Who gets your money?

Let's do a quick audit.

Food and shelter come first. Whether you rent or own, housing takes a serious bite. Food is next, especially if you eat clean, buy organic, or hunt down quality ingredients to protect your health. Kids? That category is its own universe: braces, school trips, sporting equipment, tutoring, the bike they absolutely need right now. Endless (and worth every penny.)

Then there are birthdays, subscriptions, memberships, travel, wardrobe, housewares. And taxes. Always taxes.

But here's the thing. This isn't really about how much you spend or where it goes. It's about how you feel when you spend it.

Notice that? Some expenditures feel like investments. Others feel like obligations. A few feel like joy. And some? Some feel like a slow leak you can't quite find.

Now let's shift the lens.

Someone you know wants to borrow money. How fast does your hand go to your wallet? Be honest. There's a calculation that happens, almost instantly, before you've even said a word. You're running a quick background check on their history, their habits, their odds.

Now same person, different ask. They knock on your door for a donation to their favourite cause. Does that feel different? Are you more likely to open your pocketbook?

Most people are. And that gap, between lending and giving, does that tell us something fascinating about how we're actually wired to part with our money?

Aha! ~ We don't fund need. We fund belief.

It's not the cause that opens our wallets. It's the confidence. The confidence that the cause has somewhere to go. Let me explain.

In January 2022, a convoy of Canadian truckers drove to Ottawa. They weren't asking for sympathy. They were making a statement, and they were moving. Literally. Hundreds of big rigs rolling toward the capital, livestreamed, visible, loud, and alive with momentum.

Someone started a GoFundMe to cover their food and fuel while they were there.

Within days, it raised over CAD $10 million from 133,000 donors (I was one of them). When the platform shut the campaign down, supporters didn't scatter. They migrated to a new platform called GiveSendGo and rebuilt the fund from scratch. In under 24 hours, they raised USD $4.5 million. The campaign ultimately became GiveSendGo's largest in its history.

Think about that for a second.

People didn't give because the truckers were broke. They gave because the truckers were going somewhere. There was a destination, a direction, a sense that every dollar was joining a larger force already in motion.

That's not charity. That's belief with a vehicle.

Now here's the gut-punch. The Canadian government stepped in and froze the accounts. Some donors had their own bank accounts frozen simply for giving. The money that people had offered in good faith, as an act of personal conviction, was being rerouted by a system that had different plans for it.

And what happened? Polite Canadians didn't quietly accept it. They were outraged! Not just because their money was touched, but because their belief had been intercepted.

That's the thing about funding belief. When it works, it's electric. When it's betrayed, it's personal.

So, the next time you hesitate before opening your wallet, don't feel guilty. You don't owe anyone an explanation. Just know that your gut already ran the numbers.

That quick calculation we talked about at the start? That's not cynicism. That's wisdom. Some part of you knows instantly whether there's genuine momentum in front of you, or whether someone is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Trust that instinct.

Because we don't fund need. We fund belief. And belief, real belief, always finds a way.

Giving is a fascinating subject!  I know I’ve certainly changed who gets my money over the years.  Let’s talk about it.  2:00 pm eastern Tuesday.  Email [email protected] for the zoom link to join us.