Humans, as the poet once said, contain multitudes. At our worst, we’re selfish, greedy and deceptive. We have a long-established capacity for cruelty. We hurt one another with impunity. But at our best, our species trends toward goodness. A desire to help our neighbors. To serve. To decrease the suffering and increase the safety of society’s most vulnerable members. Even in light of our many downfalls, we have — generally speaking — proven to be empathetic beings.
Nowhere is this more evident than in our outpouring of support for those in crisis. The 2014 estimate for charitable giving in the United States was $258.51 billion. That number dwarfs the $36.4 billion that the movie industry took in worldwide at the box office that same year. Sure, the mega rich are clearly skewing the generosity curve here, but it’s fair to say that your friends and neighbors are spending more on helping one another than they are on movies. Not bad, humanity.
In our current political and cultural moment — one which seems like a noteworthy blip along the universe’s slow arc toward virtue — people are more discerning than ever about where their money goes. They want to know how it’s being spent and why. This is a good thing. Intentions are valuable, to be sure, but not all giving was created equal.
If you’re thinking of donating today, we have a few keys to concentrate on:
Know what matters to you
I used to co-direct a non-profit for disabled kids. We were as grassroots as could be — no one took a salary, we even charged ourselves entry to our own fundraisers. Still, if you wanted to help children with Down Syndrome or autism, you could have done better than us. Our programming wasn’t comprehensive, we simply ran a summer camp for one week every year. In fact, our mission of pairing one kid with one young adult counselor didn’t make much sense… unless you thought of us as a program meant to benefit both kids and young adults (most of them on a medical track in the UC system).
If creating a future of more selfless, big-hearted doctors while helping children with disabilities was your objective, we were a great place to donate.
The point being: To give effectively, you have to know what you care about. Do you want to serve the homeless? Single mothers? Victims of domestic abuse? There are .orgs for you. Pick one; get excited about it. Think about volunteering to deepen your connection.
Unless you’re very wealthy, the chances are that you won’t be able to give significantly to more than a handful of causes, so make sure the ones you choose are organizations you trust and feel passionately about.
Look for clear goals, longevity, and benchmarks of success
When I lived in Uganda, a local told me a joke about the many NGOs (non-governmental organizations) he saw in the city of Gulu:
“What does it take to run a charity?”
“What?”
“A Jeep with a decal on it.”
The punchline was that there aren’t major barriers to entry for getting 501c-3 status, so many people do. And many, many well-meaning organizations disappear after less than a year. Others, intent on paying their staff, spend donations solely on internal infrastructure (computers, stationery, payroll), and their programming budget effectively becomes zero. This happens far more often than you’d like to believe.
Charities aren’t particularly hard to start, so the bar for being a charity worthy of donor dollars has to be higher than simply existing. A good idea isn’t enough to build a sustainable non-profit. That’s not to say young organizations don’t deserve funding, but be careful for overly-vague (or overly-ambitious) messaging. Instead, look for charities with achievable goals and a commitment to constant programming, even as they grow.
Be wary of focusing solely on disaster relief
The American Red Cross (ARC) is under fire as of late. As journalist Jonathan Katz illustrated for Slate (and in his book, The Big Truck That Went By), the organization has a very limited mission. Their goal is simply short term disaster relief and, as such, is often painfully narrow in scope. In fact, the case has been made that, considering the strict limitations of the ARC’s mission, they are often over-funded in disasters — leaving them to parcel money to other organizations (after taking an administrative cut).
More than that, the American Red Cross is steadfastly murky about what they do and how much it costs. The indicators of success, however, aren’t great. In 2006, the American arm of the Red Cross was slammed by their international counterparts in a report, for their response to Hurricane Katrina . In 2014, ProPublica shredded the ARC’s actions after Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Isaac. In 2015, the anti-Red Cross backlash was so strong after the Calistoga wildfires that small charities balked at partnering with them.
These aren’t random hit pieces. The U.S. Government Accountability Office has advised that the Red Cross needs regulation and oversight. Even more to the point, if you want your dollars to be used effectively think of programming that truly lasts. The Red Cross doesn’t rebuild hospitals or pave roads, it’s an in and out disaster relief organization. If you want to create lasting change, you’ll need to widen your lens.
Accountability, accountability, accountability
For three years, I had a gig reporting on different ecology-focused 501c-3 charities in Southern California. I wrote about a different organization every month… and I left the job extremely disaffected. After 36 columns, I only really came across one group that I truly believed in. Instead, what I found — over and over — were startups whose donated funds became de-facto expense accounts for their charismatic founders and CEOs more intent on celebrity galas than actual programming.
In 2017, we have excellent charity tracking systems. Not just Charity Navigator — which most people know — but also GiveWell, The Center for High Impact Philanthropy, Impact Matters, and The Life You Can Save. If the organization you want to donate to hasn’t been reviewed or audited yet, ask them about their financials and their mission. Are their successes measurable? Are their actions research-based? What percentage of their total reported donations go to programming? If they’re international, do they employ a local staff rather than relying on outsiders who may be unfamiliar with the culture?
Put simply: Any non-profit that can’t explain what they do in two sentences or less is cause for concern. So is a group that doesn’t have metrics to support their actions. Whoever you give to, however much you give, make sure they are accountable. Make sure they want to be accountable, both to earn your trust and because the whole point of a non-profit is to do good with maximum efficacy.
The desire to help others this #GivingTuesday is a noble one. It’s evidence of humanity’s best traits. But taking the time to seek out trusted organizations, while supporting causes you genuinely care about will help make your dollars truly count.
