Donating to charity is good for the brain and heart

That good feeling you get by writing a check to your favorite charity could be your brain patting itself on the back.

A team of economists and psychologists at the University of Oregon have found that donating money to charity activates regions of the brain associated with pleasure. The study represents a major advance in the young field of neuroeconomics, a collaboration between economists and psychologists to determine how the brain directs the way people handle money.

Economic models would suggest "only Bill Gates or Warren Buffett should be making contributions, and everyone else should just free-ride," said one of the authors, economics professor William Harbaugh. "But that doesn't happen; there's high participation, where even low-income people are giving away a portion of their income."

The apparent reason is that giving to others produces a "warm glow." As Harbaugh described it, "people feel good knowing that they're a charitable giver."

[Chicago Tribune]

Money clouds the mind and heart

"As a rule, people who have money don't know people in need," saId Tanya Davis, 40, a laid-off security guard and single mother.

"I believe that the more I give, the more I receive, and that God loves a cheerful giver," Davis said. "Plus I've been in their position, and someday I might be again."

Pastor Coletta Jones, who ministers to a largely low-income tithing congregation in southeast Washington thinks that poor people give more because they ask for less for themselves.

"When you have just a little, you're thankful for what you have," Jones said, "but with every step you take up the ladder of success, the money clouds your mind and gets you into a state of never being satisfied."

[Excerpt of an article by Frank Greve, McClatchy]

Giving lights up your life

"Have you ever looked into the face of someone you're being generous to?" Emel Sweeney, 73, a retired bookkeeper, asks with the trace of a Jamaican lilt. She says that giving lights up her life.

That brought to mind her encounter with a young woman who was struggling to manage four small, tired children on a bus.

They staggered and straggled at a transfer stop, along with Sweeney, who urged the mother to take a nearby cab the rest of the way. When the mother said she had no money, Sweeney gave her $20, she said. The mother, as she piled her brood into the cab, waved and mouthed a thank-you.

"Those words just rested in my chest," Sweeney said, "and as I rode home I was so happy."

[Excerpt of an article by Frank Greve, McClatchy]