Name: Tess
Home: St. Louis
Charity
You have a few dollars in your pocket, and instead of getting fancy coffee at Starbucks, you decide to do some good in the world. On Slate, Daniel Akst ponders how to spend your money wisely. Do you support the local symphony, give to a political candidate, protect the environment, give to a church, or donate to your alma mater? He weighs the pros and cons of these and other options, and concludes:
In an earlier article, economist Steven E. Landsburg argues against diversifying your charitable giving; he contends that you should decide upon the most worthy cause and throw your support behind it.
I find this discussion very interesting. (Did I mention my master's thesis was on women's philanthropy in the Victorian novel?) What is the best way to help people?
In the first years of our marriage, Tom and I took a scattershot approach to philanthropy. We would get lots of solicitations in the mail, and sometimes we'd write out a check. That just led to more solicitations, however; later, I learned that charities often sell the names of their small donors, because such mailing lists are worth more than the paltry donations. That approach wasn't satisfying; we had countless sheets of free address labels, but weren't making a unified effort towards anything, and the barrage of solicitations made me feel hard-hearted when I recycled most of them.
The past few years, I have used an approach I like better: I pick one international and one local charity and sign up for small recurring monthly donations from my bank account. This allows both me and the charities to budget, and it has cut down on a lot of the solicitations. I don't have to evaluate the efficacy of a dozen charities; I'm not fighting world hunger one month and supporting free speech the next. We do occasionally make larger donations if we get a windfall or if a natural disaster occurs (though this leads to frustration again, because then the charities start sending more personalized letters, with much higher donation requests). I'm not saying I'm a model of charitable giving--I feel guilty that we give so little--but it's nice to have a more systematic approach.
Donating money to organized charities is only one approach to helping people; we can also give money to individuals, or we can volunteer. I'm interested to hear what my readers have to say: How do you decide the best way to help others? How do you prioritize your time, money, and other resources?
(In case you missed my post last August, I pondered the appropriate response to world hunger here.)
it seems to me that the best way to spend a little money helping the world's poorest citizens is not to spend the money at all, but to lend it. A variety of nonprofit (read: tax-deductible) organizations, such as Acción International, make small loans—perhaps $100—to individuals in Third World countries who use the money to start or expand tiny, often home-based businesses. This has all kinds of virtues: It's cost-effective, puts small sums to good use, has none of the potential for harm that comes with giant hydroelectric projects and the like, and promotes the only real solution to global poverty, which is economic development. Measuring results is easy: If you get repaid, it's working. Then you can turn around and do it all over again.
In an earlier article, economist Steven E. Landsburg argues against diversifying your charitable giving; he contends that you should decide upon the most worthy cause and throw your support behind it.
I find this discussion very interesting. (Did I mention my master's thesis was on women's philanthropy in the Victorian novel?) What is the best way to help people?
In the first years of our marriage, Tom and I took a scattershot approach to philanthropy. We would get lots of solicitations in the mail, and sometimes we'd write out a check. That just led to more solicitations, however; later, I learned that charities often sell the names of their small donors, because such mailing lists are worth more than the paltry donations. That approach wasn't satisfying; we had countless sheets of free address labels, but weren't making a unified effort towards anything, and the barrage of solicitations made me feel hard-hearted when I recycled most of them.
The past few years, I have used an approach I like better: I pick one international and one local charity and sign up for small recurring monthly donations from my bank account. This allows both me and the charities to budget, and it has cut down on a lot of the solicitations. I don't have to evaluate the efficacy of a dozen charities; I'm not fighting world hunger one month and supporting free speech the next. We do occasionally make larger donations if we get a windfall or if a natural disaster occurs (though this leads to frustration again, because then the charities start sending more personalized letters, with much higher donation requests). I'm not saying I'm a model of charitable giving--I feel guilty that we give so little--but it's nice to have a more systematic approach.
Donating money to organized charities is only one approach to helping people; we can also give money to individuals, or we can volunteer. I'm interested to hear what my readers have to say: How do you decide the best way to help others? How do you prioritize your time, money, and other resources?
(In case you missed my post last August, I pondered the appropriate response to world hunger here.)
posted by Tess | 12:21 PM
2 Comments:
We support several international charities through monthly donations, which saves them check processing costs and I get less junk mail that way. I also request to be notified by e-mail of most things, thus saving their postage. Since taking these steps, about four years ago, the amount of junk mail has dropped off to almost none. As for selecting which charities, I tend to go global: Oxfam (to fight hunger), Doctors Without Borders (to fight disease), Amnesty International (to fight injustice), and FINCA , one of the macro-economic loan charities mentioned in your article (to give everyone a chance to prosper once the fight against hunger, disease and injustice is tackled).
FINCA is great because it only loans to women with children (who have a staggering repayment rate of small loans, as opposed to men!), in amounts starting at $50. After the village or community has 8-10 women with successful loan records, they can come together to form a co-op bank, decide who else gets loans, and run their own affairs (with FINCA guidance and oversight) - thus taking the responsibility out of some forgeign conglomerate charity's hands and putting it down into each village where people can not only prosper, but have a direct hand in their collective futures. It's an issue of pride and personal success as much as charity.
Enjoyed your post, Tess. Thoughtful as always. I have generally tried the scattershot approach--a little money here, a little money there--but I may think again. On the other hand, donating small amounts to many different causes keeps you in touch with more issues and might therefore be more satisfying in that holistic, balanced-life sort of way. Although I must say, the administrative and mailing costs are a big downside.
I like your idea of donating to micro-credit agencies. Too much charity, especially 1st-world to 3rd-world charity, is based on the idea of massive top-down projects to "help" people. What we should really be pushing for is giving more power to poor and working people both at home and abroad. Charity (as defined in the modern philanthropic sense, rather than the Biblical type of love sense) is for me a problematic concept...what we really need in the world is justice!
Post a Comment
<< Home