Like the birds and the bees and the 123s, philanthropy should be taught early and often.

By Katherine Falk , Janet R. Wakefield and Nancy Swanson

The program was created as a contest for fourth-grade students in New Jersey to share their ideas about philanthropy in a poster or essay. We started with fourth-graders because they were old enough to read and write, and young enough to be enthusiastic about such a program. What we found was that students understood the concepts of kindness and giving, but most had no idea about what constitutes “philanthropy.”