79. The Five Types of Givers

Welcome back to Spend Donate Invest! I go by GG, that’s short for Genet Gimja. For a long time, I thought about my activism, my allyship, my values driven lifestyle as being almost completely separate from my money.

And then it hit me. Wait a minute, why can’t my money align with my values?

Fundamentally, I think we need systematic change, huge overhauls to achieve the kind of change that our people and our planet deserve. And I want to continue to advocate for those changes.

But in the meantime, what can we, as individuals, do? When it comes to our money?

That’s the topic I’m exploring here on this show. So if you ever have a question you want covered on the show, just email it to spend donate invest at gmail dot com. In the past, questions have come in about getting started with donating, socially responsible investing, and shopping sustainably. The best topics come from you all so please send in whatever you’ve been thinking about.

So in the past almost 2 years, I’ve had a lot of conversations with folks who are all across the spectrum of giving. People who rarely think about donating, people who have come from long legacies of giving and are continuing it, all kinds of folks. I love these conversations. And this is completely unscientific, but I feel like there’s a pattern emerging. I am seeing 5 types of givers.

So this week, I am going to talk about these archetypes, maybe you’ll see yourself in one or more of them. I think I saw myself in two of them. And then next time I want to share some suggestions that might be helpful based on what type of giver you are.

So here they are, let me know if you see yourself. Or if you think there might be another archetype, I definitely want to hear about it.

The first one is the SKEPTIC. So this is the person that I find that wants to talk my ear off about charity scams, they want to tell me about the article they read about someone in their community who was charged with charity fraud. Where’s the money Wyclef? They want to talk to me about how much employees are getting paid at the big aid organizations. Did you know such and such organization pays their CEO a hundred thousand dollars? Two hundred thousand dollars? Or maybe they pay peanuts, then the SKEPTIC wants to talk about the fact that only trust fund kids work there, and the staff doesn’t reflect the community they are serving. What else does the SKEPTIC tend to focus on? Overhead costs. Did you know this charity spent this many dollars to fundraise last year? I’m also going to include the SKEPTIC who doesn’t believe in aid at all. They are of the pick yourself up by your bootstraps mindset. So whether they are skeptical that their donations will really be used to help, or they are skeptical of the idea that we should help at all, I’m calling this archetype the SKEPTIC.

The second one is THE OVERWHELMED. I hear from this type of giver a lot. This is the person who feels on an emotional level and a rational level that their help would be beneficial. They can reflect on the privileges they have benefited from. They are totally there mentally and in their hearts….but….with all of the responsibilities of life, giving falls off their to do list. The other type of person that I hear from that falls within this archetype is the person who gets stuck in that analysis paralysis. They want to find the best charity that fits exactly their 5 criteria, and they want to read all of their annual reports, they also want to think long and hard about how much they want to give. How much should they be giving? How much can they give? How should they make the donations? Should they do it once a year or on a recurring basis? This person can sometimes get into the weeds on tax benefits. How much should they donate to maximize the tax write off? Whether the giver is too busy to think about it, or falls down the rabbit hole and does a crippling amount of analysis and therefore never actually gets to the actual giving, I’m calling this archetype the OVERWHELMED.

The third type of giver that I hear from is THE FLIGHTY. Sometimes this is the person that takes stock once a year, maybe on their birthday, maybe during a religious holiday that emphasizes generosity, maybe new year’s. And they give…for a while. But they sort of fall off, or they can be really inconsistent. The amounts are inconsistent, they don’t really have a set amount of money that they give away every year. Or maybe they start off with a goal but they don’t achieve it. They really could not tell you what their giving strategy is, they are surprised when they do their end of year accounting and find out how much they gave or didn’t give. I call this archetype THE FLIGHTY.

The fourth type of giver that I hear from is OLD FAITHFUL. This is the person that I hear from who knows for sure that giving is just a standard part of their financial life. A lot of times these folks seem to come from a legacy of giving. Maybe they grew up giving, if they were religious maybe they grew up tithing. Their parents involved the whole family in volunteer work even as children. Or maybe they came to this conviction later in life, that they want to be regular, consistent givers. This person might even use an approach of set it and forget it for their donations. They don’t really obsess over optimizing the exact best charity and the exact best amount of money that they should donate and how they should donate it. They make a decision once and they stick to it. For the whole year. Or longer. Their giving isn’t really something they have to spend a lot of time figuring out, it’s just a part of their identity, sort of like people who journal or go on a daily walk. You probably have never even heard this person talk about their consistent giving, because honestly it’s just something that they do. There’s not a lot of angst or fanfare. I call this type of giver OLD FAITHFUL.

And finally, the fifth type of giver I hear from is THE FIREFIGHTER. This is your friend who has seen the coverage of the natural disaster last week and they are acting on a primal desire to help, immediately. They are making a donation, they are probably posting about it online to let you know about it too so you can meet an immediate need. Or they just read an excellent piece of journalism about the fact that there is a severely under resourced issue that has really just galvanized them. They are learning facts that they can’t unknow once they have been made aware. They see an injustice and they take action. And they often bring along others with them. That’s the archetype that I’m calling THE FIREFIGHTER.

Do you see yourself in one of these archetypes? Are you blend of a few different archetypes and has that changed over the years? As your life circumstances have changed. As your own financial status has changed. Do you have an archetype to add to the list?

If you listened to Episode, I believe it was episode 63, it was called 2023 Predictions, that’s where I did a little review of my own giving in 2022, what went well, what didn’t. I think based on that I might be predominately THE FLIGHTY mixed with a little OLD FAITHFUL. Next time I want to come back and talk about some suggestions depending on the type of giver you are.

Before I wrap up, I want to recap. So these are the 5 types of givers I hear from:

1) the skeptic. Whether they are skeptical about how much their money will really help, or whether we can trust nonprofits, or maybe their issue is the idea that we should help people at all, they are skeptical.
2) the overwhelmed. This is the person who feels on an intuitive level that they can help by donating, but life just gets in the way. They are just so busy. Or they get stuck in the analysis paralysis in trying to make the perfect donation, so they end up not giving.
3) the flighty. Not a lot of consistency with this type of giver because they get distracted, or they don’t have a clear giving goal or they don’t have the systems in place to follow through with their good intensions. 
4) old faithful. This is the giver who has a plan, a routine, they have set it and forget it. Their giving is predictable and frequent.
5) the firefighter. This is the giver who jumps into action when they discover that someone needs help. They also tend to bring others along.

I’ll be back soon with more on this topic. In the meantime, if you have any other topics you’d like covered here on the show, please send an email to spend donate invest at gmail dot com. You can check out the website which has lots and lots of episodes the web address is spend donate invest dot world. If you’re feeling the vibe here on the show, please send an episode to someone who you think might enjoy it too. That’s the best way you can support the show.

That’s all for now, I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. Let’s talk again soon!