Giving in 2018

The end of the year, the holiday season, is usually when people are most charitable. Multiple drives and fundraising events are organized on a local scale to help the poor. Yet we should not restrict any such activities to just December, like we will this year. Instead we need to keep working on these problems the whole year round. That is why we want our readers to continue giving in 2018 and to continue working to make this world a better place.

How can we achieve this? A system that works year-round to make people’s lives better? Here are some steps we can take.

Community is the most important thing

When it comes to supporting causes the most important thing is not money. No, the most important thing we can have is community. The drive to work for the collective betterment of community is something that we have lost.

Most of us look at homeless people, the destitute, the sick around us and our hearts hurt when we look at them. We realize that they have problems and that they need help but we also realize that we, as individuals, can’t really provide them the help they need. That is because most of us are just getting by ourselves. We work hard to provide for our family. We may have a bit extra, but we do not have enough to solve problems as large as homelessness, hunger, poverty, lack of healthcare, and much more. We do not have the financial resources as individuals to do anything about these problems and we do not have the time either. Thus we don’t do much about these problems either.

That is where the community comes in. We need spaces, online and offline, where we can build a community of people who want to help. What we fail to realize is that most people are like us. We think that no one else wants to help but that isn’t true. Most people want to bring about a positive change but they are not sure where to begin from. All we need to do is harness this desire to do something meaningful.

Giving in 2018

What we all need to do is create a continuous/recurring commitment at the local level to solve local problems. We are not talking about events – events should keep happening as well, but we are talking about a continuous effort. If you want continuous improvement you need to focus on creating a local community.

This is easier than you may think thanks to the internet. They key to doing this is to open a discussion instead of imposing your views on people. If you are creating a page on Facebook, do not name it something like “Our mayor needs to do something about homelessness”. Don’t politicize it either – don’t go around claiming that the Democrats or Republicans are to blame.

Instead simply create pages and groups about local problems. “Coming together for solving homelessness in our city” is a group name that is inviting to people from all walks of life. Focus on unifying people. Make it clear that all participants, no matter how different their views, want to solve the problem and make the world a better place.

Start developing a community and who knows, maybe in a few months you will have thousands of people willing to give you the time and resources needed to actually tackle the problem head on.

That is the commitment we all need to make for 2018. Not just that we will personally donate more or that we will simply spread awareness through our social media accounts. Instead create a community and you may start something that is still improving the world decades later.