5 Reasons to Give

5 Reasons to Give

by Jenny Flynn, CFSA’s CEO and President

1. Giving Glows You Up: Research at the National Institutes of Health showed that the same area of the brain activated in response to food lit up when participants in the study thought about giving money to a charity.
2. Giving Lengthens Your Life: A UC Berkeley study by Doug Oman found elderly volunteers were 44% less likely to die over five years than similar controls who do not volunteer.
3. Giving Improves Your Mood: According to the measures of the social capital community benchmark survey, overseen by researchers from Harvard University, those who gave contributions of time or money were “42% more likely to be happy.”
4. Giving Improves Your Life: Giving and other acts of kindness mitigate against life on the “hedonic treadmill” in which we return to a set point of happiness after positive events.
5. Giving Supports Better Physical Health: According to a paper in Health Psychology 2016, the more money people spend on others, the lower their blood pressure was two years later.