For some reason this time of year always makes me think more about giving back to those less fortunate. Perhaps it’s because I associate this time of year with the giving and receiving of gifts. I always feel so very blessed on my birthday (which also happens to be in December) and on Christmas, so thinking of those times makes me want to give back to others. Each year my husband and I donate gifts or money to those collecting for less fortunate children and every year since I started working for myself I’ve tried to do a fundraiser of some sort during the year in order to give back something to the community. Over the years my clients and I have collected pennies to donate towards breast cancer research (we collected over 10,000 pennies. I was rolling pennies for weeks!), donated over 300lbs of food to the local food bank,
numerous donations to Christmas Daddies, and of course they played a big part in helping me to raise over $4000 last year with Team in Training.
This year I’m happy to be working with My Giving Moment on the Dare2Give campaign, inspired by the Governor General of Canada. This campaign is encouraging Canadians to give and to help make Canada a better place. Research has shown that one of the main reasons people decide to give is because they have been asked, and an effective (and fun!) way to get people involved is by daring them to do something!
How amazing would it be if every Canadian giver challenged one more person to donate or volunteer along with them? The ripple effect would be amazing!
That is exactly what Dare2Give by My Giving Moment is asking us to do. It is their hope each Canadian giver will dare others to donate or volunteer with them, making Canada a more caring nation. How awesome is it that we can double our giving impact by simply daring someone else to give with us? Dare two people and you’ve tripled your impact, three people and you’ve quadrupled it, and so on. It reminds me of the movie “Pay It Forward” which you should watch after completing your giving moment, it’s a great movie showing just how impactful sharing the act of giving can become.
I think a major factor in people not giving or getting involved it is because they think it will take a big time or money commitment, this simply isn’t the case. Giving can be something completely free and easy like giving a stranger a compliment to help brighten their day, or letting someone go ahead of you in the line at the grocery store. Sometimes we think that small acts don’t make a big difference, but nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve seen countless Facebook posts from people thrilled that the person ahead of them in the drive thru paid for their morning coffee. And you can be sure that put them in a great mood for the rest of the day, and quite possibly they went out of their way to do something nice for someone else. Remember the old saying, “giving is better than receiving”? Well it’s true! And by making our dares something easy to complete, you are more likely to have your friends and family take you up on your dare, and share it with others.
I was so excited about this campaign that I decided to complete three different acts of giving myself!
The first thing I did was teach a free yoga class at the local community centre. It was one of my normally scheduled classes, but for that night I let anyone who wanted to come, come for free. It was a great hit! It’s a later class (it doesn’t start until 8:35pm) so it’s not normally a huge class, but that night there were over 20 people in attendance which was awesome! It was a wonderful way to end my day, and I really enjoyed being able to share my love of yoga with people who may not have otherwise attended a class.
As one of my fitness instructor perks I somehow ended up with a free magazine subscription to Shape magazine. Normally I give each issue a skim and then put it on my bookshelf where I rarely look at it again. For my second giving moment I collected over a year’s worth of magazines and dropped them off at a local community centre where they have a “share” table so someone who will value them more than I did can pick one (or all) of them up for free!
Finally, I decided to go through my wardrobe and pick out the items I haven’t worn in the past year to donate to charity. This is something I try to do a few times/year so it’s a really easy one for me to complete. Not only will it help less fortunate people, but it’ll also help declutter my closet making it a win-win in my book!
Because not everyone can teach a free yoga class, or has a magazine collection to give away, this was the giving moment I decided to challenge others to complete with me.
@cathyjcrocker @lisa_l4 @aamacarthur I challenge u to complete this Giving Moment https://t.co/bbx50eekuS or another from mygivingmoment.ca
— Suzi Fevens (@suziconfesses) November 9, 2014
And because my friends are the best they accepted my dare!
@suziconfesses @CathyJCrocker @aamacarthur I accept your challenge from @MyGivingMoment
— Lisa (@Lisa_L4) November 9, 2014
Get Involved
Now I’m daring you – yes YOU to get involved, and to get giving! Visit the Dare2Give website to find your giving moment and dare your friends to join you! See below to enter how many dares you have made. When you enter your amount of completed dares you will have a chance to win for your favourite charity including the grand prize of a television commercial. The contest ends on December 14, 2014
Disclosure: Although this post has been generously sponsored by Rideau Hall Foundation, the opinions and language are my own, and in no way do they reflect Rideau Hall Foundation.