Fiasco · Pushkin Industries

How to Experience the Joy of Giving Right Now: A Giving Tuesday Special from The Happiness Lab

December 2, 2025·48 min·3 clips

Host Laurie Santos launches a million-dollar campaign with top podcasters to lift villages in Rwanda out of extreme poverty.

The holiday target is not Black Friday. Dr. Laurie Santos points listeners to Giving Tuesday, a charitable answer to the shopping frenzy. The episode centers on GiveDirectly, with a plain pitch: send cash to people in extreme poverty without running them through a donor's private judgment test. The brand is less important than the method. A guest remembers advice from a Christian family dad during The Blind Side. The idea stayed with him: if giving does not hurt a little, maybe it has not gone far enough. So he tests it in person. He has handed out ten-dollar bills a handful of times over a couple months and wants the practice to stick. What changes is not only the money. He says it may change how he walks through a city, where the usual reflex is to brace for someone asking. That guard can spread. It stops being about cash and becomes a whole posture toward strangers, shutting down openness before anything happens. Santos ties the experiment back to GiveDirectly. Cash transfers bypass the mental courtroom where donors try to decide who deserves what. That is the relief. You stop making up harsh theories about people just because money is involved. The ask stays practical: donate through the campaign page if possible, share Pods Fight Poverty if not, and treat giving as a direct path to happiness, not just another holiday duty.

As heard by us

A warm Giving Tuesday episode about cash, trust, and how generosity can change the giver's view of strangers.

Dr. Laurie Santos uses Giving Tuesday to make a brisk, humane case for generosity as a habit, not just a seasonal donation. The episode sets the day against Black Friday and Cyber Monday, then points listeners toward GiveDirectly and the Pods Fight Poverty campaign, whose…

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Why you'd press play

The science behind why Giving Tuesday can make generosity feel better than another holiday purchase.

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