Sheryl WuDunn: Giving Is Good For You | Big Think

Sheryl WuDunn: Giving Is Good For You

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Sheryl WuDunn explains the complex worlds of charitable giving, volunteering, and altruism. WuDunn is the co-author of "A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunities."

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SHERYL WUDUNN/

The first Asian-American reporter to win a Pulitzer Prize, Sheryl WuDunn has journeyed through several industries, from banking to journalism and book writing, pulling together critical insights to bear upon her work. Most recently, she has written a new book, A Path Appears, about spreading opportunity and making a difference in the world. Previously, she was co-author of Half the Sky, about the oppression of women and girls around the world. Sheryl has used her immense talent as a writer, speaker and thought leader to advocate for those without the resources to advocate for themselves. Selected as one of Newsweek’s “150 Women Who Shake the World,” WuDunn has helped raise awareness about the challenges facing women, such as sex trafficking. A highly successful business executive and best-selling author, she currently works with entrepreneurs in new media, technology and social enterprise at Mid-Market Securities, a small investment banking boutique in NYC.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Sheryl WuDunn: The world of philanthropy and charities is in its infancy, it's sort of like an infant industry. Certainly it's been around for a while and there are some very prominent philanthropists who have been known for a century or more, but I think what's important to understand is as the industry develops there's going to be good players and bad players. And so in terms of charities, what we are trying to explain to people is that yes, giving is great; it's good for your health; there are many reasons why you should be participating in trying to change the world around you. At the same time you also have to be careful. There are some charities that are much better at it. There are some charities that are scams and you have to be careful. And sometimes there are some real rotten apples but you can't let the rotten apples spoil the entire industry.

The world of charities is extremely broad and I think that what's really important is to sort of know what your goals are, what you want to do. For us we were saying okay, I think that a lot of charities should target the needy, people who need it. Certainly some of the nonprofits put a lot of effort into, like a church for instance has to keep up the church and make it look very nice for the public and that's very all well and good and they need to renovate the outside of the building. That's all well and good, especially when it comes to museums, when it comes to things like the Sistine Chapel of course. But when it really comes to trying to help the poor, I mean that is what the essence is of charities to help people who are underprivileged.

A surprising amount of philanthropic dollars don't to go to the needy. Even in higher ed there was a study done by the Indiana Center for Philanthropy that found that only a small portion, less than 50 percent, far less than 50 percent actually ended up helping poor students who couldn't afford to go to college. Now, it's not by intent, it's just that we need to become more efficient. This industry needs to become a lot more efficient and needs to target much more clearly the needy.

Altruism actually is a very interesting phenomenon. So we think that when we give we're losing something; we're giving some of our money, our time, our resources to someone else. It turns out when that neuroscientists who have studied altruism, they found some interesting results. In a survey that looked at many different people they discovered that when you give you stimulate a part of the brain, it lights up this part of the brain and that part is very so much the same part of the brain that is stimulated when you engage in pleasures like eating candy or eating ice cream, falling in love, it's the same area. And in half of research subjects it turns out that their feeling of pleasure was more intense when they gave than when they received. So being altruistic makes you feel better, makes you feel happier.

It turns out that volunteering is very good for your health. And we all want to live longer but we all face a risk of mortality. If you go to church regularly and it's a very social environment, you're really trying to be compassionate; you learn compassion, that actually reduces your risk of mortality by 29 percent research shows.

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