A guide to teaching younger generations about giving
Dec 09, 2024
There are likely many lessons you want to impart to the younger people in your life. Whether you want your children to avoid the challenges you faced or help your nieces and nephews reach their full potential, you have wisdom to share.
If charitable giving is important to you, then it’s likely one of the priorities you’d like to pass down to future generations. But like other lessons or habits, people are unlikely to pick up charitable giving out of the blue.
If you’d like to establish philanthropy as a core value that lives on for generations, there are ways you can actively teach those of any age the importance of giving back.
The share, give, guide model
If you’ve ever tried telling a younger person what to do, then you probably know how ineffective it is. Similarly, just telling someone charitable giving is important might not yield the kind of thoughtful philanthropy you envision for the future.
Instead, consider how emotions affect decision making. If you can establish an emotional connection to giving, someone is more likely to follow through. For young people, this emotional connection can come from having meaningful, insightful conversations with someone they respect.
This is where the “Share, give, guide model” comes in:
Share. Tell the younger people in your life about your experience with charitable giving. Share your motivations, what causes you give to, what stories of impact keep you returning to your giving plan, and more. Perhaps you can describe how someone helped you in the past or how you’ve been personally affected by helping someone else.
Give. Provide the opportunity to a younger person to make an impact. You could give a child a few dollars to put in a donation box or consult with your adult children about what causes they care about and collaborate on choosing a gift recipient. This is their opportunity to get involved and have a positive experience with charitable giving.
Guide. Model how you give. With younger children, this could be showing them what you think giving back looks like. For example, this could be volunteering together or showing them how you review a charity before giving. For adults, this could be providing them with details like how you determine how much to give or when you give. By guiding younger generations about the mechanics of your giving and guiding them through the process, they will become more comfortable with their own giving, in the present or future.
How a donor-advised fund makes it easier to teach future generations
Vanguard Charitable’s mission is to maximize philanthropy, and we know that a crucial part of this is ensuring future generations are ready to take on the charitable legacies left to them. That’s why we are active in helping our donors use their donor-advised funds (DAFs) to teach the young people in their lives about philanthropy.
Here are a few ways you could use a Vanguard Charitable DAF to share, give, and guide the next generation of donors:
Review your granting. When you give with Vanguard Charitable, it’s easy to see all your granting in one convenient place within your account. This is an easy way to inform conversations around your giving history.
Recommend grants together. As the young people in your life discover charities that are important to them, you can give them a say in your next grant recommendation. You could even consider providing them with a role on your Vanguard Charitable account to recommend their own grants.
Name successor advisors. By identifying a younger person in your life to carry out your philanthropic legacy, you can more closely guide them and give them insights into your giving plans.
It’s never too early or late to educate future generations about charitable giving
With this guide, we hope you feel empowered to begin teaching the younger people in your life about charitable giving. Perhaps a first step is discussing your giving history at the next family dinner or providing a child with a giving allowance. But no matter what step you take, know that it’s one step closer to providing future generations with what they need to make the world a better place for many years to come.
