Every year, long before the leaves begin to turn, nonprofits start thinking about the end of the year. We know what's coming: inboxes filled with donation appeals, "last chance" reminders, matching gift campaigns, and tax-deductible incentives. If you work in communications like I do, you're probably helping write some of those emails.
There's nothing inherently wrong with any of it. These campaigns often fuel remarkable generosity and make meaningful work possible. But each year, I find myself asking a deeper question: Have we disembodied the very act of giving?
When generosity becomes transactional—a calculation of tax strategy, ROI, or public image—something vital is lost. Giving turns abstract, detached from the relationships that once made it sacred. Yet generosity, at its core, is not purely a financial act. It's a deeply human one—an embodied posture toward one another and the world, rooted in the conviction that every person holds dignity and that every act of generosity matters.
The Ethics Beneath the Act
At UNDIVIDED, we talk often about The UNDIVIDED Way, a framework drawn from Micah 6:8 that shapes how we live, lead, and organize for justice. These four postures — Open Hands, Linked Arms, Hopeful Hearts, and Bold Steps — are not programs or slogans. They are ways of being in relationship that center humility, solidarity, faith, and courage.
If philanthropy is to play a meaningful role in healing the divides that fracture our communities — racial, political, spiritual — then perhaps we must bring generosity back into our bodies, our ethics, and our relationships. What would it look like if The UNDIVIDED Way informed not only how we serve communities but how we resource them?
Open Hands: Giving with Humility
To give with open hands is to approach generosity as collaboration rather than control. It’s a posture of humility that resists the urge to “engineer” outcomes or measure worth solely by quantifiable returns.
Open-handed giving begins with listening — not to metrics first, but to people. It acknowledges that communities already hold wisdom and agency, and that philanthropy’s highest calling is partnership, not patronage.
Research from the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project supports this shift. When funders center relationships, share decision-making power, and prioritize mutual trust, the impact deepens — not just in measurable outcomes but in community resilience and belonging.
Linked Arms: Giving as Solidarity
Linked arms generosity reframes giving as shared investment. It moves us from “I give because I have and you need” to “We belong to one another.”
In our work, we’ve seen this happen when people of faith, artists, and local leaders commit to walking together through the hard, slow work of racial healing. Generosity becomes not a transaction but a shared journey.
Linked arms generosity doesn’t outsource compassion to institutions. It integrates generosity into the fabric of life — neighbors pooling resources, churches offering sanctuary, donors sitting in listening circles instead of reading about them in annual reports.
This kind of giving builds what sociologists call “social capital” — the trust and networks that sustain change long after a grant period ends. It’s slower, but far more enduring.
Hopeful Hearts: Giving Beyond Cynicism
Philanthropy, at its best, is an act of hope. Yet in a time of polarization and fatigue, hope can feel almost countercultural. Hopeful hearts generosity resists cynicism without denying reality. It insists that every act of giving — no matter the scale — participates in the ongoing work of restoration.
We witness this hope often through the arts. Storytelling, music, and visual art invite us to see one another with new eyes and to imagine communities marked by shared flourishing. These creative encounters don’t erase pain or inequity, but they rekindle imagination — and imagination, as Dr. Shawn Ginwright reminds us, is the soil of social healing.
Hopeful generosity invests in that soil, trusting that change often takes root unseen before it bears visible fruit.
Bold Steps: Giving That Risks Something
Finally, generosity that heals requires courage. Bold steps generosity invites us to align our resources with conviction — even when that means taking risks.
It’s easier to fund what feels safe, familiar, or easily measured. But the work of justice often disrupts comfort. Bold generosity asks funders and donors alike to stay present in discomfort: to support movements that challenge entrenched systems, to fund organizers who speak hard truths, to back artists whose work unsettles complacency.
This is generosity as faith in action — not impulsive, but deeply intentional. It asks, What does love require of my resources? Who might this gift liberate — including me?
Reembodying Generosity
What might it look like if foundations, congregations, and individual donors embraced generosity as a lived practice of The UNDIVIDED Way?
It could mean evaluating impact not only by outputs, but by the quality of relationships strengthened.
It could mean funding processes that share power with those most affected by decisions.
It could mean donors engaging as learners, not just benefactors — linking arms with those whose lived experience carries wisdom that spreadsheets can’t capture.
Ultimately, reembodied generosity isn’t about abandoning strategy. It’s about grounding strategy in relationship. It’s about ensuring that the ethics beneath our giving align with the justice we seek.
A More Embodied Future
As we approach another season of appeals and campaigns, perhaps the invitation is to pause — not just to decide what we’ll give, but how we’ll give.
To open our hands, not only our wallets.
To link our arms, not just our logos.
To hold hope in our hearts when cynicism feels easier.
To take bold steps that align generosity with justice.
Howard Thurman reminds us: “There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. … And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.” True generosity, when it is embodied, arises from that inner listening — a choice to give from our own convictions and values, not from external pressures or convenience. It is generosity that nourishes both the giver and the community, creating connection, resilience, and meaningful change.
In solidarity,
Natalie PeGan Lundstrom | UNDIVIDED Communications & Arts Director