How Can You Use Your Money to Help Others?

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If you’re a selfless person or one who doesn’t consider money one of their values, you may have a hard time understanding why you should bother trying to acquire large sums of it. (If you’re into personality typing, people of the INFJ and INFP personalities may be especially prone to feeling this way.)

Say, for instance, that you already have a job that satisfies you and provides you enough money to pay your bills and support your lifestyle. If this is the case, you may wonder, “Why should I feel the need to make more money?” Wanting more money when your basic needs are already met may lead you to feel greedy, and so you would rather just focus on making sure you have enough for the basics and maybe donating some to causes you care about.

But even if you consider yourself a selfless person, you can still look at money-making and wealth-building from a selfless perspective. And one way to do this is to consider some of the positive ways you can spend your money once you have more discretionary income.

6 Ways You Can Use Your Money to Help Others

1. Supporting candidates who share your values.

   It’s an unfortunate fact of life these days, but political campaigns are really expensive. Candidates are constantly having to raise money to have a real chance at winning elections. Even if you don’t like this, you have to play the game if you want to see real change happen.
   
   That means, if you have discretionary income, you can use it to fund the campaigns of candidates that actually share your values. If you would like to make sure that values like kindness, empathy, and compassion are the ones held by people in positions of power, you can use your money to help make that happen.
   
   Hopefully one day it won’t be the case that money plays such a big role in politics. But until that day comes, it’s helpful if you have enough discretionary income to donate to political campaigns—campaigns that are actually striving to create a better tomorrow, one where all people are truly viewed as equal.

2. Donating to charities whose work you support.

   If you’re already a generous person, you’re probably already trying to find ways to contribute to causes that are important to you, even if your contribution isn’t always monetary. But, just as it’s a fact that political campaigns are expensive, it’s a fact that nonprofit organizations need money to sustain themselves.
   
   As a result, they have to spend a lot of time finding funding for their work. How good would it feel to be able to donate a significant amount of money to a charity close to your heart—enough so they wouldn’t have to worry about their bills for the next year or five or ten?
   
   Given your selflessness, you might want to stay anonymous if you were to make a big donation like this—although it’s always good to lead by example. But, regardless of whether or not you get recognition, large donations like these could be game changers for these organizations. Just imagine what they could accomplish if they were able to focus less on raising money and more on their cause. Just imagine that.

3. Investing in companies whose vision you believe in.

   Even if you love the idea of investing in a new business or one whose vision you support, you may not have the kind of capital necessary to invest. Investing in a startup, for instance, is very risky. You’re essentially investing in the plan and projections of a company with no proven track record.
   
   The kinds of people who can afford to invest in startups are the kinds who can afford to risk losing the money they use to invest. If you haven’t been doing the work necessary to acquire large sums of money, it’s likely that’s not the position you find yourself in.
   
   But if you’ve ever heard about a new company whose vision you believed in and thought how cool it would be to support them before their success had been proven, it means you do have a secret urge to invest. Make more money, build your wealth, and then you’ll have more than enough discretionary income to give to startups and other companies that share your values.

4. Traveling.

   Traveling may not seem like the most selfless way to use your money. But traveling, when done with the purpose of getting to know new people and new places, is actually a very selfless act.
   
   When people spend too much time in the same place, never getting to know people outside their city or social circle, they’re more likely to be ignorant of how other people live their lives. This ignorance can lead to things like prejudice, injustice, and oppression.
   
   One way to beat this is to expose yourself to new people and places. Travel is a great way to do this. And while it’s not necessary to be wealthy to travel, even for extended periods of time, it is one way you can spend your money when you have more discretionary income.

5. Education.

   When you have more money to spend, another great way to use it is to educate yourself. Just like with traveling (see #4), education can help decrease ignorance. It can also help you stay aware of the latest trends and technology so you don’t get left behind when new changes come.
   
   But you don’t have to use your money to educate only yourself. You can also use it to educate others. When you have a lot of discretionary income, you can donate money to schools and scholarship funds so other people have access to a good education and don’t have to pay or pay as much to educate themselves.
   
   You can even start your own scholarship if you want, and you get to choose the eligibility criteria. Ultimately, the less ignorance there is in the world, the more room love has to grow and blossom. If you take time to build wealth then use it to fund education, you’re contributing to this process.

6. Supporting other causes close to your heart.

   With more discretionary income comes fewer limits on how you can lend a helping hand. You’re freer to support any cause in need of funds, and you can even invent ways to help.
   
   For instance, you can start contests and give as much as you like for the award. You can fund independent films. You can support independent authors and musicians. You can buy artwork from up-and-coming artists. You can open art galleries that feature work by up-and-coming artists. You can start publishing companies that publish books rejected by traditional publishers.
   
   There are truly thousands of ways to spend money once you have more discretionary income. Once you have the money to spend, the only limit to what good you can do with it will be your own imagination.

Final Thoughts

If money isn’t one of your values or if you tend to have negative associations with it, you may be reluctant to acquire more than you need to support your lifestyle. But if this is you, one of the big ways that you can learn to embrace the idea of making more money and building wealth is by reflecting on all the positive ways you can use your money after doing so.

If you find yourself wondering how to use money in a good way, I hope these suggestions help. And I hope that by understanding how money can have these positive uses, it encourages you to do what’s required to shift your money mindset so that you’re open to receiving more money.

Now it’s your turn. How do you think people can use money to help others? Let me know in the comments.

~ Ashley C.

Note: The advice presented here is for informational purposes only. If you’re in need of professional financial advice, please see a qualified professional.

Last updated: June 21, 2024