What Does Giving Back to the Community Mean? The Main Reasons!
We take giving back to the max with our work in deprived areas of the world. But giving back to the community doesn’t have to be a global act, it can be something you do closer to home. But what does giving back to the community mean?
Here in this article, we’re focusing on what it means to give back, ways to give back, and, in a wider sense, the ultimate goal of giving back to the community.
Here’s a quick summary of what giving back to the community means to the community, and to you. Then we’ll get into more details...
Giving back to your community via local volunteering groups, charitable means, or through non-profit organizations aids those in need and serves to contribute toward a common good. Giving back includes volunteering your time to others, helping a neighbor, or simply through a monetary donation.
Giving back is important, and has benefits for everyone by empowering all concerned. We as a foundation have set out to help others in circumstances less fortunate than our own. And giving back is on the rise according to studies.
If you are looking to give toward a worthy cause, then check out the work that brothers4change is undertaking in underserved areas of the world.
What does giving back to the community mean?
Often the question isn’t around what giving back is, rather it’s around how giving back works, or how to give back. People often feel they want to give back, but simply don’t know where that help is needed, or what impact it has.
We’ve compiled a list of ways you can give back as examples. But here we’re going to step back and look at the types of methods you can adopt in order to make a difference.
Let’s now look at the main reasons that people give back to the community or the world. Perhaps one of these will become the catalyst for you to start giving.
Reasons for giving back to the community
There are many reasons people choose to give something of their time, or their resources to giving back to others.
Sometimes it can be a combination of reasons. Perhaps a person is looking to find ways to make new friends, so they volunteer at a local center. In most cases, giving back to the community works both ways. Here are the main reasons...
Make a difference in the world
In an era in which it’s difficult to control what happens in our day-to-day lives, we can at least do something to fight the tide of what happens to others seemingly less privileged on a day-to-day basis.
Making an impact, however small it may seem, is rewarding. It’s especially more impactful when you have or find a cause that you feel strongly about. Where you’ve seen first hand the impact of not having has, and feel like that is something you can make a difference to.
“Making an impact, however small it may seem, is rewarding”.
Improve your own or other communities
To give back to your community, you really don’t need to go far or give a lot of time. Simply spending 15 minutes helping to pick litter off your local street will create a small but impactful improvement to you and those around you.
Helping to pack a senior citizen’s grocery bag at the local store makes a difference to her life, not only physically, but to her wellbeing too.
And this small act may impact the lives of others when she tells her family and friends of the kind gesture and brightens their day too. Not to mention you’ll feel a greater sense of giving afterward.
Share your expertise and knowledge
We all have skills and knowledge we can lend to the common good. You don’t need to be an engineer in order to help build something in your community. At a very basic level, a community garden needs people to dig the ground and water plants.
But if you are an engineer or an expert in some field, then why not use that not only as a way of earning a living but as a way of giving those skills for free to your or other communities.
Start a new project to give back where something is lacking
Sometimes the best way to give is to lead. If you see something that needs to change, be improved upon, or highlighted, then what better way than to start with you. Be the one to lead by example by embarking on a project that others will benefit from, locally, or internationally.
Taking control of a new project will improve your leadership skills immensely, but will also allow you to shape how the project moves forward.
You will find a vision and an end goal. And in many cases, as was the case with us here at Brothers4Change, this simple, perhaps small project, may take you further down the path to larger and wider issues or projects you can pursue.
Improve or learn new skills
Classes to learn new skills can cost money, but you can learn these and more when volunteering. Whether it’s gardening skills, or conservation knowledge, through to aspects of building properties.
These new skills can be learned while you’re doing something worthwhile and giving back to the community. And who knows where this leads, perhaps you’ll become a full-time carpenter as a new career!
Improve your health and wellbeing
We spoke about the power of giving in a previous article, and the ways that giving can benefit us physically, mentally, and emotionally.
It can improve your blood pressure, improve your self-esteem and help combat depression. It’s even been shown to extend your life!
So give more and potentially live longer, now that sounds like a perfect scenario!
But what if, by giving you also gained? And if this were to happen seamlessly just while going about your daily life? Well, that is also possible...
Help through your normal everyday acts
We all buy things for ourselves and others, it’s part of daily living. Many of the things we buy are, of course, essential for living. But many items are also as gifts, rewards, luxuries, or simply something we like.
It is possible to make a purchase, and at the same time help others in need. Without affecting your time, your finances, but gaining all the satisfactions and benefits that come with giving and making a difference to a community in some way.
This is what we set out to do at Brothers4Change. Our store is our means of fundraising, every item purchased provides 10% towards our charitable efforts.
Meet new like-minded people
There are few better ways to meet new people than by putting yourself in the same environment as others seeking the same goals, values, or activities. Clubs and organizations are perfect places to meet new people. People that could even become lifelong friends.
Not only meeting new and exciting people through your volunteering efforts but with those that you help along the way. It’s amazing what bonding can take place through giving back to the community.
Giving brings opportunities to broaden your horizons
Giving back can thrust you into an environment where meeting people begins to open all kinds of doors and avenues. Introductions begin happening to generate new people and acquaintances who can actually offer you a new start at something, a change of career, or a new place to go.
Experience new areas, countries, and cultures
And talking of new places to go, volunteering open up local opportunities, but sometimes it opens up global opportunities. Travel and experiencing a variety of cultures in the world can fill your soul and bring you closer to wisdom.
The simple act of volunteering your time locally can lead you down a path that takes you to new places, perhaps accomplishing newer and bigger things and helping more and more people along the way.
What a feeling that would create. And on the subject of feeling, here’s perhaps an added bonus to giving back to the community...
Giving back feels good
It’s perhaps not something that should be the main driver, after all, giving isn’t first and foremost about you. But there are definitely some remarkable benefits to your overall wellbeing, your sense of purpose and satisfaction, and being useful that come hand in hand with giving back to the community.
More giving help...
Whether it’s volunteering, offering your skills and knowledge, or simply donating. There are so many avenues to giving that can help others.
Consider making your next purchase through our store, and make a difference to a community.