World-Changing Generosity

"People were created to be loved. Things were created to be used. The reason why the world is in chaos is because things are being loved, and people are being used."
—Unknown

For the most part, Americans are insulated from the constant drama that encompasses the lives of people in much of the rest of the world. In a place where most people never miss a meal, it is easy to forget that for those without food, there is only desperation. Every day. All the time.

Hunger is like that. Which is probably why food, a basic physiological need, is at the foundation of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Safety is right above it. Once your stomach is full, having a safe place to sleep becomes very important. When people have no roof over their heads at night and when they or their children are sick and there is no healthcare, every day is a war against the inevitable dangers that spring from the root of poverty.

These people are the homeless on the street and the runaway kids under the bridge. They live in the Sudan and in St. Louis, Minneapolis and Mumbai. There are other needs as well. Maybe it is temporary, like a town cleaning up after a tornado. Maybe the need is across the globe, or it could be just across the street. The job can be as basic as feeding people, or as complicated as providing educational opportunities that will allow them to provide for themselves and their families over time.

While there are lots of problems, there are also plenty of us to solve them. The job of changing the world will require many people to care. This book is a first step—a short course in some of the amazing people around us who make a difference in the world, and the critical needs that they address. You’ll quickly understand that there is a need for you to find that place where your energy can change a life…where you can be amazing too.

We have written not only about people who are generous, and why and how to be generous, but also about the major religious and nonreligious thought groups in the U.S. and the tenets of generosity in each. Every one claims thousands of committed followers who share generosity as a guiding principle.

From the seven year old boy who played a harmonica to raise money to provide healing for children in Africa, to the man who engineered wheelchairs out of plastic lawn seats for the world’s physically disabled population, to the industrialist who built libraries all over the U.S., there’s a legacy that belongs to you and you alone. This is the book that will inspire you to find it, and we hope you’ll find it soon.

Because, believe it or not, we occupy a critical moment in history, where, with enough input, we actually could solve some of the most critical problems of the world. Sounds like a fantasy, but you’ll see—according to some unimpeachable experts—you really could be one of the people that leaves this world a better place.