Conscious Giving Program

Our goal is to encourage conscious generosity and inspire children and youth to give frequently and with purpose to build a lifelong practice that fills their own buckets and allows them to take ownership of their potential to make a charitable impact.

The Conscious Giving program is designed to offer school age children charitable giving experiences from an early age, teaching them financial literacy and exposing them to the great feeling that comes with making an impact with a cause they care about.   

We believe the best way to teach our children how to flex their giving muscles and understand their potential to make a difference, is to give them an opportunity to practice giving itself. Our program encourages students to experience empathy for a cause and then shows them how to find a charity that is meeting the needs they want to serve. We help them uncover what time, talent and treasure they have to give, and then create an opportunity to donate these gifts and feel the feeling that comes with the act of conscious giving.

How it works

The Giving Generation will organize an initial charitable donation for each classroom and teacher and then empower students to work together to determine how best to consciously donate it. This is often $100 but can be any denomination that works for your community.

Individual students are then asked to notice areas of their curriculum that inspire them to want to make an impact. Once they’ve identified a cause they care about, they are encouraged to seek out which charitable organizations best serve it. Students are given the tools to build and present a case for supporting their chosen organization over others and they get to flex their giving muscles by voting on which charity their hearts feel their classroom’s charitable dollars should go to.

Having argued for and voted on the classes selected charity or charities, student then reflect on what they themselves can give in terms of their own time, talent and treasure.

To help understand the power of matching dollars and the feeling of giving one’s own hard earned money, any student donations will be matched with up to the amount set by the teachers (often $50).

The ownership and responsibility of the decision to feel the empathy for so many worthy causes and to decide which to support is such a valuable experience. One that goes beyond the act of giving money. The process itself brings a wealth of reflective conversations and learning opportunities to both the classroom and to families’ homes as students share this experience and the lessons it brings. The result is a mind opened to seeing opportunities to give, and a set of tools that empowers students to act when they see an opportunity to support something they love.

Why it works

The program is designed to empower students with the opportunity to consciously consider the curriculum they are learning and areas that they can contribute to.

Students are then given the chance to advocate for a cause they have become conscious about, form arguments as to why their fellow classmates should choose to support it, and consider others arguments and their own reflections on if they agree.

Critical thinking is cultivated in considering which organizations best serve the chosen cause and diligence is practiced in evaluating how effectively funds are then used by the chosen charities.

When spurred to act for a cause, students understand their power to mobilize others and their ability to contribute whether through their own hard earned money, their resources or their time and effort.

Where it happens

We have partnered with Charitable Impact to facilitate a seamless donation process that allows an individual, family, group or the school to make an initial donation to kick start the program, immediately receive a Canadian tax receipt for the full amount, then allows teachers and their students the space to experience the process of allocating the funds to any registered charity in Canada.