This year Grateful launched a call to action for socially good businesses and individuals to “Share in Grateful Giving.” Grateful Giving is an action to express gratitude to others in a way that is meaningful to them and with a greater purpose. It is a movement of social giving for the social good, and within it, the goal is to amplify millions of acts of gratefulness each year to change the lives of others and our communities.

So why are we Grateful and rallying people to Share in Grateful Giving?

Why We’re Grateful.‍

Grateful is a digital platform where businesses give to nonprofits that matter most to their customers and employees. I launched Grateful in 2019 out of a belief that business and technology should have a moral purpose to create positive change in the world by connecting socially conscious companies and people to charities around the country and world.

When I launched the pilot version to a limited group of friends, I named it Given from the well-known quote, "to whom much is given, much is expected." In January 2021, we rebranded the platform as Grateful to reflect why people give back. The name Grateful resonates with the vision of the platform as it does more than connect organizations with people who can give. Instead, it fosters a grateful community by uniting people in a common purpose and empowering them to share their values and charitable interests with others through gratefulness.

Our mission – and now company name – is rooted in gratitude, from which being grateful stems. 

Gratitude State of Mind.‍

Dave Kerpen, a serial entrepreneur and New York Times best-selling author,  whom I am honored to have as an advisor to Grateful, described gratitude as “…the greatest drug on the planet. When we take a moment to focus on gratitude, it shifts our mood.”

In the book, Living in Gratitude, Angeles Arrien defines gratitude in these words: “Gratitude is a feeling that spontaneously emerges from within. However, it is not simply an emotional response. It is also a choice we make. We can choose to be grateful, or we can choose to be ungrateful – to take our gifts and blessings for granted. As a choice, gratitude is an attitude or disposition.

Both Angeles and Dave capture the complexity of gratitude. Gratitude is a social emotion, a state of mind, and a choice that shifts our mood and perspective. It is an appreciation for the blessings in your life, for others around you, and for the world we live in.

It’s an emotion that can be harnessed into something more: action.

Grateful Giving Action.

The famous quote, “actions speak louder than words” is especially true for gratitude. Gratefulness is the expression of our gratitude. Saying you are grateful for someone or something is good. Doing something in appreciation is even better. However, the best action is to add selflessness into that act by giving to a cause a person cares about and further helping that nonprofit important to them. This is the act of Grateful Giving.

Grateful Giving is taking that mindset of gratitude and galvanizing it into action. Specifically, taking action to give back to communities and populations most in need or to charities that matter the most to individuals who matter to you – your family, friends, customers, employees, and others.

You share in Grateful Giving when you express your gratefulness in a meaningful and purposeful way and create positive change in the world together.

A Meaningful, Purposeful Movement.

Grateful Giving enhances meaning and purpose in your life and with others. When businesses engage in Grateful Giving with their customers and employees, it adds meaning and purpose to those relationships, enhancing the connection to the company while supporting the work of great charities.

And it doesn’t stop there. I have seen single acts of gratefulness ignite movements of social good. The recipients feel gratitude that you shared in a cause important to them, so they reflect it to others, and those people reflect it to more people, and so on. It's a movement with exponential growth as you share that grateful feeling forward and support for our communities builds in result too!

Here is how you can participate:

• Businesses: Use Grateful with your customers and employees, and talk about it as part of your brand. It transforms the conversation from telling others about your company's philanthropy to doing it in partnership with them, supporting the causes they love. Schedule a demo to learn more.
  
• Individuals: Create an individual profile in Grateful, share nonprofits that matter to you, and do business with companies who want to support the things you care about.
  
• Nonprofits: Create or update your profile in Grateful to connect with new donors. We’d love to learn more about your work and help support you. Contact us for next steps.

Join us and thousands of others. Share in Grateful Giving, and let’s fuel a movement with millions of grateful acts.