Any thoughts at all. Over the past month or so, I've gotten into a surprising number of conversations with people about charities, donating, volunteer work, etc. The sheer spectrum of perspectives I've come across has been really impressive. Since you Hubski users in general are both A) insightful as fuck and B) able to bring in some pretty interesting perspectives yourselves, I'm really interested to hear what you guys have to say.
"Charities" is a really broad term that encompasses a lot. I have little patience or support for faith-based charities, for example. My experience with them have been off-putting. Working with people with good energy and drive, but spending their time in ways that largely makes them feel good, but has little effect on the issue they are addressing. I've worked with arts-based non-profit organizations for many, many years, and people often lump 501(c)3 not-for-profit orgs into the "charities" bucket. I believe the arts, and participating in them, changes a person deeply, long beyond the specific event or thing they are working on. So I love working with these orgs. But you often get a whole lot of creative-minded people heading in 100 directions at once, with little coordinated action. Herding cats. But the cats are having fun and making art, so ... it's generally good? There is also the act of charity. My wife brings a lot of second hand clothes, bags, shoes, etc, to a local (licensed) homeless encampment. They are definitely not a profitable organization, but the whole idea is for it to be temporary, as people pull themselves up and make use of other community services to get back on their feet. So that "charity" is in action, not necessarily in organization, or officially-recognized org working on a nation-wide scale. So that's my opinion. Since ya asked.
This is a #vaguequestionsbypablo kind of post. I wanted to keep it broad. ;) I think one of the nice things about people who want to do good in the world is that actively attempting to do so makes them literally feel good. It's a feeling that really reinforces the behavior. Whether particular individuals are faith driven or not in their desire to help, people with that kind of drive are probably a good resource for well informed, well equipped, well organized organizations that have the experience to really do a lot of good. Do you have any experiences that really stand out to you? Something super positive and encouraging or something that you walked away from feeling like you've really gained something as an individual?"Charities" is a really broad term that encompasses a lot.
Working with people with good energy and drive, but spending their time in ways that largely makes them feel good, but has little effect on the issue they are addressing.
Since ya asked.
True, and I do not ever want to discourage someone from helping out in any way they can... but often undirected help like this does more to hurt, than help. The unintended consequences from "good feeling/low value" help can be huge. Small example... People wanted to help out the homeless. So they put together a book drive to give them books to make their lives a little brighter, to educate them, whatever. Everyone goes "woo hoo! great idea!" and grabs all their old Danielle Steele novels they have had in boxes in their suburban garage for a decade, and brings it to the "helpers". The helpers deliver the books to the homeless, who are appreciative of the effort, but a little perplexed why people think they want/need books. Libraries are free. And warm. And dry. And books are heavy. And get wet easily. Then get heavier. And when everything you own is in a backpack, cart, or a tent illegally pitched under a freeway, you don't want more weight. Or something that becomes useless when it gets wet. So the homeless people move on, get chased out of wherever they are. ...and... There is an enormous scattering of pages and books and romance novels littering everywhere. And the locals who were NOT a part of the "Help the Homeless with Books" project and are unaware of the project, see the homeless have left a huge pile of garbage. Garbage that is nothing but romance novels and other dreck. So clearly these flaky homeless people are just laying around all day, not getting a job, and reading romance novels. So the locals get even further hardened to the homeless and the situation, and see them as "lazy bums" rather than people who had useless shit foisted off on them they didn't ask for and were unable to properly dispose of because ... well ... their broke and homeless. This is just one example I can list of many-a-good-intention gone wrong. ---------------- Stand out volunteering experiences, you ask? Yeah. Two. Meals On Wheels. Three years in a row I delivered fresh-cooked Thanksgiving meals to shut-ins and the elderly who didn't have family or others for the holiday. Good deal, right? Nope. Mostly delivered to rich neighborhoods - way richer than mine! - where I'd knock, they'd open the door a crack, snatch the box, and slam the door without saying anything. Half the time the person wasn't even a senior citizen. (Yeah, so it also helped people who were agoraphobic, etc, but ... it was clear that the vast majority of those I delivered to were gaming the system for free food, and were not in any sort of Need.) ------- FareStart There is no more incredible or inspiring project on the goddamn planet than FareStart. On the street? No skills? Addicted? No support? End of your rope? Ready to turn your life around? FareStart. It is essentially a job training program to give people useful kitchen skills, and then place them in the jobs, with a support network and long-term support. But it is so much more. Life skills. Anger management. Checkbook balancing. How to find and rent an apartment. Drug rehab. Computer skills. Resume writing. SO MANY THINGS. And you don't wind up being a dishwasher in a Denny's, either. The thing is that FareStart is ALSO a restaurant. A really GOOD restaurant. In the heart of the Seattle business district. That is actively supported by the biggest names in the culinary industry. Guest Chef Night is when a chef (sometimes world famous ones, like Tom Douglas) comes in and designs a fixed meal. The chef pays for all the food and supplies. The chef works all day with the FareStart students and teaches them to make the meal. Side-by-side. The students are the servers. The sous chefs. The desert chefs. The cooks. The dishwashers. The drink stewards. EVERYTHING. They are trained in EVERY part of a fine dining experience. Oh. And Guest Chef Night? It happens every single week. When you graduate you get a choice of jobs to choose from, at high-quality restaurants, because, you know that Guest Chef that taught you to make that salad nicoise back in April? Yeah. They liked you. They saw you had knife skills, and said when you graduate, they want you to come work for them. From homeless on the street, to working in the kitchen with Thierry Roederer, or Tom Douglas, or the Canlis kitchen, with a FUCKING CAREER PATH, and a loving support system both at FareStart, and in the restaurant itself... all in about 3 months. And they've been doing this for thirty years. "What about Volunteering?" I hear you cry... Anybody can come in and volunteer to help out. Serve water. Serve drinks. Get people to their tables. Clear dishes. My family has done this more times than I can count. I have participated with entire departments at employers, who all decided it sounded like fun, and it changed their lives. And graduation night? Yeah. People who were homeless and broke six months ago get to stand in their dress kitchen whites, get their set of culinary knives, and talk about their story and the job they are going to. I am actually, sitting at my desk at work, writing this with tears running down my face. It is so fucking amazing and beautiful and fantastic. The world can be a beautiful place, man. I think one of the nice things about people who want to do good in the world is that actively attempting to do so makes them literally feel good.
Which is why it's important to work with well equipped and informed organizations. I tried to imply that, I guess I didn't come across clearly enough. I remember doing Meals on Wheels with the family when I was younger. It was quite a bit of a different experience back then. I wonder if the differences are due to time or regions or maybe just who's in charge of a certain branch.This is just one example I can list of many-a-good-intention gone wrong.
I think you and OftenBen might find the book Strangers Drowning by Larissa MacFarquhar interesting. It's precisely that: a plethora of perspectives on how to be charitable, from different kinds of people in different parts in the world, interspersed with the ideas and history of altruism. Singer gets mentioned often (not always charitably). Personally, I think charities are most useful when they use their expertise to enable people or places to make significant progress. That can be progress in technology, government or research. There are more than enough charities focused on 'awareness' (read: viral marketing) that could die in a fire and the world wouldn't be worse off. *cough*susangkomencough* I also think that there's this bigger category of 'Doing Good in the World' that is much more important to me. It might be naive to consider it reachable, but I want to leave the world better than I found it. To quote Augustus: "I found Rome a city of brick, and left it a city of marble"The sheer spectrum of perspectives I've come across has been really impressive.
Ut iure sit gloriatus marmoream se relinquere, quam latericiam accepisset*.
I mean who doesn't like charities. My problem is with people who think they do a better job of helping people than the part of society that literally has a record of almost everyone and what kind of help they might need. When I lived in Alabama this summer and needed medicine I went to the university mental health clinic and had to apply for charity to pay the public university not to help me (it's a long, stupid story). UAB sent me a bill for about $300 for a twenty minute assessment which I threw away. Georgia has a surprisingly robust public mental health infrastructure and I get medicine now with limited difficulty off the rip. I've stayed in 100% charity housing that was varying levels of difficulty to get into from easy to fuck you, go away. Yeah. It's cool. It serves a purpose. But the rich people who think it's a magic bullet for societal ills haven't had to rely on charity and the real world experience of getting help from a charity isn't sunshine and blow jobs.
One of the really interesting facets of a conversation I was lucky to be a part of, was that sometimes organizations are great at tackling certain individual issues, but due to limitations might not be able to tackle underlying causes short of bringing attention to them. The hypothetical example that came up was an organization that helps people get rid of intestinal worms is great at treating the symptom of worms, but if the health conditions that the people live in aren't addressed, the problem is going to continue. I think that general idea can apply in so many different situations.Yeah. It's cool. It serves a purpose. But the rich people who think it's a magic bullet for societal ills haven't had to rely on charity and the real world experience of getting help from a charity isn't sunshine and blow jobs.
People often ask for money on the street here in Russia. They can be persistent, like following you till the end of the street, trying to masturbate you with their stories of how they're decent people and just need a bit of money to travel/eat/survive. I decline every time. I was wary of it always: maybe because I can't automatically relate to a person's suffering, or maybe because I was conditioned (or self-conditioned) not to engage with panhanlders and the like. One time, an older woman chatted me up for a bit of money "for a loaf of bread", softening me up with a sob story of how she used to work at a factory and now can't do anything - tears and all. I gave her twice more than she asked for, and only later, disengaged, berated myself for not noticing the distinct burn of alcohol around her. I regret falling for the old trick to this day, because I regret mistrusting people; it hits me hard, for what little trust for the world that I've accumulated. Since then, I'm determined not to give money to people who ask for it in person, unless I know them. I'll give a few rubles for transportation to a groupmate, and I'll add change to your small shop purchase if you're lacking. If you seem nice, there's a chance I'll give you transport money. If you're a pretty girl, I will absolutely give you transport money if I have any, because I'm pathetically needy for female attention and appreciation. I'm donating to Water.org and plan to donate to other charities once my income expands. The important part, for me, is that, maybe, I can trust faceless organizations to do better than single persons — even though those organizations consist inevitably of single persons. For me, it's about following a cause: if you do and if the cause resonates with me (the bigger and more humanitarian the idea, the better), I'm with you. I'll share my knowledge, advice, time and effort freely for a good cause. I'll help a friend's friend fix their PC or move. Just not money. If I don't know your ways, I won't share my money with you.