Changing How We Give
Popular media encourages Americans to prioritize philanthropy and private giving, particularly to the poor. Although these stories can be found all over, the New York Times has run many pieces on these themes as of late.
Judith Flanders suggests Boxing Day as an opportunity to recommit ourselves to volunteerism and philanthropy:
Instead Boxing Day could return as a day of giving. Not necessarily cash . . . but rather one day a year to donate skills or effort, a day for sharing something of value in the larger community.
Nicholas D. Kristof also recently pointed out the importance of giving in bad economic times, highlighting evidence that conservatives give more than liberals to prod the left:
So, even in tough times, there are ways to help. Come on liberals, redeem yourselves, and put your wallets where your hearts are.
Other news stories find examples of Americans giving to charities that serve the needy and in some cases giving more to these charities than in previous years.
Giving more is good, but changing how we give is key. According to Giving USA, less than 10% of all private giving is to human service nonprofit organizations that assist the poor. Americans collectively give more than $300 billion a year to nonprofits and charities, but only a tiny fraction goes organizations that provide services and assistance to the poor. In fact, once the holiday season has passed and the effects of the recession begin to take greater hold on our pocketbooks, we should expect there to be less giving from individuals to nonprofit charities in 2009 - not more.
Why does giving to the poor trail giving to other causes? In part, the nonprofit organizations that serve low-income people have shifted energies away from cultivating private giving to relying on larger, more reliable public grants and contracts. But, part of the blame lies with middle- and upper-income Americans who do not target much of their private giving to nonprofits that serve those in need. Perhaps this pattern of giving is driven by our collective optimism that we will not need help from charity during bad economic times, or by our spatial disconnect from charities that serve those in the highest-poverty neighborhoods.
Whether we are conservatives or liberals, residents of rural areas, suburbs, or cities, we should focus our giving more intently on the nonprofit food banks, shelters, employment service providers, literacy and education programs, early childhood programs, and housing assistance services that are the foundation of our local safety nets.
If we are to emerge from economic recession, it will require stronger community-based nonprofits that can help working poor families cope with temporary job loss and find work. Greater private giving to those organizations, therefore, is an important first step we all can take toward lessening the blow of the recession on our communities.
Hi Scott. It’s great to connect with you on-line and see that you’re putting your knowledge into advocacy. I’d like to see more researchers who collect poverty data, or information about how mentoring helps kids, do the same. I encourage you to visit http://tutormentor.blogspot.com and see how we’re trying to teach people to use maps to build giving, leadership and investment strategies. If we want to end poverty, for instance, we need to invest in all places where there are high rates of poverty, not just a few pilot programs that last for a few years in a few places.
With maps we can focus attention on all places in Chicago, or in the US, and donors can choose where to get involved based on where they are located, or where they work, and where the need is greatest. If we can capture information about the distribution of programs and resources we can begin to use blogs to help balance the level of distribution, giving attention to underserved/underfunded areas, while keeping the flow of resources in other areas as well.
Writing this information is the first challenge. Getting people to look at it is an even larger challenge. This is why I invite you and others to connect at key times throughout the year in conferences and blog exchanges where our connecting can create public interest and media attention that helps us draw readers to our blogs and then to the neighborhood organizations who need our help.
If you post comments on my blog or write articles in the T/MC web site you can connect my network to your information and your network.
Thanks for keeping in contact.