"I’m not sure how much people learn simply from giving, from writing checks," admits Joel Fleishman, director of the Heyman Center for Ethics, Public Policy and Professions at Duke University. (Among his other accomplishments, Fleishman advised philanthropist Charles Feeney, founder of Duty Free Shoppers, who secretly gifted more than a billion dollars.) "I know that people who get deeply involved personally by volunteering in organizations, according to the statistics, end up giving at about twice the rate as people who don’t volunteer or get otherwise involved. They learn a great deal about the problems they’re dealing with, they learn a great deal about themselves, they learn a great deal about how to solve problems."

Through volunteerism, giving becomes a more multidimensional relationship. And this more qualitative approach to giving may be replacing the quantitative method of check writing. The More Than Money organization—a Cambridge, Mass.-based forum on the challenges of wealth and money for the affluent—indicates its constituency is most likely to devote time and money, as opposed to just money, to causes. "A change in philosophy would be them saying, ‘Here’s a check, good luck,’" says Robert Kenny, the organization’s executive director. "They’re not built that way."

Indeed, engaging in civic duty and philanthropy seems to be part of the industrious makeup of the baby-boom generation, which may be the most generous group in terms of both time and money. "Members of the working population aged 50 to 64 are more likely to have graduated college, volunteered in their youth and had parents who volunteered; these are all indicators of higher levels of adult civic involvement. This age group has the highest income level, gives the most, and has the greatest potential to increase volunteering and giving for years to come," states an Independent Sector report entitled "Experience At Work."

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Illustration by Jonathan Barkat