So, the eighth installment of my series on on the “10 Crucial Consumer Trends for 2010″ is here. I realize I’m getting even more sporadic with these, but at least we’re back on a Tuesday.

Previous posts in the series: Business Unusual, Urbany, Real-Time Reviews, (F)luxury, Mass Mingling, Eco-Easy, and Tracking & Alerting.

Today: EMBEDDED GENEROSITY

It was big in 2009, and it will be even bigger this year. In particular all things EMBEDDED GENEROSITY. It incorporates all giving initiatives that make giving and donating painless, if not automatic (after all, pragmatism is the new religion.

On top of that, with collaboration being such an integral part of the zeitgeist, expect lots of innovative corporate giving schemes that involve customers by letting them co-donate and/or co-decide.

Okay, so “co-donate” and “co-decide” are in dangerously nauseating buzzword territory. I get co-donate, but co-decide? Blech. We’ll move on.

This trend is born from consumer response to the recession and disgust with corporate greed. We’re all longing for institutions that we feel give a damn about us and the fact that we are giving them our money, especially since so many of us have considerably less of it.

Trendwatching.com released an original report on the concept of generosity as part of a consumer trend in February of last year. Although this comes from last year’s report, it seems more relevant than ever:

And yet…the need for the opposite of greed (that would be generosity!) is never greater than in challenging times. Challenging times see people craving care, empathy, sympathy and generosity. Now, with a full-blown recession having set in, expect to hear even more about caring, as that’s what consumers and citizens will demand from governments and organizations: someone to take care of their jobs, their savings, their fellow citizens. This need becomes extra poignant in societies where individualism is the new religion, and thus every person, young and old, rich and poor, has been told by society that he or she matters as an individual.

It seems counterintuitive that consuming – a word that took on almost blasphemous proportions during the height of the recession – could make one generous, but this is precisely what savvy brands have done by creating programs and communities that provide avenues for and encourage buyers to give back to a cause. The fact that we spend so much time online makes this even easier for companies to achieve, whether it’s through social media or online shopping. Think the impulse-driven ‘mobile giving’ of Obama’s text message fundraising and the recent drive to raise funds for Haitian earthquake relief.

There is certainly a self-serving motive behind all this brand-loyal co-donating, but the companies who are good at this find ways to take care of their customers at the same time that they – company and customer together – are taking care of others. Companies that can promote their brands while at the same time exhibiting a holistic desire to be good and to be generous are the marketing geniuses of our day. And the truth is that our bullshit meters are operating at all-time high levels of sensitivity; we wouldn’t be so eager to support these brands if we didn’t feel some sort of belief or emotional connection to what they were doing.

Although we might be tempted to view all of this EMBEDDED GENEROSITY with skepticism, the truth is that all of these programs are providing necessary funds, awareness and support in an environment when charities are struggling and people are suffering. If I’m going to spend the money anyway, at least I know that some good is coming from it beyond my own very selfish enjoyment of whatever it was I bought.

If you’re interested, here is a list of trendwatching.com’s favorite examples of Embedded Generosity.

Next on deck: Profile Myning

Source: www.trendwatching.com. One of the world’s leading trend firms, trendwatching.com sends out its free, monthly Trend Briefings to more than 160,000 subscribers worldwide.