ST. CROIX INSIGHTS
Ways to Give Back to Your Community Beyond Donating Money
In Bob Goff’s book Undistracted, he writes a line that really stuck out to me: “When it comes to availability, there are three main ways we can create it: our time, our talent, and our treasure.”
When it comes to giving, I think people often fall into one of two buckets. First, there are those who want to support their favorite charities and causes but don’t feel like they have enough extra money to make a difference. Then there are those who have the financial resources to give, so they write a check and move on.
But stewardship doesn’t have to be measured by the dollar amount we give. Our time and talents have value, too. And depending on where we are in life, one of those resources may be far more valuable than the others.
Bucket One: “I Don’t Have Enough Money to Make a Difference”
There’s a misconception that generosity begins once we reach a certain level of financial success. Maybe someday, when the mortgage is smaller, the kids are out of the house, the student loans are gone, or the salary is higher, there will finally be enough left over to give.
I don’t think generosity needs to wait for someday.
If $5 a month is what fits into your budget right now, start there. That’s $60 over the course of a year. By itself, $60 may not feel transformational, but think about what small gifts can accomplish when people give collectively.
A $5 monthly donation could help a local food shelf purchase staples for families in the community. It could contribute toward school supplies for a child, pet food or medical care at an animal rescue, supplies for a homeless shelter, or a nonprofit’s operating expenses. Your $5 may be joined by $5 from hundreds of other people who care about the same mission.
We sometimes convince ourselves that if we can’t solve the whole problem, our contribution doesn’t matter. But generosity was never limited to solving the whole problem ourselves. And money is not the only resource you have available.
Maybe you can’t give $100 to the food shelf, but you can spend two hours sorting donations. Maybe you can’t make a significant contribution to an organization serving children, but you can tutor a student once a week.
Perhaps you can’t financially support a nonprofit at the level you’d like, but you’re an accountant, attorney, marketer, contractor, teacher, mechanic, or business owner with skills that organization desperately needs. Maybe you can help with its bookkeeping, build a website, repair something, tutor a student, or help an organization solve a problem it would otherwise have to pay someone to solve.
That is your talent. And depending on what an organization needs, an hour of your expertise could be worth far more than the check you wish you could write.
Then there is your time. You can deliver meals, coach a youth team, visit someone who is lonely, serve at church, clean up a neighborhood, help at an event, drive someone to an appointment, or simply show up when another person needs an extra set of hands.
None of those contributions show up on a charitable-giving statement at the end of the year. That doesn’t make them less valuable.
In some seasons of life, your treasure may be the resource you have the least of. Give what you can, but don’t overlook everything else you’ve been given.
Bucket Two: “I Wrote the Check. What Else Can I Do?”
The second bucket presents almost the opposite challenge.
Perhaps you have reached a point where giving money is relatively easy. You know which organizations you support. You make your annual gifts, set up recurring donations, contribute through your church, or use a donor-advised fund. You may even have incorporated charitable giving into your financial and estate plans.
Those are meaningful acts of generosity. But they can also raise another question: Are we giving from our abundance while protecting the things that feel more scarce?
Sometimes writing a check is easier than giving away a Saturday afternoon.
It can be easier to make a donation to a youth organization than to mentor a young person for the next five years. It can be easier to support a nonprofit financially than to sit on its board and offer decades of professional experience. It can be easier to give to a ministry than to rearrange our schedule when someone in our church needs help.
And it can certainly be easier to spend money caring for aging parents than to give them what they may want most: our presence.
That doesn’t diminish financial generosity. Organizations need money to fulfill their missions. Giving financially can accomplish tremendous good.
But Goff’s framing made me wonder whether we sometimes default to giving the resource that costs us the least.
For someone early in a career with young children and a tight budget, $100 may represent a real sacrifice. For someone who has accumulated significant wealth, $100 may require almost no sacrifice at all—that may even be your typical lunch cost.
If you’ve reached a point where you have significant financial resources to give, chances are you’ve accumulated something else along the way: experience.
Maybe you’ve spent 30 years running a business, managing employees, practicing law, working in health care, teaching, selling, investing, building things, or solving complicated problems. Writing a check allows an organization to hire expertise. But what if some of the expertise it needs is already sitting in your head?
A young entrepreneur might benefit from the lessons you learned building a business. A nonprofit might need someone who understands budgets or marketing. A younger person in your profession may need a mentor who can help them avoid some of the mistakes you made along the way.
Eventually, you may reach a point where you no longer need to use those skills to make more money. That doesn’t mean those skills have reached the end of their usefulness.
Give From All Three
Goff’s words have stuck with me because they expand the definition of generosity.
- Time
- Talent
- Treasure
Most of us probably have more of one than another depending on our season of life. A young family may have limited treasure but valuable talents. Someone at the height of a demanding career may have financial resources but very little free time. A retiree may suddenly have more control over their calendar and decades of knowledge to share.
The goal isn’t to give equal amounts of all three. It’s to recognize that all three have been entrusted to us.
So perhaps the better question isn’t simply, How much am I giving?
Ask yourself:
- Where do I have abundance right now?
- What skills have I developed that could benefit someone else?
- Who needs my presence more than they need my money?
- Is there a cause I care about that could use both my financial support and my involvement?
There will always be another opportunity to make more money, save another dollar, or grow an account balance. Those things aren’t inherently wrong. Good stewardship includes caring wisely for the financial resources we’ve been given.
But our bank accounts aren’t the only resources we’re managing. Our calendars are, too. So are the abilities we’ve spent a lifetime developing.
You may have $5 to give. You may have $50,000. You may have an afternoon, a particular skill, or years of experience that could change the trajectory of someone else’s life.
Start with what you have because generosity isn’t only about how much money leaves your hands. Sometimes it’s about where you choose to put your hands, your attention, and your time.
In Bob Goff’s book Undistracted, he writes a line that really stuck out to me: “When it comes to availability, there are three main ways we can create it: our time, our talent, and our treasure.”
When it comes to giving, I think people often fall into one of two buckets. First, there are those who want to support their favorite charities and causes but don’t feel like they have enough extra money to make a difference. Then there are those who have the financial resources to give, so they write a check and move on.
But stewardship doesn’t have to be measured by the dollar amount we give. Our time and talents have value, too. And depending on where we are in life, one of those resources may be far more valuable than the others.
Bucket One: “I Don’t Have Enough Money to Make a Difference”
There’s a misconception that generosity begins once we reach a certain level of financial success. Maybe someday, when the mortgage is smaller, the kids are out of the house, the student loans are gone, or the salary is higher, there will finally be enough left over to give.
I don’t think generosity needs to wait for someday.
If $5 a month is what fits into your budget right now, start there. That’s $60 over the course of a year. By itself, $60 may not feel transformational, but think about what small gifts can accomplish when people give collectively.
A $5 monthly donation could help a local food shelf purchase staples for families in the community. It could contribute toward school supplies for a child, pet food or medical care at an animal rescue, supplies for a homeless shelter, or a nonprofit’s operating expenses. Your $5 may be joined by $5 from hundreds of other people who care about the same mission.
We sometimes convince ourselves that if we can’t solve the whole problem, our contribution doesn’t matter. But generosity was never limited to solving the whole problem ourselves. And money is not the only resource you have available.
Maybe you can’t give $100 to the food shelf, but you can spend two hours sorting donations. Maybe you can’t make a significant contribution to an organization serving children, but you can tutor a student once a week.
Perhaps you can’t financially support a nonprofit at the level you’d like, but you’re an accountant, attorney, marketer, contractor, teacher, mechanic, or business owner with skills that organization desperately needs. Maybe you can help with its bookkeeping, build a website, repair something, tutor a student, or help an organization solve a problem it would otherwise have to pay someone to solve.
That is your talent. And depending on what an organization needs, an hour of your expertise could be worth far more than the check you wish you could write.
Then there is your time. You can deliver meals, coach a youth team, visit someone who is lonely, serve at church, clean up a neighborhood, help at an event, drive someone to an appointment, or simply show up when another person needs an extra set of hands.
None of those contributions show up on a charitable-giving statement at the end of the year. That doesn’t make them less valuable.
In some seasons of life, your treasure may be the resource you have the least of. Give what you can, but don’t overlook everything else you’ve been given.
Bucket Two: “I Wrote the Check. What Else Can I Do?”
The second bucket presents almost the opposite challenge.
Perhaps you have reached a point where giving money is relatively easy. You know which organizations you support. You make your annual gifts, set up recurring donations, contribute through your church, or use a donor-advised fund. You may even have incorporated charitable giving into your financial and estate plans.
Those are meaningful acts of generosity. But they can also raise another question: Are we giving from our abundance while protecting the things that feel more scarce?
Sometimes writing a check is easier than giving away a Saturday afternoon.
It can be easier to make a donation to a youth organization than to mentor a young person for the next five years. It can be easier to support a nonprofit financially than to sit on its board and offer decades of professional experience. It can be easier to give to a ministry than to rearrange our schedule when someone in our church needs help.
And it can certainly be easier to spend money caring for aging parents than to give them what they may want most: our presence.
That doesn’t diminish financial generosity. Organizations need money to fulfill their missions. Giving financially can accomplish tremendous good.
But Goff’s framing made me wonder whether we sometimes default to giving the resource that costs us the least.
For someone early in a career with young children and a tight budget, $100 may represent a real sacrifice. For someone who has accumulated significant wealth, $100 may require almost no sacrifice at all—that may even be your typical lunch cost.
If you’ve reached a point where you have significant financial resources to give, chances are you’ve accumulated something else along the way: experience.
Maybe you’ve spent 30 years running a business, managing employees, practicing law, working in health care, teaching, selling, investing, building things, or solving complicated problems. Writing a check allows an organization to hire expertise. But what if some of the expertise it needs is already sitting in your head?
A young entrepreneur might benefit from the lessons you learned building a business. A nonprofit might need someone who understands budgets or marketing. A younger person in your profession may need a mentor who can help them avoid some of the mistakes you made along the way.
Eventually, you may reach a point where you no longer need to use those skills to make more money. That doesn’t mean those skills have reached the end of their usefulness.
Give From All Three
Goff’s words have stuck with me because they expand the definition of generosity.
- Time
- Talent
- Treasure
Most of us probably have more of one than another depending on our season of life. A young family may have limited treasure but valuable talents. Someone at the height of a demanding career may have financial resources but very little free time. A retiree may suddenly have more control over their calendar and decades of knowledge to share.
The goal isn’t to give equal amounts of all three. It’s to recognize that all three have been entrusted to us.
So perhaps the better question isn’t simply, How much am I giving?
Ask yourself:
- Where do I have abundance right now?
- What skills have I developed that could benefit someone else?
- Who needs my presence more than they need my money?
- Is there a cause I care about that could use both my financial support and my involvement?
There will always be another opportunity to make more money, save another dollar, or grow an account balance. Those things aren’t inherently wrong. Good stewardship includes caring wisely for the financial resources we’ve been given.
But our bank accounts aren’t the only resources we’re managing. Our calendars are, too. So are the abilities we’ve spent a lifetime developing.
You may have $5 to give. You may have $50,000. You may have an afternoon, a particular skill, or years of experience that could change the trajectory of someone else’s life.
Start with what you have because generosity isn’t only about how much money leaves your hands. Sometimes it’s about where you choose to put your hands, your attention, and your time.