happiness and giving - Radcliffe Consulting – Defining the Future of Legacy Fundraising

Surveys and academic papers, over the decades, by Harvard Business School, University of British Columbia and many other brilliant schools of academia have proved that happy people give more to charity than unhappy people. And the act of giving to others gives more happiness than giving to ourselves. Giving a legacy to ourselves is pretty hard! But does this mean the weather can adversely hinder our inclination to give or leave a legacy? If so this year is going to be a bad year! Even happy people seem to be seasonally affected so should we focus our legacy programmes during the summer months when happy people are in the sun and even happier than normal? How do people feel about a legacy letter when the rain is pouring down for the seventh successive day? The psychology of happy giving by happy people we perhaps ignore at a heavy cost. Off to a meeting now and I have lost my waterproof gear – I am not a happy person