How Can You Encourage Generosity in Your Family?

This chapter focuses on those inward ripples that include the opportunity to create a sense of legacy within the family; to foster the binding institutions of collaboration and compromise among family members; and to teach younger generations about gratitude and commitment. If the generosity of family members extends outward to others but not inward to kin, the formal infrastructures of philanthropy may become little more than additional forums for internecine battle. Families who aspire to collaborate philanthropically across and through the generations must first learn to be generous to one another. Harvard Business School professor Michael Norton, who has studied generosity in collaboration with Professor Elizabeth Dunn at the University of British Columbia, explains that the best way to encourage a culture of generosity is to help individuals practice it regularly and in ways that provide immediate feedback.