WISER EARTH

Wiser earth serves the people who are transforming the world. It describes ways of change in
books and research reports and creates tools for connecting the individuals, information, and
organizations that create change. It is online database to identify and connect the hundreds of
thousands of organizations and individuals throughout the word comprising sustainable civil
society.
Past programme include:
Wiser.org: the social network for sustainability. It helped the global movement of people and
organizations working toward social justice, indigenous rights, and environmental
stewardship to connect, collaborate, share knowledge and built alliances.
WiserLocal: Thinking Globally-connecting locally focus is on supporting collaborations
across sectors working towards social and environmental change.
WiserGiving: Making Smart Philanthropy Simple it offers valuable tools and advice that
we can use to make informed philanthropy decisions. It helps individuals increase their
charitable impact and achieve their philanthropy goals.
It is about Americas Giving Style which focuses on understanding individuals belief
systems and motivators of how to affect change. Americas giving style evolves the
discussion form describing what subsectors receive funding to how donors are inspired to
give. Americas Giving Style analyzes the strategies and approaches that donors use to solve
complex problems through their charitable giving. Most donors are focused on fixing
immediate problems but typically will use a combination of strategies to effect long term,
sustainable change. The data comes from actual donors who take the Wiser Giving Style
Quiz which presents different ways individuals can impact seven social issues (environment,
education, low wages/working poor, affordable healthcare, womens inequality, community
economic development, civil participation). The objective of the Style Quiz is self-awareness:
to discover ones motivations and beliefs about the best ways to effect change. (My wiser
giving style is building movements, which emphasizes building critical mass and secondary
is public policy which pursues systemic change through advocating for effective laws and
regulations.)
Six giving styles:

1) Building movements inspire and support people to take action, to achieve deep and
lasting social, cultural and political change. Activities often include grassroots
organizing, public education, media campaigns, and social action. Examples: occupy
Wall street, an anti-building campaign.
2) Direct service help individuals get what they need to survive and then to acquire a
sense of personal well being and empowerment. In turn, these individuals can influence
and change the lives of others around them. It is the most common giving style, almost a
third of all respondents have it as their dominant style.
3) Making change stick main goal is to defend and protect human, social and civil right.
People with this problem-solving style tend to be deep concerned about specific issues or
may have strong ideological points of view.
4) Increasing effectiveness efforts aim to increase an organizations long term sustainability
and impact by sharpening strategic planning capabilities, improving efficiency, building
capacity
5) Public policy approach that creates broad-scale assistance or change by creating or
repealing laws to reflect desired governing principles and funding priorities. Examples
include passing state laws to permit same-sex marriage, mandating safety seats for
children age 8 and younger, and health care reform. Examples: Human Rights Campaign
or Mothers against Drunk Driving.
6) Research and big ideas refers to creating different ways of thinking about problems and
developing new and effective solution by investing in research and development.
Example: reframing the poor state of education as a national security issue, where the
need to build intellectual capital is viewed as a key driver of economic prosperity and
foreign independence.
Almost a third of Americans report that their giving does not actually align with their Giving
Style, indicating possible mismatch between beliefs and practice. The objective of the Style
Quiz is self awareness: to discover ones motivations and beliefs about the best ways to
effect change. Self-knowledge is the key to becoming a strategic giver and fulfilling
philanthropy journey; armed by this self-knowledge individuals can align their giving to how
they believe change is created in the world.