Is it more valuable to advocate for women’s constitutional and equal rights or enforce existing laws against discrimination? Discover what WiserGiving style you are and how you compare with others.

In the last few months, WiserEarth has been working on a new initiative called WiserGiving with our Board members Liz Bremner and Karen Crow. While many websites help donors select which nonprofit organizations to support, there are few resources to help people develop thoughtful strategies to guide their philanthropy decisions. WiserGiving’s goal is to help individuals make better philanthropic decisions by offering hands-on strategy tools, information, and advice from friends and experts.

WiserGiving’s first tool “WiserGiving Style QuizTM” was launched last Wednesday. Composed of 8 questions, the quiz is a unique tool designed to help you understand your problem-solving approach, which is key to becoming a more strategic giver. As you may know, 80% of giving comes from individuals–a good reason to be strategic, don’t you think?

Here are some quiz results we’ve received to date:

  • 26% of respondents have 1 dominant style  (and no secondary styles).
  • 36% of respondents are extremely diverse in their approach, and have 3 styles. There are a total of 6 core styles: Building Movements, Direct Services, Making Changes Stick, Increasing Effectiveness, Public Policy and Research, and Big Ideas.
  • 94% of respondents believe that 61-80% of one’s charitable giving should be consistent with one’s WiserGiving Style.  However, they feel their giving is only moderately aligned to their strategy.

Steve Ketchpel, author of “Giving Back:  A guidebook to volunteering and donating for families and individuals”, recently took the quiz and found that Research and Big Ideas was his dominant core style, which focuses on increasing knowledge and applying resulting insights to innovative strategies and solutions. He also had 2 secondary styles that he shared in his recent blog post, “A Statement of Purpose and Your Giving Style”.

Why does knowing your style matter?
Experience shows that if your charitable giving does not match your core values, then over time you will lose interest. There will be a growing sense that your giving is not meeting your expectations–you will feel that your giving is not having the greatest impact, but you won’t know why. Now you do know why–because it doesn’t match with your deepest belief about what really works and matters.

What is your style?
Do you believe that it is key to strengthen grassroots organizations working on poverty/low wage issues in order to reduce poverty? Is it more valuable to advocate for women to have a constitutional right to equality or enforce existing laws against discrimination?

Take the quiz to find out. It only takes 5 minutes!
By taking the Quiz and sharing your results, you’ll help kick off the social aspect of the site, which is central to our mission of building a community of philanthropic-minded people who can share their knowledge and insights.

Here’s a great new website for anyone wanting to make smarter choices about where their charitable dollars go.  I tried it, and they figured me out pretty well. Give it a whirl.
–Brenda F., WiserGiving Participant

To take the quiz and discover your personal giving style, visit WiserGiving now. Share your results with us!

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