The Nuance of Charity

In 2004, shortly after I sold Chowhound to CNET, I went looking for a couple charities to donate to. Preferably low-to-the-ground operations that could really use the support. I found an austere Indian organization in Pennsylvania that helps feed the poor in some specific Indian village. Far too small to be listed on Charity Navigator, so I needed to do my own research.

I managed to chat with the lady in charge - a sari-clad feisty grandmother - and asked for her assurance that my contribution would be used efficiently. It wouldn't be stolen or mishandled. 100% of it would be converted into meaningful, real aid.

The woman (who worked on this unpaid) took a moment to consider. Wheels turned as she took a few deep breaths. She felt compelled to tell me the truth, and she understood the good intentions of my question. But she couldn't quite figure out how to explain it to this American in a way that would be meaningful to him. Finally, she sighed and just let it rip, damn the consequences.

"Every level of this operation, from top to bottom, is somewhat inefficient. I can't say we make every decision optimally, or omnisciently supervise every step of every person working for (and with) us. Some of your money will surely be wasted. From sheer incompetence, the food delivered might be spoiled and inedible. Or stolen en route. And what the villagers, themselves, do with the supplies, god himself could not tell you. But I can assure you that, in the end, you will help assure that some hungry people will eat."

In the end, some hungry people will eat.

Her words bristled with deep truth, and it was transformative. I completely understood the effort she'd applied, to make me - so detached from the reality of the world, and so eager to seek some pipe dream of "efficiency" - understand that a two-dimensional mental fantasy of punctilious human beings running a perfect machine to address horrific calamity is sheer fantasy. Only in the movies! With enormous effort, in the end, some hungry people will eat. That's as good as it gets!

Whenever I look back on this insight, it's with the wry recognition that any Third World barber or taxi driver intimately understands many things about the world that brainy First World types - especially think-tankers and policy wonks - are far too blinkered to grasp. Above all, Libertarians - with their smug, pat, artificial, high-level notions about the world, and their abject lack of worldy experience - really don't get it.

Whenever you hear a conservative blowhard deride the wastefulness of social programs, remember Indian grandma. In the end, some hungry people eat. Or, if we cease the process, not. To those fed, the difference is sharp.


As a centrist, though, I see the dangers of going too extreme the other way, as well. As I wrote here,

I wouldn't want to return to 1973. We went too far. You could feel society slogging and smell the rot (and pay a tax rate north of 90%). 1973 could have made a Tea Party partisan out of any but the most fervid of current liberals.

Yes, this sort of thing comes with rot, and trying to expunge it is a futile game of whack-a-mole. So don't aim to feed every last person (it would plunge the world into bottomless corruption). But don't cease feeding some. Always feed some.

Getting Out of the Way

Do you ever get out of the way of people who need something more than you do?

The guy who's got D-Day stress levels in his eyes because he needs to make a tight flight connection. You let him pass so he can get off the plane. You'd love to get off ASAP, yourself, but he clearly needs it more. So you get out of the way.

A blaring ambulance appears behind you. Though you're within visual range of sorely-needed coffee, you get out of the way.

A kid really really needs ice cream, in a way you haven't needed anything since the 1980s. You're certainly not going to compete with her. It's not that you don't like ice cream - or wouldn't prefer ice cream sooner rather than later. But you know you don't need it as much as she does, so you get out of the way.

If you develop a courteous habit of getting out of the way, you will eventually observe that everyone needs everything more than you do.

Conclusions:

1. They don't actually need it either, but they don't know this. Need stems from ignorance.
2. If needing is ignorance, not needing is wisdom.
3. Stepping out of the way is an expression of strength, not weakness.
4. Not needing + stepping away = wisdom + strength.
5. This equation explains Asceticism - which is so ridiculously out of style that westerners drop their jaws at the befuddling mystery of it, deeming it self-abuse (which is, not coincidentally, precisely how you, in getting out of the way, look in the eyes of needy, ice cream-grubbing little kids).


Three clarifications:

1. Ascetics aren't just naked wanderers with leathery skin or dour self-flagellating monks. Anyone who gets out of the way with any regularity is an ascetic, whether they know it or not.

2. I'm not saying asceticism is always about taking less so everyone can have more. I'm just describing how self-denial feels. The truth is topsy-turvy: neediness is deprivation, so who's actually deprived?

"Needing/Having" isn't winning, it's endless entrapment in a humiliating and senseless Skinner Box. "Not-Needing/Not-Having" is freedom and happiness. It's possible even to Not-Need/Have, but that's so beyond Western sensibility and understanding - super zen or whatever - that people have written impenetrable books to try to explain it.

3. Anticipating pushback re: the word "needs"....

When people in the First World talk about "needs", we are really talking about preferences. 90% of us have our basic needs met as a foregone conclusion 90% of the time. As I once noted, America is so rich that we mistake mere discomfort for bona fide poverty (which has led to an aberration I've termed Liberal Materialism).

But all the above applies to genuine need, too. Ascetics don't need their needs until the tank's pretty close to empty. Why? They've reframed to a broader view (which gives them character). And as I said in my previous posting, "Once you've framed something...a clarity arises that makes everything feel easy. It helps immensely to have a framework for understanding who you are and what you do." Kids (and most adults) view ice cream, et al., in extreme closeup, and can't imagine any other framing.


Note: I'm coming at this from a slightly different angle from two previous efforts:
An Adult View on Preference
The Inside Story on Asceticism

It Bugs Me That Your Kid Is Hungry

A few years ago, I made a case for philanthropy as a form of consumerism. I buy things to solve problems that affect me, both here (e.g. I'm out of toothpaste) and there (e.g. your kid's hungry). It's not generosity, it's selfishness. It bothers me that your kid's hungry, like it bothers me to be out of toothpaste, so I buy relief for myself. Your kid enjoying her lasagna is just a bonus outcome.

Most of us stop shoveling snow at our neighbor's property line. But even the selfish must conceded the nagging truth that it's all the same snow; all one problem. The distinction of my problem/your problem is always arbitrary and abstract. If your neighbor's elderly or under the weather (or even able-bodied!), it wouldn't exactly be saintly to clear a path to their mailbox. It would just feel like doing a little more of the same.

"A little more of the same".

It holds up even in the aggregate. Let's say I burn through all my savings before I'm old (a distinct possibility). If it's because I was careless or stupid, I might feel awful living as an old man in a cramped secondhand RV eating instant ramen. But if that's my fate because I’d over-helped, that would be different.

Whenever my mind, in that sordid RV, scans for someone to blame, it will zero in not on shiftless, idiotic me, but on people out there somewhere enjoying a slightly easier/better life. And that seems...what's the word? Not "noble," not "heroic," but...prudent. A reasonable tradeoff no one could quarrel with. Tidy, fine, acceptable. When that mental image flashes, my mind will let go...and there's nothing sweeter than the sensation of a mind releasing its grasp. “Letting go” is the most rewarding framing (surrender, along with the related letting-gos of forgiveness and self-sacrifice, are the spiritual oldies-but-goodies, no matter how unappealing they might strike us modern aristocrats).

It's taken me a lifetime to recognize that unhappiness stems not from circumstance, but from perspective. Heaven and Hell are framings, both perpetually available in any given moment.


Related:
Housing, Parking Garages, and the Selfishness of Bill Gates
Philanthropy: The Factor of Time Urgency

Letting go is the most beautiful of framings.

"Still Rad in Rehab"

I don't know any of these parties, but the story (and the photo, and the daughter's blog) affected me:

As many of you know, [artist] Ron Baron, his wife Irit and Ron’s daughter Ruby recently suffered devastating losses. On Thanksgiving eve, Ron and his family were driving to join relatives when their car was involved in a collision in Hillsdale, New York. Ron and Irit lost their 5-year old daughter Naomi. Ron’s 14-year old daughter Ruby suffered permanent damage to her spinal column. Ruby is now in rehab for several months at the RUSK Medical Center in New York City.

Please visit Ruby's wonderful blog STILL RAD IN REHAB

Since Ruby has been lovingly raised between two blended families, both of her households must be ready to accommodate her needs and new challenges. Ron and Irit are now arranging a home that will be wheelchair accessible and comfortable for Ruby. They also need a handicap accessible car to share in Ruby’s transport.

Sadly, an insurance settlement will not cover their expenses.

This is where we can help. We are dedicating this fund specifically for Ron & Irit‘s immediate expenses for Ruby's return home. Our goal is $75,000.

I sent a check, along with this thought (which I hadn't originally intended to publish here, but, what the hey):

I've never met a person who wasn't somehow disabled. In the end, it's not the cards you're dealt, it's how you play them.

The miracle of human beings is that we're finite - i.e. limited - in every respect, yet we're capable of infinite love, infinite creativity, infinite joy, and infinite wisdom within those limitations.

If you love transcendence, you've got to cherish the obstacles which spur it; the necessity which mothers the invention.

Traffic Topography and Goodness Amplification

Here's an interesting and touching bit of wisdom from the science of traffic topography. The mathematics of traffic flow - when and why it slows down, what effects lane additions have, etc. - are unbelievably complex. It makes rocket science look simple. And I don't pretend to have any depth of understanding, but there's one gem that's stuck with me ever since I first read about it as a child:

If you never, ever come to a stop in heavy traffic, then, even if you just creep along at 1 mph, you will have a profoundly positive effect on cars for miles in back of you. Untold dozens, hundreds, even thousands of drivers behind you will have a much better experience. You will, in other words, "be the change" you want to see.

As I've written before, I don't "get" conservation. I think it's a crock. But this is not. Here, results of one's individual actions are profound and concrete. One can leave, literally in one's wake, slightly happier hordes of people. If you have ever halted in slow moving traffic, you've served the forces of unhappiness and evil. Prior to reading this, it was unthinking evil. But now I've put you on notice!

I have a friend who once did important work helping poor people in the Bronx, but now writes and produces television shows in Hollywood. And while he's making great money, I don't get the feeling he's particularly satisfied, or that his talents are being fully channeled. So I asked him about his choices, and his reply was interesting. He said his work in the Bronx helped a few dozen people profoundly. But his work in Hollywood helps a few million people slightly (and maybe a few hundred or thousand people more than slightly). Every positive sentiment, every insightful nugget he manages to inject into his shows creates powerful ripple effects. More can be accomplished via small acts of goodness over a loud microphone than via unamplified large acts.

Of course, a combination of the two is best. But, for god's sake: please don't ever stop your car in traffic!

Piece Unearthed; Good Veal, Too, Man!

Here's wishing all sloggers out there the merriest of Chistmases (or, if you don't roll that way, hey, keep the "X" in Xmas!). Yes, 2013 is one ugly-sounding prime-numbered year, but here's hoping it defies appearances.

Appropriate to the spirit of the season: in installment #2 of "Bubbles, Slogs, and Selling Out", my epic tale of the sale of Chowhound.com, I noted that the site got more and more expensive to run, and...

A very small group of regular Chowhound posters, none massively wealthy or powerful and none bugging me to take them to dinner, was bearing much of that load. They were so small a group, in fact, that if one ever went on a diet, the entire enterprise would have sunk.

Here's one of the scariest things I know: all good causes hang by a thread. All of them. Your $25 or $100 or $200 donation is way more helpful than you'd ever imagine, because almost nobody donates. It's a rare mutant gene, and those few of us born with it face heightened responsibilities.

If you can imagine writing a check, don't think too hard. Just do it. Shopaholics should know that donation offers exactly the same endorphin buzz as buying any other sort of stuff. I'm not saying not to buy shoes or golf clubs; just add to your shopping list a couple of items to make the world a little better. It's addictive. You'll like it!

Again, a tiny, tiny few people support all the good works out there. You'll be compensating for hundreds of selfish, lazy slobs who feel like civic-minded nice people but who never actually pull the trigger.

Also, show some imagination. Invest the same savvy and diligence you'd apply to buying shoes or golf clubs, and suss out a worthy organization or two that can really use the support. Here are some great-sounding ones recommended by Chris Hayes this morning:

Give Directly
Solar Electric Light Fund
Partners in Health
Architecture for Humanity
Doctors Without Borders
Guiding Eyes for the Blind
Farm Sanctuary
ASPCA
The Humane Society
Family-to-Family
STRIVE

You can get some descriptions (after watching the annoying ad) of all these organizations in the video below.



As always, you can do nerdy research at Charity Navigator. And if you've been cutting back donations due to the recession, know that everyone else is, too...making your donation even more critical. Finally, don't forget to opt out of having your information shared (just click onto the "privacy" page for whatever organization you support).

Read my previous postings about this sort of thing (including some other tips for cool under-radar organizations worth giving to).

Donate to Planned Parenthood's Breast Health Fund

I've made a generous donation to the Planned Parenthood Breast Health Fund to help make up for the suspended funding of cancer screening as a result of pressure from crazed idiots. I'd urge you to do likewise. As Mayor Mike Bloomberg says,

"Breast cancer screening saves lives, and hundreds of thousands of women rely on Planned Parenthood for access to care. We should be helping women access that care, not placing barriers in their way."

If you happen to be philosophically opposed to abortion - as many non-crazed non-idiots are - you should know that your donation goes exclusively to breast cancer screening, rather than to Planned Parenthood as a whole, if you use this link (which also ensures that Mayor Bloomberg will match your contribution, up to a total of $250,000).

If you donate, be sure to contact member.services@ppfa.org if you'd like to be opted out of mailing lists.

Once a Rising Star, Chef Now Feeds Hungry

Forget the great work he's doing; you ought to send his organization some money just for the feel-good buzz you enjoyed from watching him in this amazing video:

Philanthropy: The Factor of Time Urgency

A couple of entries ago, I sort of buried the link to Peter Singer's groundbreaking NY Times article on philanthropy, which makes a counterintuitive but persuasive argument that failure to give away most of your savings right now is deeply immoral. Bill Gates still holds many billions, so a case can be made that obscene greed has led even history's greatest philanthropist to hoard assets in a world fraught with grave immediate need.

But please don't ponder my inelegant thumbnail version of Singer's well-nuanced argument. Read what he has to say. It's mind changing. But I felt that one critical piece missing, and asked him to fill me in:

Dear Prof. Singer,

Each moment is indeed rife with dire need, but the direness is not unique to any one moment. Extreme suffering has been rife for millennia, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

So if we invest our savings and live modestly until death, keeping funds available in the event of calamity, and bequeathing the vast majority to good international charities, where's the negative? Yes, people will die now who'd have been saved if we'd donated earlier, but others will die later if we'd donated later. Suffering is unending, so what's the special significance of giving at any particular moment?

He wrote back this:

Depends whether you can invest it at a better rate of return than it would have (in human, rather than financial terms) in a developing country. There is evidence that the return rate is very high, in helping people to help themselves.

Housing, Parking Garages, and the Selfishness of Bill Gates

The move to a new home I announced in June never happened. It fell through. Don't ask! And I've been searching ever since (my current landlord is about to sell the place I'm currently renting). I've seen forty places, but can't seem to find anything with any charm and which fits my fairly modest needs. I made another offer last week, but the owner responded by pulling the place off the market. At this point I'm seriously thinking about giving away all my possessions and wandering naked through the woods. Smear warpaint on my forehead and frighten the bejesus out of everybody.

During all the years I was flat broke, or nearly so, I always figured if I ever had a little money, I could easily grab some awesome pad and live happily ever after. But no. Having a little more money to budget for housing doesn't make the process the slightest bit easier. It just makes the same nightmares more expensive.

In fact, that framework of sliding nightmares characterizes perhaps 90% of the supposed advantages to having money. All it's really good for, assuming you're reasonably healthy and well-fed, is that you get to use parking garages (I giggle gleefully each time I pull into one...which is actually fairly seldom...which, hmm, means it wouldn't have killed me to use them even back in the day!).

If this makes any sense to you - that there's little game-changing in going from "reasonably comfortable" to "having extra", but that going from "impoverished" to "mildly comfortable" is huge - then the only rational thing to do is try to help the latter with your former.

This article makes a really strong point that's hard to argue against. And if you agree with it, you'd also have to concede the writer's counterintuitive argument that Bill Gates is actually one spectacularly greedy SOB.

Iran Attack Imminent?

Reza Aslan is, as many of you know, a soft-spoken, highly intelligent guy, and one of the country's leading experts on Iran (he was born there, but is fully Americanized). He explains Iranian issues - and issues in Moslem world in general - with a refreshingly non-strident tone. Rational. Reasonable. Good-humored (listen to this superbly insightful radio interview to get the idea).

That's why I'm unnerved that he sounds so alarmed about the possibility of an impending attack on Iran. In that link, he urges, with uncommon intensity, immediate contribution to a group called the NIAC, which is pushing for this attack not to happen. Aslan says, convincingly, "we must act now and not wait for war to start to then try and stop it. We must prevent it."

Aslan is a grounded pragmatist, and I trust his assessment that the NIAC are the right guys (they've been working for Democracy and human rights in Iran, and with Jewish-American and peace groups to avoid US-Iran war). Read their blog to see where they're coming from. And please consider donating, and upping your donation amount to the pain point. As with the Iraq invasion, we've been prepared for this scenario so thoroughly that it's easy to assume it won't actually happen. But elsewhere in the world, people share Aslan's fevered fear of the horrendous mistake that may be about to be made. A Bahranian friend just told me the following:

If the US or Israel bombs Iran, we (Bahrain) are going to be the 2nd to suffer (after Iran, obviously.) First thing Iran will do is bomb the U.S base here, to make sure the U.S doesn't use it to attack (which is basically why they're here in the first place.) We are so small as a country that one bomb will make us sink, literally. Anyways - we are freaking out, in a few years you can bet that we'll be as bad as present-day Iraq. On one hand Iran is funding terrorist attacks in this country, and militant organizations. On the other hand we have the USA who, also, couldn't care less about our lives and is just using this place as a strategic location. We don't trust anyone and are just kind of waiting to see what happens.

God forbid, if anything does in fact happen - this will involve way more than just the USA, Israel and Iran - there's also Syria, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, other than Bahrain. I imagine Turkey will act upon its threats to Israel too and do something. We're basically fucked.

Millionaire Gives Away Fortune Which Made Him Miserable

The headline of this story made me suspect this was just a publicity stunt, but the beauty and insight of the following two quotes from the subject, Karl Rabeder, stopped me dead in my tracks:

"I had the feeling I was working as a slave for things that I did not wish for or need."

and:

"It was the biggest shock in my life, when I realised how horrible, soulless and without feeling the five star lifestyle is...we had the feeling we hadn't met a single real person"

I especially love how Mr. Rabeder managed to quickly unload his luxury house: via raffle! He sold 21,999 tickets for about $136 each, the total somewhat exceeding the stated value of the house.

He concludes:

"I have the feeling that there are lot of people doing the same thing."

Yes. There really are. It's beneath radar, but things are changing tectonically.

Selfishness and Generosity

It's easy to spot selfish people. They're the ones who worry about how they're always giving too much.

Similarly, generous people are the ones who worry about how they're never giving enough.

Selfish people think of themselves as overly generous. Generous people think of themselves as overly selfish.

Donation as Consumption

There's a standard do-gooder's conundrum, which I can illustrate via a real world example.

I viewed this YouTube video:



....of a superb high school orchestra from Ohio playing Tchaikovsky with tons of heart-breaking soul in a national competition (they tied for runner-up). I read the NY Times story about how these are mostly poor kids, and how the concertmaster (i.e. top violinist), a brilliant teenager, is living on her own and being forced by circumstance to abandon her dreams. The orchestra's teetering; the school system offers little support, doesn't provide instruments, and kids must actually pay-to-play - a $55 fee for the school year which some can't afford. And this is one of the lucky cases; many schools these days have no music program at all. (Before you read on, please give that Times article a read. It's well-written and touching.)

I get caught up in stories like this...and want to help. I could afford to endow a couple of kids into the orchestra who can't afford the $55, or maybe donate a couple of used violas.

But here's where the conundrum arises. There are myriad similar situations in schools all over the country. And there are myriad brilliant kids who've been forced to abandon their dreams. And there are more important problems in the world than this (e.g. starvation). So it would be very easy to haplessly throw up my arms and decline to help, given the enormity of it all. Sort of the way tourists in India quickly learn to stop giving coins to the multitudes of beggars carrying starving babies. Hey, you can't help them all!

Here's the trick to getting through that: just help what you bump into. I didn't happen to get emotionally involved in the story of some other school. It was this one that caught my attention. And today I happen not to have hunger or disease on my mind; it's Tchaikovsky. This problem, in other words, is one I noticed, cared about, and can help solve...a little.

As for not being able to "help them all", true. But every bit of help helps someone. So it's irrational to surrender to feelings of futility and do nothing. Why forego assistance we can provide just because there's much we can't? Behind this feeling of futility is the fear that one could easily drain one's coffers aiming to help each and every problem out there. First of all, that simply won't happen (except in our overblown fantasies of sainthood). Second, that fear stems from pure selfishness. The mark of a selfish person is a fear of being overly generous.

There's nothing wrong with budgeting in hard limits, as we do with other expenditures. After all, we don't throw up our hands and refuse to buy books or movies because we "can't buy them all" (and might easily drain our coffers in so trying). We simply budget our consumption. And donations ought to be viewed as consumption. Paying money to buy improvement to a given situation is what consumerism is all about. Most purchases are intended to solve problems of various sorts, and there's a satisfaction in that. And the interesting thing is that buying solutions to problems which happen to be external to us feels equally satisfying.

It's no different, in other words, from any other sort of shopping. I might buy milk, eggs, a few magazines, and a small problem or two solved. Every once in a while I'll buy a car, computer, or bigger problem solved. Smaller budgets solve smaller problems, but at any scale (above the level of struggling to pay rent and feed kids), the same principles apply. Helping someone else's kids doesn't feel any more like "throwing money away" than helping mine.

I don't feel compelled to buy every car...or to fix every problem. I don't bring home every Trader Joe's product; I pick, choose, and budget. If something that I need captures my attention, and I can afford it, I buy it. It's the same with donating to issues capturing my attention. I don't fight the impulse, nor do I deflect it by zooming the camera out to the futile enormity of it all. I donate precisely as I consume (and, with SIGA having tripled this year, I'm happy to budget higher!)

So...I'll help two anonymous strangers in Ohio play in their high school orchestra next year, for about the cost of a fancy dinner for two. A good purchase!

Finally, while it's easy to sit back and help problems that funnel to me via mainstream channels like the NY Times, more acute, less publicized problems can be discovered via active investigation. And that's where one can put one's intrepid chowhounding skills to work. Again, donating is consuming. And what is chowhounding, but extra-skillful consumption?

A Trick for Donating More Skillfully

The middle of a recession may seem an inappropriate time to discuss charitable donations, but non-profits really need help at times like these. And now, more than ever, it's essential to try to get the best bang-for-buck with any funds we do manage to scrape together for good causes.

Many people vet non-profits by researching them on Charity Navigator. You can learn, for example, how efficiently donations are applied - i.e. what percentage of your contribution serves the actual cause, rather than the organization's salary, infrastructure, and marketing.

That's good, but not it's not good enough. Better: before giving money, volunteer for a while. Chip in time or talent, and, by working with the organization, you'll soon have a clear idea of what they're made of. You'll find out whether they're truly as earnest and dynamic as their brochure paints them! You'll also learn how competent the people are - significant because screwed-up organizations, however well-intentioned, won't do much good with your money.

A big bonus is that you'll be helping with more than just your bank account. And that feels a lot better than just coldly opening your checkbook!

I've gone this route with a number of organizations over the years, all of which looked great on paper. I've found that the view from the inside is often very different. This method has helped me dodge some bullets, and donate far more wisely. And I suspect my efforts (editing copy, helping with branding, etc.) have helped at least as much as my donations.

This only works for smaller charities, however. Volunteers at large non-profits rarely see the workings above middle management level, and it's hard to judge operations via a manager or two.

Give Ten Bucks to Haiti!

This isn't just the standard disaster. This is bad.

You can spare ten dollars to help the folks in Haiti. If you procrastinate your way out of helping today, you will no longer be entitled to think of yourself as a "good person". You lose that title, for lack of a lousy $10. So please do it right this instant. Just text "HAITI" to "90999" to donate $10 automatically to the Red Cross via your cell phone bill.

If you'd like to give more (because, unless you're destitute, a mere $10 won't get you off the hook), please donate to Save the Children (which gets a four star rating on charitynavigator.org) or Doctors Without Borders (also four stars). I figure they can use larger donations more efficiently than the Red Cross (which gets three stars), where everyone sends money. But don't delay. And don't forget to ask to be opted out of mailings and third party access to your contact information.