Georgia Levenson Keohane will be a CEP guest blogger from January 25 – February 5, 2010.
Last week I proposed a giving guide for Lloyd Blankfein. Today I focus on those of us unencumbered by seven- and eight-figure bonuses. Although as a field we may aspire to long-term vision and strategy, ‘‘smart” philanthropy this year is simple: just give. And just give to basic needs.
Whether or not the recovery is underway does not change the immediate facts: millions of Americans are out of work, struggling to hold onto their homes, and relying on food stamps and local pantries to feed their families. The latest census data – which measures conditions in 2008 – reveal only the initial effects of the recession: a 3.5 percent drop in median income and a significant increase in poverty, particularly child poverty.
While the stimulus is helping to stave off severe crises for many, the state governments responsible for providing much of the social safety net are broke, and the charities trying to plug the gaps have themselves experienced a massive drop in donations. There is perhaps one silver lining to this awful recession: a clear path for giving.
What to give to: basic needs
In November, the Center for High Impact Philanthropy published High Impact Philanthropy in the Downturn. This is an excellent giving resource, which calls attention to spikes in need in housing, health, and hunger relief, and profiles organizations which themselves are deserving of charitable support and which offer cost-effective models of service delivery to be funded across the country.
In particular, the report highlights nonprofits working to prevent foreclosures, community health centers, emergency food providers, and organizations which help link eligible families with public benefits.
While giving along these lines to meet basic needs may seem like an obvious charitable step, the truth is that a remarkably small percentage of giving in the United States goes to anti-poverty work.
An important but often overlooked study undertaken in 2007 by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University and Google found that less than one-third of the money individuals give to nonprofits was focused on the needs of the poor:
- Of the $250 billion in donations, less than $78 billion explicitly targeted those in need
- Eight percent of household-donated dollars went to things like food or shelter
- An additional 23percent of total private philanthropy (from foundations, corporations, estates) went to programs specifically intended to help people of low income.
Although we don’t know whether these giving patterns held in 2009, we do know that “basic needs” have exploded in the recession. And while much talk in philanthropic circles, particularly within institutional philanthropy, centers on the importance of long-term, strategic giving to address the root causes of social and economic problems, today’s crisis of joblessness – and its attendant stress and hardship – should be of paramount concern to all donors. This year band-aids are important, too.
Where to Give: Locally
An emphasis on giving to meet basic needs in the U.S. may seem to privilege local over global philanthropy. Let’s be clear: poverty in the United States in no way resembles the abject and miserable conditions that millions of people endure – and die from – in the developing world.
In a recent Slate post, Sandy Stonesifer , program coordinator at the Center for Global Development, discusses the dilemma in the choice between giving locally and globally. While she says that donors must decide their own giving preferences, she also states “if you subscribe to the belief that all lives are created equally – and your giving is aimed at saving human lives or reducing suffering – your donations will almost always yield greater returns when given (to reputable organizations) internationally.”
This is the fashionable – and logically sound – view of today’s philanthro-philosophy. Princeton’s Peter Singer (The Life You Can Save) contends that spending money on non-essentials (i.e., a nice pair of shoes) instead of on donations to prevent unnecessary death in developing countries is morally indefensible. “Is it possible,” he asks, “that by choosing to spend your money on such things rather than contributing to an aid agency, you are leaving a child to die, a child you could have saved?”
Prima facie, this argument is tough to dispute, mostly because the ‘cost’ of saving a life of extreme poverty is relatively cheap (according to NYU philosopher Peter Unger, it’s about $200). Yet ‘bang for the buck’ is not a strong case against local giving; indeed it is a false choice that one must decide between local and global action.
Perhaps the more valuable contribution of the moral philosophers is not to rank human needs so much as to suggest that, if it is within our means, we have an ethical obligation to give: to make a difference in our communities, however we define them.
How Much to Give: A Meaningful Percent
Peter Singer takes this one step further with his giving calculator. Like others, Singer advocates earmarking a percentage of our earnings for charity. His recommended fractions are both hefty and progressive: the more you have, the more you give, ranging from 5 percent of income for “well-off” Americans to 33 percent for the “superrich.”
According to Singer’s projections, 10 percent of American families can raise $471 billion for the world’s poorest, surpassing the $189 billion a year required to meet Millennium Development Goals to eliminate extreme poverty. I’ve oversimplified Singer’s graduated scheme, and there has been much debate about his particular choice of numbers.
Yet the general point holds: Singer makes a strong case for giving away as much as we can without materially altering our own standard of living. Carving out a predetermined portion of income is a useful discipline when it comes to household philanthropy.
How Much to Give: In-Kind is Good, Too
Just how ambitious we are about this giving percentage depends on a number of factors; in the recession, many Americans have been forced to curtail their charitable donations. However, Singer-style aspirational giving targets remain useful, particularly in the local context, where in-kind giving and volunteerism can substitute for dollar donations and play a critical role in strengthening communities.
Consider, for example, clothing donations. In international philanthropy, many charities report that the logistical and transportation costs of donated clothing far exceed their value on the ground. In the U.S., in contrast, winter coat drives have proven an effective way to provide inexpensive and much-needed clothing for those in need.
This year local food banks in the U.S. have also been actively soliciting food donations: although cash is typically more valuable to these organizations, nonperishable foodstuffs can provide immediate relief and an important vehicle for giving when cash is tight.
The same holds for volunteerism. The literature on the value of community service is vast; giving time to local efforts and organizations has shown numerous individual, familial, and social benefits from good health and improved happiness to increased test scores and home values.
One does not need to parse correlation from causation to conclude that civic engagement is a good thing. And although the monetary value of volunteerism is elusive, it is a real and increasingly meaningful figure for many nonprofits whose budgets have been hit hard by plummeting public and private revenues.
The most recent data from Independent Sector show that more than one quarter of all American adults give a total of eight billion hours of volunteer service each year, worth approximately $158 billion per annum. This year, both stimulus funding and new federal legislation to increase national service opportunities recognize the importance of volunteerism to economic recovery.
Giving to basic needs – whether it’s time or money – does not mean donors are off the hook for finding worthy and effective organizations. This can be done online through sites like Guidestar, Charity Navigator or the Better Business Bureau, or by calling one of the 1,300 local United Ways. Nor does giving locally preclude aid to global crises; whether it’s helping the earthquake victims in Haiti or supporting the fight against global warming.
This year, effective philanthropy simply means recognizing that we all have an important role to play in strengthening our communities by helping to meet basic needs.
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Disclaimers and Disclosures: The views expressed in the CEP blog by guest bloggers are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Center for Effective Philanthropy.
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| Tags | economy, giving, individual philanthropy, nonprofit sector, volunteerism. basic needs |
