Thanks, loved the coffee — and have a great day

A nationwide surge in caffeinated generosity briefly had lineups growing at Tim Hortons outlets all over Canada in the past couple weeks.

Anonymous patrons at the coffee and doughnut chain are leaving hundreds of dollars behind to buy a double-double for those next in line, thus sharing cups of joy that have spread as fast as social media can carry a message.

Last week in Red Deer, there was a Facebook and Twitter flurry following a $500 donation left at a restaurant here. Nearly everyone with a smartphone was left smiling.

CBC News reports the trend reached from Yellowknife to St. John's within days. One donor in Edmonton bought $800 worth of coffees for staff at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, as a way of saying thanks for the care given her father.

Enter the pundits, and the policy exerts on their digital rolodexes.

These kinds of events happen in cycles. And cycles like this spread quickly in our era of both instant communication and instant gratification.

Elizabeth Dunn is an associate professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia. She asserts that “people actually get more happiness from spending money on others than spending money on themselves."

Giving stuff to other people may be a trait hardwired into our brains, she says. It's what has allowed humanity “to achieve the monumental feats of co-operation that have made our species so successful."

This kind of thing has even been the subject of scientific study. First, researchers asked their subjects what they thought would make them happier: spending money on something the want, or spending the same amount on someone else. Predictably, most would rather spend the money on themselves.

But after they had actually spent the money, people reported they felt much better when they bought something for someone other than themselves. As little as a $5 purchase could do the trick.

Happiness, even this fleeting kind, is widely affordable.

So imagine the boost to your psyche if you hang around to watch what happens when the gift is many times that $5. How good we must feel!

Re-enter the pundit, who wonders what the difference must be between a $500 donation for coffees for people quite able to get coffee for themselves, and a $500 donation to a charity that would provide a hot meal to people who cannot afford one at all.

Somehow, people might prefer the coffee route to happiness, says another expert, Nicole Nakoneshny, a vice-president at consulting firm KCI and editor of Philanthropic Trends Quarterly in Toronto. She told CBC News that Canadians may be re-defining their views on public generosity.

Check the Imagine Canada web site, and you'll find that in 2009, there was a significant drop in the percentage of Canadians claiming a tax benefit for charitable gifts. This could not be fully explained by the fact there was a recession on, they said. And even if one factored in the role of tax shelters (whose role I certainly do not understand), the drop was without precedent, and “cause for considerable concern” at Imagine Canada.

Not so much for Nakoneshny.

There are still a lot more Canadians giving to charity than buying coffee. In Alberta in particular, we have the second-highest participation rate in Canada (just points of a percentage behind Ontario) and the second-highest median donation rate of $370 a year.

I used to say that people who earn $50,000 a year should be giving at least $500 a year to charity, or they're not pulling their weight in society. Well, that's only happening in Nunavut, and there, only for 9.4 per cent of the population.

Nakoneshny says we may be measuring the wrong things. Many small donations that are never reported on tax forms are buying a lot of happiness for a lot of people, she says. With the rise of online vehicles like crowdfunding, people are finding different ways to back a worthy cause that aren't recorded in the official stats.

As a perennial volunteer and fundraiser, I'd obviously rather pick up a few more big cheques. But I do know from experience that even putting a coin or two into the change box at the grocery store gives your day a very nice boost indeed.

Dunn, who's actually studied this scientifically, suggests we all should give it a try. "It's definitely a cool phenomenon,” she says.

So. . . have a good day, eh?