How to Multiply Your Income 4-Fold

from Liz Uible

Good Morning!
I am sitting on the deck of our rental house in Rwanda
with the lush African landscape to my left, where a tree blooms
blue flowers and a fifty foot rubber tree towers above me. A
bird, like osprey, flies overhead and the capital city of Kigali
spreads out below and across the valley through the morning haze.

In today’s Wealth Tip there are some facts around creating
abundance in my finances that I want to share.
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How to Multiply Your Income Almost 4-Fold

An article in the Wall Street Journal July 6th caught my
attention. “Giving Til It Hurts” discusses what people are
calling a ‘new kind of philanthropy,’ though I doubt the
phenomenon is truly new. It seems that recently charities have been
surprised by people who give a larger share of their net worth
away- seemingly out of proportion to the amount they have to
give.

These “stretch givers,” it seems, are making universities and
charitable foundations stand up and take notice. A 72 year-old,
retired conservator at the New York Met sells her small New York
apartment to give an arts organization that gave a $1 million
gift to an organization that had helped her early on with an
$8,000 grant. A tech tycoon, fallen on hard times, fulfill the
promise of a $25 Million gift, almost his entire net worth, to
AIDS research in the name of his dead brother. (The donor has
a young family.) A retired GE executive, rather than buying a
retirement home in Florida, lives modestly and gives away the
proceeds from her stock options, as she has given money all
of her career.

In all these cases, the gifts to charities made up the bulk of
the givers net worth.

Why? Arthur C. Brooks, the author of Who Really Cares, a book on
giving in America, shows that people who give are happier and
healthier than those who do not.

And ther is one more thing. According to Mr. Brooks's analysis,
$1.00 donated to charity led to $3.75 in extra income for the
donor. In other words, Givers make almost four times
more than non-givers. And this was reported in a very reputable,
conservative even, New York paper.

Do you get it yet? If you are not yet giving away a portion of
your income regularly, you are missing the wealth boat.

I admit I was surprised to see the size of that number.
I have studied the power of giving and enacted it in my own
life with great success. But a 375% return on such a fun
investment? That seems HUGE.

I remember when I first learned that giving sets in motion
universal principles of abundance. I didn’t think I could afford it.
I told my mentor that I would give money away when I had excess to
share. “If you don’t give,” she told me, “that will likely never
happen.” And she was right.

My first major gift was a ‘test,’ after I learned about this
principle. It was the first time I went out on faith and gave
10% of my income away and it was really uncomfortable to me.
I don’t even remember what organization I gave money to. I
do remember the result, because they were more
specific and tangible than I ever expected.

Within three weeks of that $2,000 gift leaving my hands, I came
home to find an unexpected check in the mailbox for almost
exactly the amount of my gift. I was surprised and delighted.
Some might call it coincidence, some will call it a fluke.
And that’s ok, they can stay poor. J I saw it simply as
powerful confirmation of a Universal Law that has power over us all.
As I continue to build my own wealth, I see the this principle in
even more powerful and surprising ways.

As I sit it East Africa, it makes me wonder. Is the reason for
U.S. prosperity somehow related to the fact that we give more to
charities, per capita, than any other population? I think it may be.

Have a wonderful, generous weekend!

Liz

P.S. For more article, check out womenforwealth.com/freearticles.html.