philanthropy

[dchenes]

The more somebody tells me I really have to do something, the less I want to do it. This applies particularly to people who want me to donate money. I really don't like the PBS/NPR model of "we're going to tell you for ten straight minutes every half hour, for a week, several times a year, how much we need you to give us money". That's tremendously annoying because the only way to get them to go away, short of giving them huge amounts of money, is to stop what you were doing (namely listening to the radio/watching a TV program).

Then there's the college model of "our endowment is based on the percentage of people who give us money. Give us $5, we don't care, but give us money!". Oberlin got money out of me once by calling me when I was just about to get on a bus, and the quickest way to get them off the phone was to say I'd give them money. That's annoying too, but somewhat less so. It's also sneaky, because when your alma mater calls, you talk to somebody who's a current student, and you know what that was like, and you know the job doesn't pay much, and (if you're me) you don't want to hang up on them because you'd hate that if it were you on the other end of the phone.

The SixApart thing earlier this week annoyed me because it felt like a condensed version of the PBS model. "You must do this right now because it's only good if you do it today!". It's a good cause, but grr, go away. You sound like an infomercial.

So I gave money to the Tomato Nation challenge instead, which started with the premise of "raise at least $35,000 by the end of October. Raise $40,000 and the Tomato Nation writer has to wear a tomato costume to work for a day and be filmed doing a dance, in the costume, in the middle of Rockefeller Plaza." Well, that took all of three days. Since yesterday they've raised another $10,000 and are working on another $25,000. I don't know what it is about this particular fundraiser that I like: the silliness of the initial challenge, or the fact that since it's Donors Choose, I can send money to something I particularly want to see happen, or the sense of community created by being able to see that a lot of other people are giving money too, or some combination of all of those.

I've had relatives give money in my name to The Heifer Project, which I think is nifty. Not only do you give animals (which provide food, clothing, extra income, etc.) to people who need them, but those people then give the offspring of those animals to their neighbors who need them too.

I would rather give money to a cause that feels right than to one that begs incessantly.

Comments

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

The SixApart thing was free money from them, not anything you actually had to cough up for.