Charity: Personal or Grand?

Seeing as at the moment I have my annual food run going on ( crates of groceries for homebound AIDS hospice patients) I beleive that whatever level of charity you can personally implement and have a positive impact on is the level you should shoot for.

Some people don't have the time/money/personality to devote to charity and that is fine. Others do, but choose not to. It depends upon the individual and their preferences.

I have a thread here about my work at a homeless intake center. I prefer working directly with people who need help. I like getting to know them. The rewards are endless and go both ways.

I have a very controversial view on charity.

I hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it.

When I get stopped in the street and asked for money, I give 'em that look. Yeah, that one.

If I want to give money, I will. Because I choose to, not because you asked me. Or guilt-tripped me into it.

Also, too much money is lost to administrative nonsense in large organisations so I'd prefer to get my hands dirty helping individuals. (Which I do; not prepared to say anything further here though).

Lastly - charity teaches people to take. If I give you money, food, effort, time or raw materials, what are you going to do for me? I'm not going to give you everything on a plate. I'll help, but I won't run your life for you.

I definitely won't give charity.

I'm more for doing Random Acts of Kindness and Acts, to use the biblical term, rather than just giving to a charity.

What folks here, so far, are talking about are, to me anyway, Acts. Doing good personally. Giving what you can to something specific.

I'm not particularly fond of large charities either, honestly. I used to be and I gave and volunteered a lot in my teens and early 20's. Then, when my marriage, health and employment fell apart and I needed help and went to charities, I had to grovel, beg and still got shat upon after months of enforced self-humiliation (the things we do for our children). Not that my having worked for them should've made a difference in my receiving a spot of help, but seeing the other side of how things worked really changed my opinion and tolerance of such things.

I don't give money to people begging on the street either. I have offered to buy food or water for them, and usually have been cursed for it, however for every curse I got, I got someone a little further down the street who was happy to take it.

I'd much rather help someone I have a belief will actually use the help offered, on a personal or near-personal level, but experience has proven to me that not everyone is honest with their needs. I go with my gut who to help and who not to. I will give to a particular local group (ie: charitible hospital, church, rights group), but, again, it's because I think it's going to do some good in the short run. That's where my experience says most people need the help.

I agree with Archie Bunker when he said, "Charities should be self-sufficient."

I'm somewhere in between. I prefer to donate my money and time to small organizations. The one I'm most involved with (for which I just raised $1600 on a 335 mile bike ride), I know exactly what they do, I know exactly how much it positively impacts peoples lives and how rare similar programs are, and I know everyone who works for the organization. I also know they don't get paid much, so all the sweat and blood is done for the love of the mission, not for a big check.

My partner works for a local organization that is a part of a larger national charity. I donate my time to doing all sorts of random things for her clients (folks with disabilities) and to help thank her employees, everything from cleaning out a really manky fish tank to creating party invitations to sewing baby booties. I'm happy to do it, again because I know that the staff work hard and don't get paid enough (in socal, you get paid more to flip burgers at in-n-out than you do to provide physical care to an adult with a disability), and I know that it makes a big difference to a small group of people.

I am wary of giving to massive nonprofits because of their high overhead. I'm also wary of personal charity. Various friends and family have found themselves in bad situations because of the housing crisis/lousy economy, and we have given money to help people out. But it's grown very frustrating because those people keep making the same bad financial decisions (buying stupid crap, not getting a job, too much debt) and expecting money from us to help them out. Partner and I have started to feel like we are being taken advantage of, rather than we are helping a beloved friend. For that reason, we've mostly stopped giving money to personal acquaintances, unless it's a dire situation, like they have no food left in the house. I'm not at all saying everyone who needs a helping hand needs it because of bad choices, that's just been my experience lately.

Charity begins at home. Or so the saying goes. Personally an act of charity could be as simple as helping a total stranger who is struggling with their grocery bags, get to the bus stop or maybe taking a moment to speak to a homeless person on the street and let them know that they are still a human being. Charity is done with a giving heart and a smile, the scale doesn't matter.

Well, that's my two cents.

I read a phenomenal book published back in 1992 called The Tragedy of American Compassion by Marvin Olasky.

It's a very detailed chronical of the whole matter of Americans giving of themselves on behalf of others. It starts with the Pilgrims and works forward to the present day. At the end he gives his socio-political analysis and commentary.

He lists the many parachurch organizations of the 19th century (orphanages, hospitals) that tried to be efficient and systematic about charity, only to find that some from the ranks of the poor were clever enough to circumvent certain safeguards and were able to dupe these organizations into offering aid that was unmerited.

He also cites major burnout among 20th century social workers who enter the field of social services with optimism and get worn down by the relentless darkness in the heart's of so many people.

He lastly shows the current culture of expectation and entitlement where some members of today's poor pretty much DEMAND to be taken care of, and get huffy when they aren't.




He overarching theme is that the correct understanding of the word "compassion" is that it literally means "suffering with." That unless you suffer with that person through their trial as you help them along, you are not engaged in a true act of compassion. Instead you are either being a robotic paper-shuffling bureauocrat, or a self-important social climber trying to impress the right people.

He also explains about a rather important and yet equally problematic concept which is the existence of a group called "the righteous poor." Those are people who are needy through no fault of their own -- neither bad decisions nor lack of planning nor laziness nor greed nor wrong-doing led them to their currente plight, just VERY bad circumstances centering upon events that were both unforseeable and unpreventable. The difficulty with this label is that it takes very serious scrutiny of a person's life to make the determination that they qualify as "the righteous poor." And so there is automatically the need for an actual relationship: either directly with the person who is going to extend the charity, or else with a third party who can offer a trusted and valued letter of recommendation on behalf of the impoverished family.

If I were in the position to help anyone, I'd just want to be sure that someone did benefit from my money. I would actually prefer to give to a known entity.