Beyond Teaching Kids to Give, Entrusting Them as Civic Actors

Let's talk about how we teach kids to give. Most faith traditions share essential values related to the importance of community, compassion, and gift of time and resources. We do our best to instill the importance of giving in our children. During religious holidays or seasons, we engage children in saving up money to give to community organizations, or ask them to choose some of their toys to give away, or maybe take them to a homeless shelter to serve a meal, often all deemed as helping the less fortunate. They're important gestures that help kids see beyond their own needs to the fact that they are part of a larger community.

But how much agency are we really giving children? Do these one-off engagements, even if regular, cultivate giving as part of their identity or as something they do at the holidays or when adults ask them? What are we teaching them about those who help versus those who need help? And what does it mean to link giving with the sacrifice of money, toys, time, especially if you're a child who doesn't have those resources to begin with?

innoFaith recently facilitated and supported a collaboration that modeled a different approach, one in which the community recognizes, honors, and supports children as important civic contributors and teaches giving not as sacrifice or something nice to do, but as a core aspect of children's participation in their community. In this approach, instilling the values of community, compassion, and gift become less about the fortunate and less fortunate and more about understanding the varied experiences of people and the varied ways that children can and already do help. This approach also requires adults to entrust kids with real decisions about engagement in their community rather than telling them what to do.

The Interfaith Coalition of Bowie, MD, Northview Elementary School in Bowie, MD, and The Giving Square, an innovative, evidence-based initiative that supports schools and other organizations to engage children as civic actors, collaborated to show what’s possible. The Giving Square's Kids for Kids Fund methodology gives children from all backgrounds the responsibility of giving away $1000 to a youth-serving organization in their community. After spending eight weeks exploring and engaging in perspective-taking around the needs of others and various social issues in the community, as well as learning about local organizations addressing some of these issues, students then choose an organization to receive $1000.

The Interfaith Coalition of Bowie teamed up with the Giving Square to bring the Kids for Kids Fund to a group of 2nd to 5th graders at Northview Elementary, but with a special twist. At several of the sessions over the eight weeks, leaders from different faith communities in Bowie showed up to discuss with the students about the value of giving within their respective traditions.

At the end of the eight weeks, at a ceremony at Temple Solel synagogue just down the street from their school, the children handed a $1000 check to the organization they had chosen, Black Girls Dive, which engages girls in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) topics through scuba diving. The students shared what they learned about giving over the eight-week program and asked the representatives from Black Girls Dive questions about the organization. Modeling the accessible, creative approach of the Kids for Kids curriculum, they also competed with the adults present to come up with ways to use a potato to help a person who is lonely and a balloon to help someone who is overwhelmed.

As the students, parents, teachers and organizations in the room got to know each other, connections and opportunities started to form. Kids and parents asked the Black Girls Dive representatives how they could apply to the program. Black Girls Dive asked the Principal of Northview Elementary about the possibility of recruiting at her school.

In summary, a group of faith leaders decided to live out their values by sharing with students in a public elementary school what their traditions have to say about giving, equipping those students with an understanding of themselves as civic actors, and entrusting them with real resources and decision-making to support their community. In the process, a local organization received resources and new connections were forged. The kids can be proud that they helped make it happen.

If you're interested in bringing the Kids for Kids Fund program to your school, congregation, or community, contact us at info@innofaith.org or reach out directly to the Giving Square at info@thegivingsquare.org.

innoFaith helps cultivate connections that link faith and innovation to make the world a better place. We are proud to have connected and supported the Interfaith Coalition of Bowie and the Giving Square to make this collaboration possible. See more photos of the engagement below.

The Giving Square aims to transform the civic role of children through a new, inclusive expression of philanthropy. Click here to learn more about the Giving Square.

The Interfaith Coalition of Bowie encourages dialogue, acceptance and cooperation through the celebration of our communities’ diverse faith traditions. Click here to learn more about the Interfaith Coalition of Bowie.