Raising Children Who Give

When our family describes the purpose of our foundation, one phrase carries a great deal of weight: teaching our children that what we are given comes with a duty to give back. Of everything the foundation does, this may be the part that matters most to me, and the part that will take the longest to see.

Giving is learned, not inherited

Children do not inherit generosity the way they inherit a family name. They learn it, slowly, by watching what the adults around them do and by being invited to take part. A foundation can provide the structure, but the lesson itself has to be lived.

For that reason, I think of the foundation less as something we hand down and more as something we do together. The habit of giving is built in small moments: a conversation at the dinner table about why a particular organization matters, a question about what a food bank actually does, a decision made as a family rather than for the family.

Starting with understanding

Before children can care about a cause, they need to understand it. So we try to begin with understanding rather than with instruction. What does it mean for a child not to have a safe place to sleep? Why might a family need help with food even when the parents work? Why does research take so long?

These are not easy conversations, and they do not have tidy answers. But I would rather our children wrestle with real questions than accept a simple story. Understanding is what turns giving from an obligation into something they choose.

Responsibility, not reward

We are careful not to frame giving as something that earns praise. The aim is not for our children to feel good about themselves, though giving often does feel good. The aim is for them to understand that being able to give is a privilege, and that the privilege comes with responsibility.

That is why our family's foundation does not ask others for support. The duty is ours, and we want our children to see us carry it without needing anyone to notice. If they learn that giving is simply part of how a family lives, they will not need an audience either.

Steady, not occasional

Children notice consistency. A single gift made once is easy to forget. Support that continues year after year, to the same organizations, teaches something deeper: that commitments matter, and that the people on the other side of a gift are counting on us to keep showing up.

Our preference for recurring grants is partly practical, because organizations can plan better when support is reliable. But it is also a lesson. It shows our children that giving is a relationship, not a transaction.

Close to home first

We focus first on our own community because it is home. For children, local giving makes the abstract concrete. The families helped by a food bank, a shelter or a children's home live in the same communities they do. That closeness helps them understand that need is not distant or unusual; it is part of the world they share.

At the same time, we do not want their sense of responsibility to stop at the county line. Supporting humanitarian relief and medical research helps them see that care can reach further, too.

Letting them lead, in time

The truest test of whether this works will come when our children begin to make decisions of their own. We hope to give them a growing voice in the foundation's choices as they are ready, so that the foundation becomes theirs and not simply ours.

I do not expect them to give exactly as we do. I hope they will give in their own way, guided by the same conviction: that what we are given comes with a duty to give back, and that carrying that duty is one of the quiet privileges of a good life.