USA Today Bestselling Author Cherian Koshy is a leading expert on the neuroscience of generosity and the author of "Neurogiving: The Science of Donor Decision-Making" (Dec. 9, 2025, Wiley). A Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) and Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy (CAP®), he helps mission-driven organizations harness behavioral science, neuroscience, and ethical AI to inspire authentic giving. As Treasurer of the Association of Fundraising Professionals Global Board and a member of The Giving Institute and Forbes Nonprofit Council, Koshy shapes the future of philanthropy through research, teaching, and practical frameworks that connect science, strategy, and the human spirit. Learn more at NeurogivingBook.com and CherianKoshy.com.

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WEBSITE: NeurogivingBook.com and CherianKoshy.com

Welcome to 12 Minute Converse with Jesus Believers.

God chose first to have a conversation with us, his creation.

Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.

Good morning, Charia.

Praise God for you.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

Great to be able to meet you and have this conversation.

Yeah, it's a pleasure to connect with you.

It feels like clickbait, right, when you see neurogiving, the science, right, of donor decision making.

It's such an interesting concept.

I'd love for you to unpack it for me.

I think the key component, particularly from my book and how I think about where does generosity come from, is that we are created in the image of God.

And because of that, God is generous.

And so that value is how we show up in the world.

And so the key component of our value, like what I would say is the imago Dei, the image of God that we reflect in the world is our generous nature.

And the piece that I try to describe, not only in the book, but in the work that I do, is that generosity is hardwired into our DNA.

That is the image of God that's in us that is part of our experience and how we're designed to interact with other people.

And the challenge or the opportunity that we have in working with other people is how do we express that generosity and our love for one another?

And that value can either be something that we live out in our interpersonal relationships and our work relationships and our civic relationships and can improve how we live with one another or it can be suppressed.

We can decide to not love one another and not be generous to one another and that can impair how we interact with one another.

And as a short answer, I would say the pre the fall, God designed the universe, the world to live in perfect harmony if we were to love God and love each other perfectly.

But obviously sin entered the world and that created the world that we see today.

But eventually when Christ returns, we will have that perfect world that will realign our values with how it's supposed to be.

It does.

I wonder if your learning of what you just expressed came from more of interacting with the sinful side of our humanity or was it more the DNA of God?

I would say a little bit of both.

I think seeing the corruption of sin all around us is impossible to avoid.

And I think I've lived and worked in nonprofit environments my entire life.

And so 30 years of working in nonprofits, you see the experience of disease and death and disaster and seeing that firsthand, the impact.

But even in the best form of what problems we're trying to solve, right?

So meaning the need to fund art and education and all of those things, that's an impact of not having time or resources to do the things that God wants us to enjoy.

So the whole point of our mortal existence is that God's created good things for us to enjoy, but we only have a finite amount of time to be able to do those things on this side of heaven.

And so we work.

Part of the fall, part of the curse is that we have to work hard in order to do things in this life.

And so you see that, but you also see the beauty of God reflected in God's creation, of course, like in nature and all of that.

But you also see it in the beauty of what people create.

You see it in art and in music and whatnot, and we want to enjoy that as well.

So I think it's both sides of it.

You see it in the bad things and you see it in the good things, and God's glorified in all of that.

How do you keep yourself from being engulfed in the reality of the things that could lead you to become selfish or to stay away from giving?

It's a challenge.

It's a pull every day, right?

The short answer of that is keeping in the word and keeping in prayer

and trying to stay grounded in the sovereignty of God

and knowing that he is the provider of all good things,

that every good and perfect gift is from God,

to know that even in the valleys, God is still there,

and to know that even when I feel like I have nothing,

I have everything in Christ, that is obviously a challenge

because in a mortal body, you feel like, oh, I can't give.

But I think the thing that I come back to, especially in secular conversations, is that when you don't feel like you have things to give, you don't have money to give, you still have time to give, you still have a talent to give, everybody's going to need, there's always going to be somebody who needs a meal to be prepared or somebody to sit with when they're lonely.

There's always something that you can give.

Is it a parent that's responsible for the way you see things when you were in the trenches?

Absolutely.

So when my parents emigrated to the United States, they lived with other people who gave them a place to stay and helped them figure out citizenship and how to navigate getting a house and all of those things, and they immediately did the same thing.

So when I was a kid, there was always a family living with us, and at least one, but maybe more than one.

And I didn't realize until much later that my parents were at some point trying to figure out how they could pay their bills because they didn't know if they would have enough food on the table, and I never felt that.

I never knew that they were struggling.

And at the same time, they were taking care of other families and staying up late, feeding other families.

And so to your earlier point of not feeling like you have enough, they were still giving.

They were still cooking and cleaning and taking all of us shopping for school supplies and driving people to job interviews and whatnot.

And still giving money at church every Sunday.

And so it's very much a learned behavior, and I think one of the things that's missing in our society today is that modeling behavior.

You have to show...

I mean, that's the Deuteronomy 6-4 principle, right?

Walk every day talking about it and show your children.

And I think the thing that scares me the most is there's a point in which in Revelation, Christ comes back and there is a period of a thousand-year reign where Christ has perfect rule over the planet and there are still kids in the thousand-year millennial reign that decide not to follow Christ.

And that's a frightening proposition to me.

So there's hope there as well, right?

There's hope in the realization that there will be a day when we don't need the Word.

We don't need Scripture because the Word will be implanted in our hearts and we don't need the written Word because we will have it and we don't have to worry about our memory.

It will be there for us.

There won't need to be this modeling.

There won't need to be someone to show us the way because we'll just know it and we'll be in the presence of God.

But until then, that's the takeaway.

We have to show our kids, we have to show other people what it looks like to have that generosity because that's what God teaches us.

Love God and love your neighbor.

And this is a call that you've answered, yeah?

To live your life by doing what is necessary and educating others until that time, have you?

I try to do that as much as possible.

I feel like that's the call of everyone who's a Christ follower.

I think the commandment is pretty clear.

My friend, this has been absolutely amazing.

For the person who may have just simply clicked because of the headline, right?

Or the title of this conversation, please let us understand if I'm getting into this book, NeuroGiving, The Science of Donor Decision Making, what I'm actually getting out of it.

I think the key piece in the book is that the science of how our brain works aligns with how God has created our bodies to work.

What I'm trying to describe in how the science of the brain is how God has designed us to function.

So there's a combination of both what we believe to be true in Scripture and what we can see and describe in the science and the evidence.

So those two things connect.

But I think the bottom line, the most important piece is that generosity is something that we should practice every day because we're commanded to do it and it's the right thing to do.

And we should, as believers, we should do that first.

We should do that without expectation and without any reciprocity in advance.

There we go.

Links are in the show notes one more time.

A pleasure, a treasure.

Jan, thank you for being on What Is Inspired by 12 Minute Converse.