As we ready for our San Francisco Transformational Giving seminar today, our thanks go out to SFO’s Giving and Training Officer Tracy Tucker for tipping us off to a new study on giving circles that casts a whole new flashing blue light on Transformational Giving principle #7 (click here for the whole TG Ten list). Principle #7 reads:

The relationship between champion and champion is as important as the relationship between champion and organization.

And the giving circle study (from such development luminaries as the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers, The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, and The University of Nebraska at Omaha) concludes:

1. Giving circles influence members to give more.
2. Giving circles influence members to give more strategically.
3. Giving circles members give to a wide array of organizations.
4. Giving circle members are highly engaged in the community.
5. Giving circles increase members’ knowledge about philanthropy, nonprofits, and the community.
6. Giving circles have a mixed influence on members’ attitudes about philanthropy, nonprofit and government roles, and political/social abilities and values.

In other words, want your champions to give more? Then spare the address labels and the heart tugs, pick up your coach’s whistle, and pull them together to get to know each other and help them learn how together they can mutually have a far more pronounced impact on the cause.