Reflections on Generosity
Kick off your week with a 5-minute reflection on generosity to ground yourself as you go about your fund development tasks. Each reflection includes a question to ponder throughout the week to aid your work.
Reflections on Generosity
76: Accept Gifts with Cheerfulness
"...When we have decided to accept, let us accept with cheerfulness, showing pleasure, and letting the giver see it, so that he or she may at once receive some return for their goodness..."
This week, I am reading a quote from On Benefits by Seneca the Younger, published in 59 AD.
Reflection Question:
- No matter the donor or the donor’s motivation, how are you and I receiving gifts? What is the attitude of our hearts?
Reflection on Quote:
When we look back over the last few months, what has been our attitude in accepting gifts? Seneca describes a number of attitudes that can accompany the receiving of a gift from cheerfulness to offense to slavish humility. Beyond the attitudes he describes, I would add one more. Busyness. When we do not add enough margin to our days, especially during busy fundraising seasons, we can neglect saying thank you and thus give the appearance that the donations are not needed. Or, we can instead take the time and aim to accept gifts with cheerfulness.
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Music credit: Woeisuhmebop
Welcome back. This podcast explores the beautiful space where generosity occurs through ancient and modern writings from all cultures, seeking deeper wisdom for fund development work. If you like this podcast, please rate or review in your favorite podcast app.
When we look back over the last few months, what has been our attitude in accepting gifts? Seneca, a Roman philosopher, discussed the various attitudes that we can have. This week, I am reading a quote from On Benefits by Seneca the Younger. Published in 59 AD. Seneca uses the word “benefit” to denote an act of charity or a donation.
Quote
When we have decided to accept, let us accept with cheerfulness, showing pleasure, and letting the giver see it, so that he or she may at once receive some return for their goodness: for as it is a good reason for rejoicing to see our friend happy, it is a better one to have made him so. Let us, therefore, show how acceptable a gift is by loudly expressing our gratitude for it; and let us do so, not only in the hearing of the giver, but everywhere. He or she who receives a benefit with gratitude, repays the first installment of it.…. Some men or women speak in the most offensive terms of those to whom they owe most. ..no one can be grateful who forgets a kindness, and he or she who remembers it, by so doing proves their gratitude. We ought neither to receive benefits with a fastidious air, nor yet with a slavish humility: for if one does not care for a benefit when it is freshly bestowed--a time at which all presents please us most--what will they do when its first charms have gone off? Others receive with an air of disdain, as much as to say. "I do not want it; but as you wish it so very much, I will allow you to give it to me." Others take benefits languidly, and leave the giver in doubt as to whether they know that they have received them; others barely open their lips in thanks, and would be less offensive if they said nothing. One ought to proportion one's thanks to the importance of the benefit received, and to use the phrases, "You have laid more of us than you think under an obligation," for everyone likes to find their good actions extend further than expected. "You do not know what it is that you have done for me; but you ought to know how much more important it is than you imagine." It is in itself an expression of gratitude to speak of one's self as overwhelmed by kindness.
Unquote.
Seneca describes a number of attitudes that can accompany the receiving of a gift from cheerfulness to offense to slavish humility. Beyond the attitudes he describes, I would add one more. Busyness. When we do not add enough margin to our days, especially during busy fundraising seasons, we can neglect saying thank you and thus give the appearance that the donations are not needed. Or, we can instead take the time and aim to accept gifts with cheerfulness.
Let’s reflect on one question:
Have you put enough space in your days to spend sufficient time thanking donors?
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