White Courtesy Telephone

Lessons From The Undeserving Poor

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The motivation for distinguishing between the deserving and the undeserving poor is familiar to many who’ve been approached by a homeless person for a handout.  Will we give without condition? Will we draw a line at those who are visibly intoxicated, reasoning that these supplicants are inviting their own ruin? Will we brush off the request and opt instead to make a contribution to the local shelter? Even after we’ve responded in some way, will we feel we’ve done the right thing? Perhaps our rationalizations will seem a little cold, a little too far removed from what might otherwise have been a simple human response to a simple human need.

The distinctions we sometimes make between the deserving and the undeserving poor have a revealing history.  The first American colonies modeled their poor laws on Elizabethan systems of relief for the needy, where the primary division was between neighbors and strangers.  Your responsibility to those who fell on hard times extended to family members and neighbors.  If evil befell a sojourner, he was sent to his community of origin where, it was assumed, he would receive assistance.  Another distinction divided your struggling neighbors into two classes: the truly impotent and the poor who were able-bodied, believed capable of at least some kind of work.

This latter category was problematic for early policymakers.  Just as an acorn could, by slow degrees, transform into an oak, so could the category of the truly impotent shift through multiple shades of difference into the category of rogues attempting to game the system.  The imperative for drawing clear lines increased as we moved from helping the poor to managing them.

Other challenges were afoot.  In the early days of our republic, there were many poor who struggled privately with their need as a kind of unavoidable evil.  The community’s “paupers,” by contrast, received some kind of public assistance, and it wasn’t long before pauperism became associated in the public mind with moral degradation.  According to Michael Katz:

The redefinition of poverty as a moral condition accompanied the transition to capitalism and democracy in early nineteenth-century America.  It served to justify mean-spirited treatment of the poor, which in turn checked expenses for poor relief and provided a powerful incentive to work.  In this way the moral definition of poverty helped ensure the supply of cheap labor in a market economy increasingly based on unbound wage labor.  The moral redefinition of poverty followed also from the identification of market success with divine favor and personal worth. …

Persistent and increasing misery did not soften the moral definition of poverty.  Neither did the evidence available through early surveys or the records of institutions and administrative agencies, which showed poverty and dependence as complex products of social and economic circumstances usually beyond individual control.*

Over time the distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor became deeply embedded in American culture, supported by Calvinist arguments in the antebellum period, by Darwinist arguments after the Civil War, and by the proponents of eugenics in the early twentieth century.  Within the very short span of my own memory, the undeserving poor have broken into the public consciousness as the “underclass,” as “welfare queens,” and, most recently, as Mitt Romney’s “47 percent.”

The labels have changed.  What have remained remarkably constant are the myths that cloud our understanding of poverty.  In an age when information is so freely available, when we stand to benefit from decades of excellent scholarship, we continue to misapprehend the structural and cultural causes of poverty.  We conflate structural arguments with radical denials of human agency.

There are other lessons for us in the story of the undeserving poor.  Some of these have to do with the question of who defines what constitutes an appropriate locus of philanthropic intervention.

In the same manner that elites reserve for themselves the privilege of drawing lines between the deserving and the undeserving poor, so too do their judgments determine what constitutes a “social problem” worthy of charitable investment.  It will be a rare community that wrestles with the distinction between the deserving and undeserving wealthy, or that launches a five-year philanthropic program to increase the elite’s feelings of solidarity with their less fortunate neighbors.  More often than not, philanthropy will be directed at fixing the poor, deserving or otherwise.

The homeless person asking for spare change intrudes on more than our physical space.  He brings before our eyes the dictates of our faith traditions, our responsibility to model good behavior for our children, our desire to act with decency.  At the same time, he surfaces our doubts about his bona fides, and here we are left without a clear script, reproducing on an intimate scale the ongoing, sometimes shrill, American debate about persistent poverty.

Experiences such as these can throw light on the gulf between our personal and our institutional responses to poverty.  Understanding these differences can, I believe, help make us better citizens, better champions of civil society, more fully aware of the frames we impose on our acts of giving, professional and otherwise.

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* The Undeserving Poor: From the War on Poverty to the War on Welfare; Pantheon Books, 1989; p. 14.

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Philanthropy Like Nobody's Business

I.

Over at the Center for Effective Philanthropy blog, my colleague Phil Buchanan is tilting at the windmill of “business thinking” in foundations and other not-for-profit organizations.  “You would think,” he writes, “after what we have witnessed in the past several years, that the word ‘business’ would not be used as a synonym for ‘effective.’”  Since most businesses, like most nonprofits, fall somewhere in the range between mediocre and good, he argues, charities should not be so quick to embrace the practices of the for-profit world.

Why should this argument matter to you?

There are tens of thousands of foundations in the United States controlling over half a trillion dollars in assets. One of their most extraordinary characteristics is the degree of freedom they have to pursue the Common Good.  Working within the strictures of the law, they can spend as much as they want, however they want.  In partnership with civil society organizations, they can marshal armies of volunteers.  They can pool their funds and coordinate their actions to magnify the impact of their work.  They even have license to criticize and bankroll the reform of government, and indeed change just about any aspect of our social, economic, and political lives.

And yet the headlines generated by this extraordinary sector typically look like this:

• Foundation Giving Lost Ground to Inflation in 2011, Report Finds
• Corporate Giving Up in 2011
• Arts Spending Fueled National Economy, Report Finds*

… rather than this:

• Foundation-Led Initiative Eliminates Racial Disparities in Cincinnatti
• Coalition of Organizations Convened and Funded by Foundations Ends Homelessness in Alabama
• Foundation Leaders Speak Out on Income Inequality in the United States

There’s often a big gap between foundations’ stated intentions and what they actually manage to accomplish.  It’s no wonder that those of us in the grantmaking profession—myself included—turn to “business thinking” for inspiration.  Given the modest outcomes we generally produce, just about any new kind of thinking would do.

II.

From a certain perspective, organized philanthropy is an interstitial field.  Wealth is created by individuals who, in the holiest moments of the charitable act, dedicate their good fortune to others rather than to themselves.  It’s then our job to direct this wealth to the people who will do the most good with it—not us, but the individuals in nonprofit and other civil society organizations who feed the hungry and house the homeless.

From the earliest days of organized philanthropy, those of us who work at foundations have chafed at the notion that we are mere middle men in the philanthropic enterprise.  We’ve gone so far as to pay consultants to create a kind of mythos for philanthropy in which foundations hold their own in the troika of Donor-Grantmaker-Grantee.  The standards for our field in fact require that we move beyond the transactional, the interstitial, and “add value” to the funds we steward.  We do this, for example, by using our convening power to address community problems; by sharing our knowledge; by encouraging citizens to give; and by other means that enable us to sleep with our highly compensated selves at night.  Our insistent—I would say febrile—grasping at business models partly reflects our attempts to be good stewards, to add value in the ways I’ve indicated.

But if the business world is our primary source of inspiration for the conduct of philanthropy, then, I would argue, we betray a profound misconception of the charitable enterprise.  A playwright needs to publish her plays and have them produced, and she too can benefit by importing lessons from the for-profit world.  But her primary muse must remain Melpomene rather than Sam Walton or she ceases to be a good playwright.  Is the philanthropoid more a businessman than a humanist? more a technocrat than an activist?

It’s easy to see why we look to the for-profit world for our models.  The work of philanthropy is often framed as a social mini-max problem: We are in situation X facing social problem Y.  We are given $Z to (a) solve this problem in the least amount of time, using the fewest resources; or (b) maximize the benefit to low-income communities; or perhaps (c) most fully satisfy the ego-needs of our CEO.  This framing leads us to conclude that philanthropy is essentially about spending money to create a product or service.  So we run into the arms of the nearest MBA, and while in that tender embrace are bidden to “allocate resources on a dynamic basis,” “foster partnerships,” “develop innovative approaches to evaluation,” and do other things couched in toothless bromides we tearfully accept because we have it on good authority that this splooge will finally fill the Great Gnawing Void in our professional lives.

III. 

Because we lack firm moorings in this very young and still evolving field, we’re easily distracted.  In at least one alternative interpretation of our work, philanthropy is about a higher kind of consciousness; about self-awareness; about work that implicates us in some of the deepest questions we can ask ourselves and our fellow men and women.  If it doesn’t implicate us in this way, then we’re playing a parlor game with other people’s money.  We’re not taking seriously enough the deepest yearnings that moved an individual to forego spending huge sums of cash on herself in order to better serve Humankind.

The contest between the technocratic and so-called “values approaches” to philanthropy is typically played to a draw: we need both, we are told at the end of what often reads like a shaggy dog story.  And of course we need both, but this conceals the fact, in my view, that our effectiveness is much more profoundly compromised by our disregard for the latter than for the former.  No amount of business acumen in the world can compensate for our failure to understand how deeply implicated we are in a system that keeps so many of our fellow men and women in abject misery.

There are better and worse ways of doing grantmaking and I’ve had the great privilege of working with many inspired grantmakers over the years.  What made them inspired, in my eyes, was their ability to work in creative partnership with grantees and others to get big results for the communities they served.  (The jargon du jour for this is “high impact philanthropy.”)  And yet their success had little if anything to do with the tonics prescribed in journals like the Stanford Social Innovation Review and other torch bearers of the new technocracy.  As I read these publications, I find that what’s most remarkable to me about organized philanthropy are the things that organized philanthropy finds most remarkable.

IV.

I love this field for a thousand reasons.  In the conduct of my work, I turn for inspiration not to the MBA but to the donor who feels some obligation to her fellow men, to the nonprofit or comunity leader who clings to her vision of a world re-made, and, at times, to the foundation executive or program officer whose work displays wisdom and humility.

I rue the fact that I work in a field untried by bracing debate, a field fond of trotting out old half-truths tarted up in fresh Business-Speak to persuade newcomers (and those of us with short memories) that we’re finally on to something new.  Borrowing an image from Martin Luther, we make of philanthropy a whore who sits rouged and powdered by the window, waiting to be swept up in the arms of any John who will promise her an honorary MBA, or support her habit of self-denial on matters of social change.

We’re a field searching for its subject, unaware that that subject is ultimately us.

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* Actual headlines from the Foundation Center’s Philanthropy News Digest, June 2012

Lessons for Nonprofits From the Komen Foundation Controversy

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Does the recent Komen Foundation debacle signal an increasing scrutiny by the giving public of nonprofit activities? Just as we can’t attribute every record-breaking heat wave to global warming, neither can we assume that recent high profile cases (ACORN, NPR) represent anything like a trend.

Recall that many years ago foundation support for the Boy Scouts took a nose dive after it was revealed that the organization was discriminating against gay men. As long as I can remember, our senators and representatives—both at the national and state levels—have attempted to score political points by targeting charities. I would guess that during any session of Congress there will be at least a handful of bills with provisions to curtail the advocacy rights of nonprofit organizations. (The Alliance for Justice can provide all the sordid details.) Consider also the restrictions on legal service providers that receive funding from the Legal Services Corporation—in force since 1996—and the occasional high-profile ACLU case that’s kicked around like a political football.

What’s clearer to me is that as the American culture wars drag on, more and more charities will be caught in the crossfire.

Charities need to attend to three factors in addition to an increasingly nasty civic culture. We’re living in an age of more activist donors (though I wonder if the research would support this view). The advent of the Internet has raised citizen expectations about the accessibility of information. And finally, calls for transparency in private and public institutions have increased.

Charities beware: You can bet that as we get closer to the November elections, every contribution made by a candidate will be scrutinized. Political operatives will attempt to score big points from a public that generally doesn’t understand the nonprofit sector and can be easily whipped into a froth about the work of shadowy foundations.

I have two primary suggestions for charities. The first is for boards to sit down with their staffs and determine what mission-appropriate transparency means for their organizations. However insistent the calls for transparency might be, I would never, for example, unless I were compelled by law, agree to audiotape board meetings and post these recordings on the Internet. I believe this would stymie the free and open exchange of ideas and ultimately compromise our mission. Other organizations might have a different take on this, but it’s critical for each organization to think through the issue of transparency.

Second, and more importantly in my view, your organization needs to determine whether it has a moral center, and if so, get in touch with it. That means understanding your identity and mission. Years back, the Girl Scouts were willing to take a hit for their nondiscrimination policies. The great value of a not-for-profit organization is that it has no shareholders whose pecuniary desires it needs to satisfy. It can afford to be governed by the love of mankind. Sure, the Girl Scouts lost some donors, but we can assume it gained others in the process.

The time for charities to do their soul-searching is now. Once a campaign against your organization goes viral, it’s time for you to step up to the microphones and tell the world who you are and where you stand. Faced with the question, “What are you about?”, in the wake of an unpopular decision, do you have a clear idea what you would say?

Do you exist to maximize donor support, to perpetuate the life of an institution? or do you exist to advance the cause of justice, however unpopular that might be?

 

On Root Causes Philanthropy

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I.  Introduction

In his lovely essay, “The Evolving American Foundation,” James Allen Smith describes how the germ metaphor ignited the imaginations of many who worked in the foundation field at the turn of the last century.  This metaphor was especially seductive because it suggested we might understand and address our social ills the way we diagnose and cure disease.  According to Smith, the germ metaphor fell out of favor some time later and was supplanted by others that more accurately reflected social complexities.

But the use of the germ metaphor has stuck with us.  It’s clearly related to the metaphor of the root cause which persists in the parlance and thinking of philanthropy.  We still hear of organizations that aim, for example, to address the root causes of poverty in America.  A casual Google search on the phrase “root cause(s)” will turn up many examples.  The metaphor of the root cause has many cousins in philanthropy, among them the lever and the key (as in the “key to the puzzle”).

Nowadays we recognize, as others did long ago, that there are conceptual difficulties in identifying anything like a root cause of poverty, beyond the condition of not having any money.  The phenomenon of poverty is part of a dynamic system of many parts, interacting in complicated ways.  This complex system has no discernible root that we can yank out of the ground as we might the root of a noxious weed.

We shouldn’t let ourselves be too awed by the image of the complex system.  Physicists, economists, electrical engineers, and others have been successful in modeling very complex systems and using these models to predict the behavior of these systems over time.  Jay Forrester, for example, used one such model to analyze industrial business cycles and another to analyze the behavior of the stock market.  What’s unusual about these models is that they lack a point of origin—there’s no discernible “root.”  What you have instead are “feedback loops” and entities called “stocks” and “flows.”  These constructs enable you to predict how a system will respond when you change one of its properties.

The figure below, taken from a May 2009 Scientific American article, traces the causes of food shortages in developing states.  This model suggests that while food shortages have multiple proximate causes (e.g., loss of topsoil, spreading water shortages, and reduction in crop yield), these causes can themselves be traced back to a single root cause: population growth, which itself has multiple causes not shown in the diagram.  Assuming this analysis is correct, a funder attempting to address food shortages without addressing population growth would appear to be on a fool’s errand.

 

As foundation professionals we talk about complex systems, yet we don’t often apply the tools developed in other domains to study them.  In our weaker moments, we might even invoke the complexity of a system as an excuse for our inability to make any headway on a given problem.

I Assume You Know Who You Are

Possible Worlds: The Beguilement of Juxtaposition

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Some scientists use possible worlds to explain the physical features of our universe.  More accessible, perhaps, are the possible world theories that philosophers of language use to model concepts like possibility and necessity.

Closer to home, the October issue of The Atlantic, dubbed the “values issue” by the editors, provides an extended meditation on a possible world that might be familiar to many of us.  The magazine takes articles on the “reinvention of philanthropy” and socially responsible investing, and puts them together with ads from car companies and Ralph Lauren.

In the possible world suggested by the editors, unchecked consumption coexists peacefully with a feeling for self-sacrifice.  We can, without the slightest pang of conscience, drive to that Sierra Club fundraiser in an SUV; we can discuss our love of animals over a steak dinner with our friends.  Not only is this world possible, the Atlantic editors seem to tell us, it’s the world we currently inhabit.

Providing a materialist grounding for this view, the issue includes an article by Olivia Judson on the evolutionary basis of altruism.  Kindness and cruelty spring from the same source—the human genome—and we are born to save the planet even as we destroy it.

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Image source: One of the panels from the cover of Roz Chast’s Parallel Universes.

Social Entrepreneurship in the Time of the Tsars

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The Countess Apraxina recently directed me to this passage from Dostoevsky’s Demons (more commonly known as The Possessed).*  Clearly, bold, Third Sector visionaries encountered resistance even then!

[A]lthough Varvara Petrovna had in recent years become exceedingly economical, as they said, and even a bit stingy, still she could on occasion be unsparing of money for charity proper.  She was a member of a charitable society in the capital.  In a recent famine year she had sent 500 roubles to Petersburg, to the main committee for the receipt of aid for the victims, and this was talked about in town.  Finally, quite recently, before the appointment of the new governor, she had all but established a local ladies’ committee to aid the poorest new mothers in our town and in the province.  She was severely reproached among us for being ambitious; but the notorious impetuousness of Varvara Petrovna’s character, together with her persistence, nearly triumphed over the obstacles; the society was almost set up, and the initial idea broadened more and more in the delighted mind of the foundress: she was already dreaming of establishing a similar committee in Moscow, of gradually expanding its activities through all the provinces.  And then, with a sudden change of governors, everything came to a halt; and the new governor’s wife, it was said, had already managed to utter in society a few pointed and, above all, apt and sensible objections regarding the supposed impracticability of the basic idea of such a committee, which—with embellishments, of course—had already been passed on to Varvara Petrovna.

Did the governor’s wife object to her logic model? her plans for project sustainability?  Dostoevsky never says.  As Arthur Chapman once remarked, envy is like a fly that passes all the body’s sounder parts and dwells upon the sores.  The passage continues:

God alone knows what’s hidden in men’s hearts, but I suppose it was even with a certain pleasure that Varvara Petrovna now paused at the very gates of the cathedral, knowing that the governor’s wife would pass by presently, and then everyone else, and “let her see for herself how it makes no difference to me what she thinks or what further witticisms she may produce concerning the vanity of my charitable works.  Take that, all of you!”

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* Translated from the Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, copyright 1994, and published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York.

Image source: University of Kansas

Online Giving in 2017

Fellow blogger Gayle Roberts is hosting this month’s Giving Carnival.  She’s inviting all comers to write on the future of fundraising.  Here’s WCT’s contribution ...

One of the most significant barriers to online giving is all the stuff that needs to happen between the time you’re moved by that National Public Radio story about homeless children and the moment you confirm your online credit card donation to Helping Homeless Children, Inc. 

You’re required to start your computer, launch your browser, do a Google search for the appropriate charity, click the “Donate Now” button on the charity’s website, wait until you’re transported to the appropriate giving page, fetch your credit card, fill in the required fields, and confirm your gift.

Ten years from now, sensors surgically implanted in your brain by the Department of Homeland Security will automatically register your intention to give and send radio signals to your government-monitored bank account.  A donation in the appropriate amount will be transferred to one of the DHS-approved organizations on the Patriot’s List of Market-Based Solutions to Social Problems.  Finally, to confirm the transaction, a wireless signal will stimulate your pleasure center.

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Image source: [email protected]

Absolutely Fabulous Meets the Third Sector

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(An excerpt from The Last Shout, Part 2.  London, 1996.  The Monsoons’ kitchen.  Edina is opening her mail.)

Edina: (Reading letter.)  Do I want to do something on the Millennium Committee?    Do I want to do something for the Millennium?  (To Patsy.)  Do you think I should do that?

Patsy:  (Pinning up her hair.)  Well, when is it?

Edina: (Looking at letter.) It doesn’t say.  (To Saffy.)  Darling, when is it, when is it, the Millennium?

Saffy: (Pointedly.)  The year 2000.

Edina:  (Balling up letter.)  Well, why are they bothering me now, eh?  Anyway, I know exactly what they should do.

Saffy:  (Disdainfully.)  What? Let me guess: a free Stones concert in Hyde Park.

Edina:  No, no, no.  A huge worldwide bacchanalian feast.  They should just live it, darling.

Patsy:  And a free Stones concert, Eddy.

Edina:  (Quickly agreeing.)  Yeah, and a free Stones concert.

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Image source: Morty’s TV

Late Night Shots: How the Other One Percent Gives

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The July 13-19 issue of the Washington City Paper takes us inside Late Night Shots, an exclusive social networking club that helps DC’s well-heeled party animals connect on-line and off.  “Think of a new generation of young Republicans getting trashed at St. Elmo’s, hooking up, then writing about it at 3 in the morning,” writes City Paper reporter Angela Valdez.

It’s not every wannabe who can party with the GOP.  According to blogger Wonkette, the club maintains “that special mix of date rape, shitty beer, and racial homogeneity that is the Georgetown nightlife.”

The liquor flows—in great torrents, apparently—but so do the charitable dollars, providing a kind of fig leaf for the general debauchery.  This past June, for example, LNS member Andrea Rodgers

attracted a crowd to the Courage Cup, a polo match in Virginia that raises money to teach disadvantaged D.C. youths to play polo. Although the charity receives a fair amount of scorn (several posters asked why anyone would teach poor kids to play a game they can’t afford), it was one of the early summer’s most popular events.

You can imagine that the eleemosynary veneer might begin to crack after some time, and it does, as in this online exchange between two LNS members:

D.C. Charity Addiction
Posted By: [v—] on 04-11-2007 1:23 pm
Is there a city anywhere in the world that has more charities than D.C.? I moved here about 2 years ago, and at first it seemed nice that everyone was invovled with and supporting local charity events. However now I am beginning to question a number of the charitable causes and find it annoying to pay $10 to $20 just to step in somewhere for a drink with friends.

Am I being a cold-hearted miser?

RE: D.C. Charity Addiction
Posted By: [N—] on 04-11-2007 1:27 pm
I am 26 and DC wasn’t always like this. Most people just threw parties to throw parties. Now they feel compelled to do a charity or feel it makes them more sophisticated.

To responders: Don’t give me any bullshit response about wanting to help a charity because I know all of you and you’re not that decent (neither am I).

What would you call this?  Does this strange paroxysm of honesty represent a moment of grace, a door opening to the infinite?  Or is it simply a flash of existential clarity before this young man is hired by some conservative think tank to restore moral order to this country?

I’m reminded of the story of a young girl who once murdered her twelve family members with an axe, and who immediately confessed her crime after the police arrived and made inquiries because she had always been taught that lying was a sin.

_____

Image source: Washington City Paper

Department of New Lows: Reality TV Goes Slumming

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Two new British reality shows transform the lived experience of poverty into a spectacle we can all enjoy in prime time:

On ITV’s “Fortune: Million Pound Giveaway,” needy—and sometimes not-so-needy—supplicants have 60 seconds to persuade a panel of five wealthy panelists to give them money. The other show, “The Secret Millionaire” … features self-made millionaires who go undercover and spend 10 days in a poor neighborhood looking for people who could use their charity.  At the end of the show, the millionaire reveals him- or herself and writes checks to the winners.*

Neither of these shows would, I believe, require much adjustment for American television audiences already fed on a steady diet of loutishness and self-abasement.  An American version of “The Secret Millionaire” would be especially appealing to some, leaving unchallenged the larger forces that drive people into poverty, and celebrating the playful beneficence of the more fortunate among us.

So grab a bowl of popcorn.  There are valuable lessons for the whole family in the humiliation of the poor.

_____

*“Philanthropy TV” by Robert Frank in the April 13, 2007, issue of the Wall Street Journal Online.

Cyber-Donors: If You Cut Them, Will They Not Leave?

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Because our online encounters are mediated by servers, cables and radio waves, and because they happen in a virtual space defined by 1s and 0s, they often have a gauzy, unreal quality.

We use pseudonyms to preserve our anonymity.  We leave drive-by comments on blogs and other online meeting places, seldom deepening our relationships beyond one or two exchanges.

We’re there one instant, gone the next.

Unfortunately, many of us who work at nonprofit organizations carry these same Internet habits to our encounters with online donors.

In a recent article titled “Cyber Journey: A real-world look at online fundraising,”* Tom Gaffny describes how he went online and donated $15 to each of the 66 largest charities in the United States.  He wanted to know how today’s charities are treating online donors, and his results were eye-popping and, frankly, heartbreaking.

Only nine of these charities saw Tom’s gift as an opportunity to establish and begin nurturing a relationship with a new donor:

While the “Yep, we got [your gift]” crowd dealt with me at arm’s length, and the “Thanks, we’re grateful” organizations reached out to shake my hand, this group [of organizations] wanted to give me a hug and a pretty big pat on the back.

I strongly recommend Tom’s article for some great tips on how to follow up on a gift from a cyber-donor.

It’s been well established that online donors tend to be more generous than their off-line counterparts.  Given the cold cyber-shoulder we so often present them, is it any wonder they’re also less likely to continue contributing after their initial gift?

_____

* The NonProfit Times, March 15, 2007, pp. 20-21.

The Countess Apraxina Blings Philanthropy

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My Dearest Alyosha:

You will have heard by now from Uncle Sergei that I have taken new clients.  You cannot blame me.  You did not like idea of car chase and shootout in lower Manhattan, or my sketches for new foundation couture.  I warned you about my friend Noël Godin, but you wouldn’t listen.  You are chicken-hearted little man with lousy haircut, and I mean this only in nicest way, but I couldn’t wait for you, my darling golubchik, to choose from among Apraxina’s many brilliant ideas for improving image of philanthropy.

I am now helping Oprah with her new philanthropy reality show.  I must tell you, Alyosha, I am never forget the day I first meet the great Oprah Winfrey.  She became thinner and fatter in front of my eyes, one moment airbrushed to within inch of life, the next with pores as big as Chernobyl smokestacks.  She reminded me of strange quantum fluctuation once described to me in agonizing detail by my cousin Vanya, nuclear physicist.  (I will introduce you to Vanya one day.  Like you, he can bore paint off walls.  Just kidding, my little zaychik.)

Yesterday we finished filming opening credits for show.  First you see enormous effigy of Andrew Carnegie covered with sparklers rising out of depths of Beverly Hills swimming pool.  Camera pans away to hundreds of wealthy debutantes wearing gold bathing caps swimming around Mr. Carnegie’s trousers and, at climactic moment, linking arms to spell words, “Tax Reform Act of 1969.”  Is brilliant, yes?

Oprah wants put on film “most powerful, sensational, emotional and dramatic ways to give to others.”  Her staff once made her distribute major appliances to poor people from big truck.  This is idea worthy of pinheads who work in cubicles.  Apraxina is planning delivery of double-wide trailers to tsunami victims using aircraft carrier (think “Mission Accomplished”).  Next week we will use giant aquarium to move entire lake from Minnesota to arid region of sub-Saharan Africa.

So, yes, I also will help launch glossy magazines for rich donors.  Inaugural issue of Generocity will include photo spread on philanthropic fetish gear, with sexy Google billionaire Larry Page tied to post and flogged by anonymous panhandler in designer chaps.

We were going to do photo shoot of conservative donors teaching man to fish, but we had to cancel when we discovered man had only one arm and no fishing pole.

That is all I have time for now, my darling lyubimy.  Call me on my cell.

— Countess Apraxina

The Young, The Generous, The Connected

Online giving represents only 2-3 percent of the $200 billion in charitable giving by individuals in the United States, but it’s expected to increase rapidly as more and more donors come to value the efficiency and security of online transactions.

It hasn’t grown faster, I believe, because a lot still stands between the initial motivation to give (that heartbreaking story on NPR about homeless children, for example) and the actual movement of charitable dollars.  A donor is required to fire up her computer, open her browser, do a Google search for the appropriate charity, click the “Donate Now” button on the charity’s website, wait until she’s transported to the appropriate giving page, fetch her credit card, fill in the required fields, and confirm her gift.  E-philanthropy in the 23rd century will almost certainly be a more spontaneous affair.

Until then, those of you who’ve used online giving sites like TouchDC.org should consider yourselves trailblazers.  A recent survey by the good people at Network for Good informs us that you’re also to be celebrated for your extraordinary generosity.  According to this survey:

• Online donors give significantly more than offline donors.
• Online givers are young, with men and women giving in equal numbers.
• Donors are not new to giving, but they tend to be new to giving online.
• Disaster relief is the leading category of giving and ranks among top searches; other leading giving categories are international causes, animal-related causes, human services and education.
• Donors turn to the Internet at times of disaster and for year-end giving.
• People seem to be at their most generous on weekdays, not weekends.
• The number one reason donors say they give online is convenience: it is easier than writing a check.

A nonprofit organization’s Web presence becomes more and more critical as more donors go online to learn about the causes they care about.  It’s also possible that this increasing traffic in cyberdonors will someday drive the development of new kinds of online networks for those committed to strenghtening civil society.  I know this has long been the dream of my colleague at Gift Hub.

E-Philanthropy’s Brave New World

The year: 2235.  Zerbina, a successful interplanetary trader, and her holohusband Zork, are waking up to their first cup of Andromedan coffee.  They have their central communications unit tuned to Intergalactic Public Radio, and host Robert Siegel-backslash-12 is relating the top news story of the day.  An extended Martian drought has left tens of thousands of poor migrant settler families with diminishing supplies of food and water, he reports.  One of their spokesmen urges legislators to pass the Emergency Relocation Bill that has been stalled in the World Senate for weeks.

Zerbina is moved to take action.  “Computer,” she says softly, “Who’s helping the Martian settler families?”  Instantly her hyperbrowser searches the iWeb for nonprofit organizations that are providing relief to the beleaguered families, displaying a list of names and profiles on the smartsurfaces of her apartment.  She scrutinizes the list: there are 690 different organizations headquartered on six planets and three moons.

“Which of these organizations has the strongest advocacy record?” Zerbina asks thoughtfully.

Her hyperbrowser once again springs into action, instantly sorting through and interpreting tens of thousands of press releases that have been posted to the iWeb.  The Intergalactic Immigration Forum jumps to the top of the list.

Zerbina smiles: she knows this organization well.  Responding to a small donation she had made to them a while back, they had been sending her holographic newsletters for several months, keeping her apprised of their work.  The Forum had long ago applied for and received iWeb Charity Accreditation, enabling the organization to accept secure subspace money transfers.

“Computer,” she says, “Transfer twenty gigacredits to the Intergalactic Immigration Forum.  Mark the transfer ‘for support of the Martian migrant families.’”

“Transfer confirmed,” replies the machine, in a soothing, albeit somewhat metallic, voice.

We’re not quite there yet, but a number of initiatives are giving us glimpses of the future of web-based philanthropy.  To paraphrase George Burns, we should look to the future because that’s where we’re going to spend the rest of our lives …

According to a press release I received from a company representative, PRODEGE is helping nonprofit organizations raise funds by giving them their own private-label search engines.  A nonprofit simply signs up with PRODEGE and encourages its supporters to do web searches on its dedicated search engine.  Each search generates revenues for the organization.  PRODEGE automatically tracks, reports, and distributes proceeds to its nonprofit partners on a monthly basis.  (If any WCT readers have used this product, please let me know.)

Our brilliant colleagues in the UK have dreamed up the One Million Masterpiece website.  The site invites visitors to use their mouses to paint or draw pictures while onsite.  Each visitor-artist is then asked to contribute £3.50 to have his or her masterpiece become part of a giant canvas that will be unveiled at a major London landmark (the birthplace of Jennifer Saunders?) in July 2007.  The group hopes to raise £3.5 million for a number of UK-registered charities including Oxfam, Save the Children, and the World Wildlife Federation.  Visitors can also use the site’s tools to create and post videos.  Pneumatic!

TouchDC introduces the people of Greater Washington to outstanding charities they might otherwise never hear about.  Powered by Network for Good, TouchDC enables donors to search for giving and volunteering opportunities by neighborhood and by program area.  The site provides donors a safe and convenient way to donate funds online.

Changing the World One Hug at a Time

All right, all right, so Mata Amritanandamayi (“Amma”) has hugged 27 million people in her life and raised tens of millions of dollars for orphanages, earthquake relief, and organizations that feed the poor.

But has there been a formal evaluation of these hugs?  And does Amma have a strategic plan?  :o)

As my colleague, erasmus, points out, it’s about efficiency:

Assuming that a hug takes about 5 seconds on average, if she had shortened each hug by half a second, she could have saved enough time to hug another 2.7 million people.

The Color of Generosity

I’m wearing a magic cloak that blunts the effects of biting sarcasm from fellow bloggers, so I’m emboldened to say that Warren Buffett’s gift to the Gates Foundation will cement what is for many Americans the archetype of the philanthropist: a wealthy, socially conservative white male considerably past middle age.  We know, of course, that Great Givers come in all colors and genders* from every income category, even though their generosity doesn’t often make front page news.

We’re reminded of this when we read contemporary versions of the parable of the widow’s mite, like this Washington Post story on the extraordinary generosity of Thomas Cannon, an African American postal worker who had given away an estimated $150,000 to charity by the time he died.

The African American community has a reputation among fundraisers for being especially generous.  On average, blacks donate to charity 25 percent more of their discretionary income than whites.  In 2004, African Americans made $11.4 billion in charitable contributions.  According to the author of the Post story, “That kind of giving tends to be curiously overlooked by critics who describe their black countrymen as selfish underachievers who lounge around waiting for handouts.”

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* Yes, all genders, even the in-between ones.

Outsourcing Your Philanthropy

I’m hopeful that Mr. Buffett’s generous gift to the Gates Foundation will inspire other wealthy families to be more philanthropic.  There’s an important aspect of his gift that could use greater emphasis:

Mr. Buffett’s strategy of outsourcing his philanthropy recalls his approach to investment, which involves identifying good companies run by talented people and backing them. Would-be imitators have turned books such as “The Warren Buffett Way” and “Buffettology” into best sellers; perhaps Mr. Buffett will persuade other wealthy individuals to give away their fortunes through existing foundations instead of establishing their own. Ultimately, we could see a market in philanthropic capital in which donor groups compete for resources the way their recipients do now. This would be healthy, as the best foundations presumably would attract the most assets.*

The idea is simple: Instead of incurring the considerable expense of establishing your own foundation, why not simply give a part of your fortune to an established philanthropy, one whose values resonate with your own?  Many foundations will have professionals on staff with expertise in areas like youth development, health, education, and the arts, among others.  They often know the best charities in a given region and have accumulated considerable knowledge about what works and what doesn’t.

Your philanthropic advisor can help you decide if this is the best option for you, and even help you broker the relationship with an existing foundation.

Wasn’t it Thoreau who said that “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone”?

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* Open the FloodGates by John J. Miller, in the WSJ OpinionJournal.

Getting More Charitable Towards Charity

In Sonia Nazario’s extraordinary book, Enrique’s Journey, she recounts the odyssey of a young boy who faces unimaginable danger to reconnect with his mother in the United States.  Unable to feed her children, she had left Honduras eleven years earlier to find work in El Norte.  Enrique makes his way north, as many migrants do, by clinging to the tops and sides of freight trains.

It’s a dangerous journey.  The tops of the boxcars are controlled by gangsters.  Bandits rob and sometimes kill the children who hazard the trains.  Corrupt policemen shake down the migrants and frequently deport them.

The trains travel through some of the poorest stretches of Mexico and Central America, and yet it’s common for the people who live along the tracks to throw small bundles to the migrants as they pass:

Families throw sweaters, tortillas, bread, and plastic bottles filled with lemonade.  A baker, his hands coated with flour, throws his extra loaves.  A seamstress throws bags filled with sandwiches.  A teenager throws bananas.  A carpenter throws bean burritos.  A store owner throws animal crackers, day-old pastries, and half-liter bottles of water.  People who have watched migrants fall off the train from exhaustion bring plastic jugs filled with Coca-Cola or coffee.

… A stooped woman, María Luisa Mora Martín, more than a hundred years old, who was reduced to eating the bark of her plantain tree during the Mexican Revolution, forces her knotted hands to fill bags with tortillas, beans, and salsa so her daughter, Soledad Vásquez, seventy, can run down a rocky slope and heave them onto a train.

“If I have one tortilla, I give half away,” one of the food throwers says.  “I know God will bring me more.”

We’re on hallowed ground here.

I’m reminded, sadly, of the invidious distinction we sometimes make between charity and philanthropy.  By some accounts, charity represents a kind of weak, emotional response while philanthropy gets to the root of a problem and solves it once and for all.

Views like this are fairly common in our field, but we need to shed them and approach, with fear and trembling, the divinity that illuminates the great acts of self-sacrifice Nazario describes.  We can extol the virtues of strategic philanthropy, when practiced well, without also deprecating the acts of goodness that define, in my view, what it means to be fully human.