friend’s meal etc. Almost like it was destiny, I came across Ramit Sethi’s tweet where he talks about things you shouldn’t question spending money on. Donating to a friend’s charity fundraiser stood out to me.
Since then, whenever a friend posts about raising money for a charity, I immediately put $50 to their fundraiser no questions asked. It’s a win-win! I get one step closer to hitting my 1% target, they get one step closer to hitting their fundraising target and it benefits a good cause! Not going to lie, it feels really good to donate to a friend’s fundraiser and has made it easier for me to hit my philanthropy targets.
In 2023, I had to scramble to hit my 1% target towards the end of the year. in 2024, I started strong and aim to scale it up to 2%.
If you haven’t considered philanthropy, I hope you get started. You don’t need to wait to be a billionaire :)
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