Can You Suggest Books for Sharing the Joy and Potential of Giving with Younger Family Members?

We’re pleased to share here a collection of some of our favorite books for sharing the joy and potential of giving with younger family member, including the new “Hip Family’s Guide for Happier Holidays” by NCFP Board member Lisa Parker, president of the Lawrence Welk Family Foundation.


Books for Parents

The Hip Family’s Guide to Happier Holidays is a guide by Lisa Parker of the Lawrence Welk Family Foundation who says in the guide, “The single best piece of advice I received as a young mom was that my job was to create memories for my children.” She realized “we needed to be more purposeful –more intentional — about our time and money, and spending them in ways that would enrich us, remind us of our bounty, and bring more joy to our family and communities.”

books-for-parentsGenerous Genes: Raising Caring Kids in a Digital Age is a road map for parents, grandparents and others who want to teach kids—from 2 to 20—to live compassionately. This indispensable guide is full of practical advice, inspiring stories and resources to help adults encourage children to share their time, talent, treasure…and ties. Susan Crites Price, an award-winning writer and youth philanthropy expert, and her Millennial daughter, Julie, share their personal perspectives on nurturing the next generation to find their passions and experience both virtual and real-world giving.

The Giving Family: Raising Our Children to Help Others: It’s never too early—or too late—to start teaching children the habit of giving. The Giving Family outlines eight specific steps parents, grandparents, teachers, religious leaders and other adults can take to instill the spirit of giving and volunteering in children ages 5 to 18. It explains how children can learn philanthropy in and out of the home, how young people can become involved with nonprofit groups as advisors or even as board members, and how parents can learn from the experiences of family foundations. With tips and activities interspersed throughout, as well as scores of inspired ideas and real stories, this 119-page volume is a must read for anyone who wants to foster volunteerism and philanthropy in children.

Raising Charitable Children: Getting Past Gimme-Gimme: How to Raise Charitable Children How many times have we heard ourselves, our friends, or our kids’ grandparents complain that children have too many things and don’t appreciate any of it? Many of us fear that without some balance, most children will grow up thinking only of themselves. In this book, Weisman shares real-life stories collected from all over the world of how parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers, scout leaders, friends, next door neighbors, and her own family have either initiated or supported ways to teach children how to give back to those in need. After each of the stories, Weisman offers specific steps to help anyone translate these ideas into action. It offers a set of practical maps or models anyone can use to start making a difference now.

Raising Financially Fit Kids: This combination parenting and personal finance book helps parents teach their children key money skills–such as saving, spending, budgeting, investing, building credit, and donating–that they’ll need to become financially secure adults. Parents want their children to enjoy bright economic futures. But how do we equip the next generation with lifelong financial skills? In this updated edition of Raising Financially Fit Kids, Joline Godfrey shares knowledge gleaned from two decades of preparing children and families for financial independence and stewardship, philanthropic effectiveness, and meaningful economic lives.

Books and Tools for Kids

The Giving Book: Open the Door to a Lifetime of Giving: The Giving Book is truly a gift for young readers ages 6 to 11 — inspiring, teaching and engaging them to give back to the world. It is a unique, interactive process that allows parents, teachers or friends to help children understand giving and participate in a stimulating experience. The 64 page, spiral-bound, hardcover book combines colorful illustrations and entertaining narrative with fun learning activities. The book helps them record their ideas, dreams and wishes for the world –making them the authors of their stories and creating a “scrapbook” of their journey into compassion, philanthropy and the power of their altruism.

books-for-kidsPhil and His Family’s Adventures in Giving: Looking for something to give families with children on your holiday list? The Youth Philanthropy Initiative (YPII), a signature program of the Indiana Grantmakers Alliance, has the perfect present: philanthropy in a box. This Gift Box helps families incorporate generosity in their lives throughout the year. The box comes with: a graphic novel that introduces the concepts of giving time, talent and treasure; activity cards with hands-on ideas; a set of “conversation starter” cards; a deck of cards to play two different games; Phil’s Giving Circle tokens that a child can leave for someone else when doing a good deed; monthly calendar reminders with “Calls to Action;” and a family pledge card. It is a great way to get the whole family involved in philanthropy in a fun way.

The Piggy Bank for the 21st Century: One slot piggy banks have been around for….centuries. But the world has changed. Now we have a highly sophisticated financial system, a system whose complexity has outstripped the ability of most adults, many of whom grapple with credit card debt, even bankruptcy. Personal finance education needs to start young. How? With the same universally loved childhood toy, the piggy bank….but with a 21st century twist! The Money Savvy Pig piggy bank has four chambers, one for each of the four money management choices a child should be taught from the time they are small. They are SAVE, SPEND, DONATE, and INVEST.

The Quiltmaker’s Gift tells the story of a greedy king, who with the help of a generous quiltmaker, learns to find happiness by giving his possessions away. A quiltmaker helps a selfish king learn that giving is the true secret to happiness. The heartwarming, strongly moral tale supports important values, and the detailed illustrations, featuring dozens of lovingly rendered quilt patterns.

Three Cups: Teaching children how to save, spend, and be charitable can be as simple as 1, 2, 3. All parents want to teach their children good money habits from an early age. Many start by giving them an allowance. But it’s equally important to teach children a positive, generous attitude as they learn to use money responsibly. Filled with warm, memorable illustrations by award-winning painter, April Willy, Three Cups is the story of one family’s unique and effective method of teaching personal financial management—and how one boy reaped first the small, then the immeasurably great rewards of the lessons he learned. Families will be delighted with the heart-warming tale and want to integrate the three-cup system in their own children’s lives.

A Kid’s Guide to Giving originated when author Freddi Zeiler decided to donate the money from her piggy bank. There were so many charitable organizations to choose from that she didn’t know where to begin–so she set out to research them all. The charitable organizations are divided into 3 categories: People, Animals, and Environment. The book comes with a gift envelope–to get kids started on the road to giving.

The Kid’s Guide to Service Projects: This guide has something for everyone who wants to make a difference, from simple projects to large-scale commitments. Kids can choose from a variety of popular topics including animals, safety, health, and the environment. A special section gives step-by-step instructions for creating flyers, petitions, press releases, and more. The Kid’s Guide to Service Projects features: the 10 steps to successful service projects and 15 thematic chapters covering topics commonly selected for service projects: Animals, Community Development and Beautification, Crime Fighting, The Environment, Friendship, Health, Holidays, Homelessness, Hunger, Literacy, People with Special Needs, Politics and Government, Safety, Senior Citizens, Transportation.

Books and Tools for Teenagers and Young Adults

Classified: How to Stop Hiding Your Privilege and Use it for Social Change. The fight for economic justice can draw stark battle lines, with the fight portrayed simplistically as Us versus Them, with the rich in the role of “Them.” So where does that leave young people with wealth who believe in social change? This book is guide for people with class privilege who are ready to figure out how their privilege really works. Complete with comics, exercises, and personal stories, this book gives readers the tools they need to put their privilege to work for social change.

books-for-teen-and-young-adultsInspired Philanthropy: Creating a Giving Plan and Leaving a Legacy: This newest edition of the classic book shows how anyone can align and integrate values, passions, and dreams for their communities and families into their plans. Inspired Philanthropy explains how to make a difference by creating giving and legacy plans, tells what questions to ask nonprofits, and spells out how to help partner with advisors and nonprofit leaders for inspired outcomes. In addition to overall updates to statistics, the new edition includes a discussion of the implications of the Buffett gift to the Gates Foundation; new legacy planning tools; expanded resources on youth, giving circles, and communities of color; key questions for advisors and donors; and worksheets and resources available on the enclosed CD.

Teen Philanthropy Café is a series of seven readers created by Exponent Philanthropy and Youth Philanthropy Connect across topics like Grantmaking, Using Your Voice, site visits, and the Path to Impact. This series introduces young people to strategic, thoughtful philanthropy, and inspires them toward giving with impact.

How To Be an Everyday Philanthropist: Want to help make your community, your town–your world–a better place, but don’t know where to begin? How To Be An Everyday Philanthropist shows you the way. A handbook, a resource guide, a call to action, and an inspiration, it offers 330 concrete, direct ideas for making a difference–all of which have nothing to do with the size of your checkbook and everything to do with using the hidden assets that are already a part of your life. Whether you’re shopping, working, exercising, or surfing the Web, there are hundreds of ways to slip small but deeply meaningful acts of philanthropy into your life, using over 600 of the most innovative and effective charitable organizations around.

It’s Your World: Get Informed, Get Inspired & Get Going: In this book, author Chelsea Clinton tackles the biggest challenges facing the world today. She uses real data to discuss issues and current solutions from organizations and youth making a difference in their world. This book is a great book to learn about lots of topics and issues, while also focusing on ways to respond.

Start Something That Matters: Blake Mycoskie explains the story of founding TOMS, one of the fastest-growing shoe companies in the world, and combines it with lessons learned from such other innovative organizations as method, charity: water, FEED Projects, and TerraCycle. Blake presents the six simple keys for creating or transforming your own life and business

The Power of Half: One Family’s Decision to Stop Taking and Start Giving Back is a book co-written by Hannah Salwen and her father about their family’s journey. They decided to sell their Atlanta mansion, downsize to a house half its size, and give half of their profits to a worthy charity. At first it was an outlandish scheme. “What, are you crazy? No way!” Then it was a challenge. “We are TOTALLY doing this.” Each week they met over dinner to discuss their plan. It would transport them across the globe and well out of their comfort zone. In the end the Salwens’ journey would bring them closer as a family, as they discovered, together, that half could be so much more.

Cause for Change: Written by Millennials about Millennials, Cause for Change examines strategies for engaging Millennials as constituents, volunteers, and donors, and focuses on how organizations can realign themselves to better respond to this group of 80 million strong. At the heart of this research-based guide is the Millennial Development Platform, an action-based rubric developed by the authors and included in each chapter to help organizations create the infrastructure for a long-term millennial engagement strategy.

Tools for Entire Families

The Intergenerational Toolkit: Bridging the Generations, A Guide for Family Foundations: The Council of Michigan Foundations (CMF) developed this guide in response to member focus groups who identified a need for resources to help engage all generations in the family’s work. The toolkit includes a section of carefully designed exercises to identify shared values and to explore common interests, improve communications to help build high quality connections between family members and create more inclusive family foundation meetings.

roleplay is a new tool created by 21/64 and Youth Philanthropy Connect. This interactive tool helps users gain awareness of how they act in different roles—both personally and as a funder—to make mindful choices about the roles they want to play. Neuroscience shows that play relaxes our brains and leads to better problem solving. Giving people something they can touch and move can spark understanding and make heady, conceptual ideas more accessible. It can also benefit relationships, as play opens us to clarity, creativity and new ways to communicate with others.