Today we use our tithe in many areas of our business. First, we match our associates’ gifts to worthy causes. A simple example is United Way. Like many businesses, each year we have a United Way Drive and PRIER commits to match those donations, dollar for dollar, making their donations even more meaningful. This extends to their charitable donations to other worthy causes such as Kids Charities, Outreach Centers and Educational Charities.
To help manage our contributions, PRIER set up the PRIER Charitable Foundation, which we fund from our profits and then distribute to the community. The PRIER Charitable Foundation is set up under the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation. They assure PRIER’s Charitable Donations are to legitimate charities and help us properly manage our giving. They are pretty good it, as they manage over $2 Billion in assets! One of the neat things they do is a “Giving Card” program; a gift card, but for charity. It allows PRIER to fund a card to give out to our associates or customers. They can then take the value of that card and give it to the charity of their choice! We build a culture of giving here at PRIER, and this is one of the ways we are fulfilling this goal. Why build a culture of giving, you may ask?
Giving makes us feel happy – In a 2006 study, the National Institutes of Health found that when people give to charities, it activates regions of the brain associated with pleasure, social connection, and trust, creating a “warm glow” effect. Scientists also believe that altruistic behavior releases endorphins in the brain, producing the positive feeling known as the “helper’s high.”
Giving is good for our health – Another study in 2006 at Johns Hopkins University and University of Tennessee established that people who provided social support to others had lower blood pressure than participants who did not provide social support, suggesting a direct physiological benefit to those who give of themselves.
Giving promotes cooperation and social connection – “Being kind and generous leads you to perceive others more positively and more charitably,” writes Sonja Lyubomirsky in her book The How of Happiness, and this “fosters a heightened sense of interdependence and cooperation in your social community.”
Giving evokes gratitude – A research project on gratitude and thankfulness found that teaching college students to “count their blessings” and cultivate gratitude caused them to exercise more, be more optimistic and feel better about their lives overall.
Giving is contagious – Proceedings of the National Academy of Science show when one person behaves generously, it inspires observers to behave generously later, toward different people. In fact, the researchers found that altruism could spread by three degrees—from person to person to person to person. “As a result,” they write, “each person in a network can influence dozens or even hundreds of people, some of whom he or she does not know and has not met.”
All of these benefits of giving fit right within PRIER’s Mission Statement, and that is why we build a culture of giving!
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