TL; DR: Don’t say “STFU” in your communications. I recently spent way too much time working on a “closing out” email to a long and painful process with an abusive ex-friend. My commitment to being a kind person was really tested and I kinda failed, sending a final “so STFU and Go Away” email that […]

Practitioners of kindness are humans, too. Which means, like all other humans, there are parts of us that want to lash out at others when they are triggered. And when people get triggered and lash out at other people, they tend to hurt others and this chain of hurt ripples out, like a domino wave […]

Here’s a challenge anyone can do any time. But it’s still a challenge! Every day for the next seven days, post one piece of uplifting content and challenge one friend to do the 7×7 Generate Kindness Challenge. That’s it. Just actively look for and amplify messages of kindness, compassion, and human decency and challenge someone […]

Just in time for the holidays!  Amazon gives some of its profit to organizations through the Amazon Smile program. By clicking the banner below, you tell Amazon that you want to support the Generate Kindness Foundation, and every time you shop on Amazon, Generate Kindness gets a small donation.  Super Easy!  

It might one day be argued that Free and Open Source Software is one of the greatest collective achievements of mankind. Open Source software runs millions of websites, powers all kinds of functionality on our laptops, desktops and mobile phones – all a result of groups of software developers contributing their code to the commons […]

Here’s a chart showing the breakdown of what it costs to ship and send a Free* Generate Kindness sticker. Spoiler alert: it’s $.68 in the US ($1.81 internationally), and doesn’t include monthly operational costs like shopify, email and web hosting. With over 150,000 pending requests for stickers, that’s not pocket change! See?  A lot of […]

It’s sort of sad to say that all this time that the Generate Kindness Foundation has been giving away stickers, it’s almost all done “by hand.”  There’s very little automation happening in our process, and we’re starting to explore ways to streamline the very labor/human intensive process of copying and pasting and hand-writing envelopes. All […]

Depending on where you live, you have more likely-than-not seen someone at an intersection with a sign asking for food, money, work, or just a smile. Maybe you gave them a buck or two, maybe you looked away, but I bet there was some part of you that felt sad and wishing you could do […]

“The story of a man who took his own life, attributed to Dr. Jerome Motto, a psychiatrist from UCSF, and dated only as being in the 1970s, is particularly haunting. “‘The guy was in his 30s,’ Motto related, ‘lived alone. Pretty bare apartment. He’d written a note and left it on his bureau. It said, […]

Many of my interactions with people at the Trump rally are still lingering hours afterwards, but one in particular is having me feel a bit not quite “at ease”… There was a lot of anger and derision happening at the rally – one of the reasons my clown vector seemed effective. I saw a woman […]

Clowned around the Trump Rally (sounds like a Wierd Al version of a Rage Against The Machine song) in Nashville and gave away a few hundred GK stickers. Found the clown motif a hugely impactful way of subverting the natural tension between passionately opposed viewpoints and offering a third perspective that created a fair bit […]

So much creativity and love and care today. A surge of humaneness. Seeing photos in the bitstream from everywhere echoing personal experience… There was nothing about it that was violent, though there was a palpable anger – but an anger transmuted into the action of showing up.”This is what democracy looks like!” It was beautiful. […]

Was sitting in a restaurant yesterday, on a tight deadline to finish a report for a major project when I was approached by a young woman who started to tell a tale of being stuck without money for her hotel (on the other side of town) and could I help? Immediately stressed between saying “no”, […]

Everybody’s Coffee in Chicago, MoJoe’s in Indianapolis, Ugly Mugs in Nashville, and Someplace in Louisville and Geneva, ILL all got tastes of the GK stacks on their racks.

Sorry I gave you a shrug when you called my name to pick up my coffee from the bar. I stood as soon as I heard your co-worker call my name, which was just before you… projected your voice to call me, which occurred to me as if I’d gone astray, or wasn’t coming fast […]

When you do something kind, do you notice how it makes you feel? It is addicting to say the least. Have you ever wondered why? Our brains release dopamine and oxytocin when we perform an act of kindness. These hormones “reward” us for our behavior. LiveStrong.com states that: “Dopamine regulates a variety of functions within your […]

  Not too long ago news and media outlets mainly focused on the terrible things happening around us. But, have you noticed how many news stories are covering random acts of kindness now? It got me to wondering why. I was raised in a way that frowned upon calling attention to good deeds. It was […]

If you’re returning to Generatekindness.org you might notice things look different around here. We just got a great new redesign from our friends at ArtyGeek.com. We’re putting some finishing touches on the content, so you might see some Lorum Ipsum here or there. It’s literally been just a couple days and we’re going to be […]

The GK site has been using the same unmodified WordPress theme for years, and it’s time to get a new look. We’re actively searching for design help. See the RFP here – goo.gl/3I3Uvt

Hey – are you “right” in your relationships? Is there something that’s being left unsaid? Are you withholding/holding back from someone you love? Is there someone you want to remind that you love them? Is there someone you want to hear from but haven’t in a while? If you close your eyes for a moment […]