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Why You Should Give Back to Your Community and How to Get Started

Being a part of a community that looks out for each other is an essential part of the human experience. While personal achievements can feel great and are important in life, it’s also important to take time to pay your successes forward to the community you live in which helps to make it possible. Community service is a rewarding experience where you get the satisfaction of knowing that you’re leaving the world just a little bit better off than it would have been without your action, and when enough people add up their little contributions it can have a big effect.

Be Charitable With Your Money

The most basic way of giving back to your community is to put your financial resources into it. If you have the financial means to afford to make direct contributions it is often one of the most effective ways to help a community. Although some people incorrectly view charitable giving as taking the easy way out when compared with doing the hard work yourself, the organizations you give to know what they need and where their resources need to be allocated. Sometimes well-meaning donors contribute gifts or services in place of money only to purchase something which is less effective for the community than what the recipient could have spent a comparable sum on.

Be Charitable With Your Time

Although financial contributions are a great way to give back to your community, not everyone can afford them, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still give back. Another excellent way to contribute to your community is to give your time to helping out those around you. When you volunteer at a community center or work to clean up a local park, you make the community a better place for everyone in it, and all it costs you is the time you are willing to give back.

Participate in Fundraising

If you still want to help with a community or organization’s finance but don’t have the financial means to contribute, that doesn’t mean you can’t still help them find the funding they need. Many local communities and non-profits run fundraisers in order to get the money they need, and they can be a crucial tool for non-profit organizations and local community centers. If fundraisers are being held in your community you can contribute by making purchases, but you can also offer to help with the execution of the fundraisers to increase the amount of money that is earned.

Be Kind to a Stranger

Not all ways of giving back to your community need to be as part of structured organizations or programs. The simplest way to give back is to make a habit of doing random acts of kindness for those around you. Whether it’s gestures as small as holding a door, or big ones like picking up the tab for a family at a restaurant, by putting your positive energy out there and helping others around you in the community you make it a better place to live, and may even inspire them to in turn do something nice for a stranger they encounter.

Share Your Knowledge

Providing your community with a service-based around an area of expertise allows you to pass your knowledge on to others in the community so that they too can benefit from them. Take, for example, Neill Sullivan who donated the Sullivan Community Center to West Oakland where it is now used by martial arts instructors to provide free instruction for the community. By using their time to share their knowledge the instructors are able to provide their community with the many gifts martial arts provide.

Giving back to your community is the best way to show your appreciation to the community that allowed you to achieve your success. It’s great for those around you and feels great too. Get started giving back to your community today!

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