November 6, 2015 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Billionaire donors feel better after they give to good causes, and modern science tells us that the not-so-rich will, too, Jenny Santi writes in her new book, The Giving Way to Happiness: Stories and Science Behind the Life-Changing Power of Giving.
Unlike most of the recent entries in a spate of books that explore the link between giving and well-being, Ms. Santi’s effort comes from her experience as an adviser to wealthy philanthropists and celebrities.
She also highlights scientific studies that partly explain the giving tendencies she has seen among her clients. Ms. Santi explains how well-to-do actors like Goldie Hawn, fashion models such as Petra Nemcová, media moguls like Ted Turner, and others who have converted considerable amounts of cash, coupled with a passion for a cause, into personal fulfillment.
What she has learned applies to donors at all levels, she says.
“Most of us will not find ourselves on the Forbes list of billionaires in this lifetime,” Ms. Santi writes. “But what can we learn about happiness from those who have reached the pinnacle of material success?”
Personal Motivations
One goal in writing the book, she says, is to “shift consciousness about giving from something that we perceive to be drudgery and a grinding moral obligation to something we want to do because it gives us happiness in life.”
Several of the people she interviewed said that personal experiences — often harrowing ones, including the deaths of children — motivated them to give. Some started charities or foundations to search for cures for diseases that afflicted them or their family members.
The author sprinkles in bits of research that have been published elsewhere to explain why people may feel better or discover a sense of purpose through their charitable acts. The studies she cites offer evidence of that. For example:
- Volunteers live longer than nonvolunteers but only if they use their time to help other people directly. In general, volunteers demonstrate superior health to nonvolunteers. Older adults who volunteer at least four hours a week saw significant drops in blood pressure.
- Nearly two-thirds of people who give or volunteer are happy with their lives, as compared with 45 percent of those who don’t.
- Giving affects two reward systems in the brain that work together and that usually “light up” in response to food or sex.
- Even when an individual makes a mandatory contribution, similar to paying taxes, the brain offers a pleasurable response.
- People who suffer from diseases such as multiple sclerosis experience less pain and depression when they help others in their situation, such as by offering support or counseling.
Such studies point the way, Ms. Santi concludes, to a “world not where we give until it hurts but where we give until it feels great.”
