What about people who say it worked for them?

Some businesses grow after their owners started giving. Some grow after their owners started running four miles a week. Neither tells you the cause, and the people it did not work for are not writing books.

Should I stop giving if money is tight?

That is yours to decide. What is worth avoiding is giving money you owe someone else, or giving more in a crisis in the hope it will resolve the crisis.

Is it wrong to give strategically — sponsoring a local team, say?

No, and it is honest as long as you call it what it is. Marketing that also does good is fine. Marketing described as generosity is where it goes wrong.

← Answers

Will giving more make my business more profitable?

It might not, and you should not give expecting it to. Generosity framed as an investment with a return is not generosity — it is a transaction with a longer settlement date. Give because you decided to, at a level that does not put wages or suppliers at risk, and let the return be nobody's expectation.

The promise being made to you

Give and it will come back multiplied, usually with a story attached. The stories are real; so are all the ones nobody tells, where someone gave sacrificially and the business still closed. A claim that only collects its successes is not evidence, it is marketing.

What it costs when it does not work

Not just money. An owner who gave expecting a return and did not get one is left concluding he did not give enough, or did not believe hard enough. That is a worse place than where he started, and it is why the framing matters more than the amount.

Give from what is actually yours

The account holds tax you collected and deductions withheld from payroll. Giving from money owed to somebody else is not generosity — it relocates the cost onto a supplier or the tax authority. Give from what the business has genuinely earned and paid you.

A cleaner way to think about it

Decide what you want to give and why, at a level you could sustain through a bad year, and treat it as spending rather than sowing. If it is worth doing, it is worth doing when nothing comes back — and if it is only worth doing because something might, it was never really giving.

Also asked

What about people who say it worked for them?: Some businesses grow after their owners started giving. Some grow after their owners started running four miles a week. Neither tells you the cause, and the people it did not work for are not writing books.
Should I stop giving if money is tight?: That is yours to decide. What is worth avoiding is giving money you owe someone else, or giving more in a crisis in the hope it will resolve the crisis.
Is it wrong to give strategically — sponsoring a local team, say?: No, and it is honest as long as you call it what it is. Marketing that also does good is fine. Marketing described as generosity is where it goes wrong.

Written for your trade

This is the kind of thing Solomon works through with owners using their own numbers. See how it works →