Okay, the final secret. Drum roll please….

Secret #9 – Giving…

Whether you want to call it tithing (I don’t) or something else there is magic in giving a fixed percentage of your income WILLINGLY to charities, religious organizations or just individuals in need.

I donate 5% (roughly 10% of profits) of all our companies gross income to several charities I support. Last year we gave away over $120,000 and this year I hope to get to $200,000 or more.

A lot of people talk about how they want to donate some huge sum of money to a charity or their church but then never get around to it because they feel like they don’t have enough right now or it’s not the right time. Frankly, I think it’s because it is not a systematic, regimented giving plan. If you would have told me a few years ago – I’d regularly be giving $10k, $15k, $20k+ checks each month to charities – I would have thought you were crazy because I could use that extra money myself for something. But when it becomes just a way you operate it’s much easier to start writing those checks with big zeros behind them. My dad thinks I’m nuts when I told him how much I donate but I’m more that pleased with my decision.

Where I Found This

One of the first times I heard about this was from the late Foster Hibbard, who worked with Napoleon Hill. Foster talked about setting up a “giving account” and a “wealth account”. The set-up was simple. You would take a fixed percentage of all money that comes in to you (i.e. 5%, 10%, etc) and put that amount into both accounts each time you received it. I only do monthly – but this follows the “pay yourself first” philosophy of getting rich also. So each month 5% gets paid off the top no matter what to myself (for investments and buying assets not toys) and 5% gets paid to a charity of my choice. (Dan Kennedy worked with Foster Hibbard and has a great distillation of this and his own wealth building philosophy in his book “No BS Wealth Attraction for Entrepreneurs”)

Fact is, I could see significant jumps in my own income once I started this 5% charitable giving. Some of the wealthiest and most successful people of all-time had discovered this secret. It’s been said that Rockefeller walked around everyday with a roll of dimes and gave them away. Carnegie was one of the biggest philanthropists building public libraries. Many people talk about the ‘filth rich’ or how ‘greedy’ rich people are – I’ve found just the opposite. Most of the truly wealthy and successful individuals are some of the biggest & most generous contributors around.

One perfect example I know personally is Frank McKinney. The Wall Street Journal refers to him as “The Daredevil Developer and Real Estate Rock Czar”. Frank builds these mega, multi-million dollar mansion in Florida on speculation (meaning no buyer before he builds it). And the guy plays just as hard for charity. He founded the Caring House Project Foundation to build self-sustaining housing and communities for the desperately housing. In fact, I’m one of the co-hosts for an upcoming event going on in November that should be absolutely incredible called “Frank McKinney’s Palm Beach Experience”. It’s worth checking out and all monies raised goes direct to the charity.

I firmly believe you cannot out-give the Universe.

If that statement is true than anything you give out comes back to you in kind multiple times. Meaning from a pragmatic standpoint you could look at this ally as a return on “charitable investment”. But that’s not it. There’s an incredible feeling from knowing one check you wrote sustained an entire village of enterpreneurial upstarts – like when I donate to Village Enterprise Fund. Or when you get a handwritten note from one of the charities you support talking about how surprised they were to get a $15,000 check out of the blue and what kind of help that means to their program.

Personally, I do due diligence on the charity I’m going to support for that particular month and then I write the check without expectation of what is going to happen with the money. At some point very soon I want to be able to even create my own foundation and donate more than just money – but for now this is my contribution.

A little behind the scenes disclosure – one of my goals with InternetLifestyle.com is to ask members to agree to give away 5% of their revenues that are a result of what they use from the site. My goal is $100,000,000.00 in donations per year from our members to charities of their choice. That’s only 2000 people each making a $1M/year.

I want to hear your thoughts on this and maybe try a little experiment…

For the next 3 months give away 5% of your gross income to a charity, religious organization or persons in need. Do NOT do it out of guilt. Do it with a light-heart and without expectation of what is coming back to you. Or if that’s too big of a step – try this and report back here. Just take out five $20 bills and look for someone to give them to who is in need with no expectation of return. Post your results and let us know what happened.