Learning by Giving in an introductory economics of altruism course

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Supported by the Learning by Giving Foundation or other philanthropic sources, many college courses are allowing students to give away charitable grants to nonprofit organizations. In this article, the author shares the experience of a Learning by Giving Economics of Altruism class taught at an introductory level. The class is taught using best practices from service-learning, and its course design, curricular content, challenges, and outcomes are discussed. The class provides the unique opportunity to teach microeconomic principles to a diverse population of students while making a positive impact on the community. Data show that student learning and overall experience with the service-learning exceed their initial expectations. Increasingly, universities are offering classes that allow students to give away real philanthropic dollars. Classes incorporating philanthropic grant-giving are found in a number of disciplines ranging from public policy and business to social work and philosophy. Just like their counterpart courses in economics and finance that enable students to invest real money to maximize profit, these classes focus on effective investments that maximize social impact. An introductory course on the Economics of Altruism lends itself to this approach because the process of giving away money brings up many economic concepts, including utility maximization, allocation of resources, behavioral economics, social welfare, game theory, and measures of effective philanthropy. These topics appeal to today’s Generation Z (post-Millennial) college students who are characterized by a community-centered, social-change mindset (Grace and Seemiller 2016; Uche 2018). In the course, students actively engage with community organizations as they consider how to allocate a $10,000 grant from the Learning by Giving Foundation. While such a course can easily be targeted to higher-level students, the following details how the Learning by Giving model has been incorporated into an introductory course on the Economics of Altruism. I offer a practical discussion of the course design, challenges, and outcomes of the course based on five years of experience. The class relies heavily on best practices in service-learning in order to impact learning outcomes.