Imagine a world where we had an awards show for philanthropy every year, just like the Oscars the other night. All of the stars would be there! Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey. There would be categories for Best Athlete Philanthropist and Best Actor Philanthropist, Biggest Donor and Best Breakout Philanthropist, Best Domestic Charity and Best International Charity. It would be a forum for top philanthropists to share their ideas and an opportunity for the general public to learn about new, great causes. In an ideal world, this might be the one award show I really looked forward to watching year after year. But this is not an ideal world. This is a world where motives are mixed, everything is either over or under analyzed, and we all have three different opinions about the same question.
If every year the philanthropist superstars of the world gathered for a big awards show, I think three things would happen. First, excessively wealthy people would look to increase their fame and popularity by trying to win these awards. This in itself is not so horrible, because while selfish and lacking nobility, giving is giving and giving for the wrong reasons should be better than not giving at all. The second issue however is that not all giving is good. Celebrities acting philanthropically for the sake of winning an award is bound to generate charities that are under researched and provide more harm than good. Charities that take autonomy away from the local populations, or charities that objectify individuals for their “faces you can’t refuse.” The problem with celebrities is that everybody wants to emulate them. So when they create failed charities, their followers will create or support failed charities too. The donations market will be diluted, positive charities will receive less funding because so many new ones are receiving too much more.
Donation dilution is what worries me. All those others things worry me too, but an excessive growth in the number of charities out there worries me the most. The issue is, we can’t simply put all out efforts into just one issue at a time, as we proved in class while discussing Peter Singer’s ultra-picky/snobby selection of worthy charities. At the same time however, we can’t have an excessive amount of options to donate our money or time to, because this will dilute the donations market. As we begin to think about charities we are going to give our grants to, we need to beware this dilution in two ways. We do not want to split our money too many times, because that will greatly reduce the effectiveness of our grants. Further, we need to be aware of “diluters,” charities that serve to dilute the donation marker more than they benefit those they are intended to benefit. Specifically, this means staying away from organizations that are ineffective. This is not to say that these charities do not deserve to exist, but rather that the kind of help they need to be successful is beyond the scope of our grant giving capabilities.
Great post, Jason. Although I didn't get a chance to watch The Oscars this year, in the past when I've seen it I'm always struck by how unbelievably expensive it all is. The designer gowns, the limos, the after-parties - all of it is beyond what I can imagine. I didn't know this until recently, but apparently each nominee receives a gift bag (endorsed by a separate company, not by the Academy itself) and this year its contents totaled $125,000 in material gifts and certificates. Why not give some money to a charity rather than a losing actor? It's just wrong.
ReplyDeleteI also wish that people could regard philanthropists in the same light as celebrities, but I agree that if there was a philanthropic equivalent to the Oscars, it would become corrupted somehow. For one thing, people would be pouring so much money into it, when they could be spending that money on the charities themselves. I suppose that this would be offset by the increase in donations and awareness.
About the donation dilution issue, I think it's important for there to be enough charities out there to meet otherwise unmet needs, but I agree that we can't spread our money too thin. I think that the problem of judging whether or not our aid is going to be good enough to make a real difference in the organization will be a difficult one. I am going to try and go into it with the attitude that our first objective will be to help the organization make a more permanent improvement to their organization, one that will allow them to run more efficiently in the long term, but I will keep in mind the idea that even if we can't help change an organization permanently, hopefully the organization will use the money we give them to make a lasting difference in someone's life.
I loved your post, Jason. Very timely and creative. In addition to creating an interesting scenario for us to imagine, you brought up an important issue that we have hardly discussed in class. Donation dilution is almost the opposite of a monopoly, although neither one works on the level of nonprofit organizations. The two ends of the spectrum, there being too many organizations for one main issue and there being too few, both pose issues. You focused mainly on avoiding dilution, both by splitting our money into too many smaller parts, leaving us with less impactful grants, and by avoiding charities that are too small and thus dilute the potential for large impact by focusing donations on a larger, more powerful organization. Similarly to the point we raised based on Singer’s effectiveness argument, though less extreme, is also being careful of donating to the huge monolithic organizations for fear of not knowing where our money is actually going. While we all tore apart Singer’s argument with the idea that should everyone donate to the single most effective cause and charity, all other issues would be completely neglected until that one “most effective” disappeared, a more real-world application is that for each main issue, one organization could monopolize the donations. The problem with this is that each issue is multifaceted, and in order for a diversity of perspective, many charities, some small and some big, are needed in order to completely cover any one issue, generally speaking of course. I think you raised a really interesting point, definitely something for us to consider as we go into the grant making process. While it may be difficult for us to narrow down the pool of applicants to a select few, in order to avoid donation dilution we should be as picky as possible.
ReplyDeleteJason, I really like your post. One thing you wrote that I think is important is the concept of people wanting to emulate celebrities. We see this every year in the wake of awards ceremonies as peoples' fashion choices mimic the red carpet; downloads for award winning movies and records flourish; Tumblr and Facebook are riddled with pictures and gifs of jokes from the ceremony people will laugh at for the next few months. Our consumer-based society drives us to mimic what we see done by those famous and fabulously wealthy. This means we mimic their actions, as well.
ReplyDeleteIn the past there have been examples of celebrities using their time in the limelight to bring awareness to issues in society. Marlon Brando refused an award for his performance in The Godfather, and instead sent a young native American woman who talked about the atrocities at Wounded Knee. More recently, Beyoncé is labeling herself as a feminist through her performances. Pharrell Williams and Beyoncé both used "Hands Up Don't Shoot" in their performances at the Grammys. We have an increasing number of celebrities using their fame so their following will learn about these societal and systemic issues. And this gives me hope.
However, this works both ways. While some celebrities use their influence for good, others don't. Justin Bieber showed his fan base being arrested is a joke and making fun of people in customer service and retail is fine. Robin Thicke told women to accept systemic sexism, because us women only exist to please men like him. Curtis Lepore, the famous Vine user, told his fan base he raped a woman but he was allowed to because consent is stupid and forces sex is "sexy". Celebrities can make a difference to consumers, because we will tailor our behavior to what they teach us.
Jason, I love your idea of a philanthropic award show. I think yes, there would be flaws. But the bottom line is it would create more of a black-and-white picture of who would make efforts to help others and make society a better place. Young people will begin to see philanthropy they way we see Album of the Year or Best Actress--I wanna see that, I wanna hear that, I wanna make that. And suddnely we're raising the next generation of philanthropists, capable of making a real difference in society.
I think people in the limelight only have 15 minutes. So, here's to hoping they make some significant use of it.
Hi Jason,
ReplyDeleteI really liked what you had to say and thought that your blog post was very original. I wish there was some way we could recognize those who donate without the worries of their intentions. As I was reading your blog, I thought of the scene from "Legally Blonde" when Elle Woods talks about her "philanthropy work" as part of her sorority in order to help convince the admissions counselors at Harvard Law to admit her. Using philanthropy to further your own personal benefit and putting your name in the spotlight is not what philanthropy is about. While giving is still giving, it is unfortunate when people don't give from the heart. We should all aspire to be a philanthropist like Anita who saw issues in her community and decided to do something about it.
Jason, thank you for choosing an original, creative, and relevant topic. The issue of "donation dilution" has been one that has been picking at the back of my head since the course began: Where is the sweet spot where (effectiveness) / (# of charities) is at its highest. Although you disagree with the "ultra-picky/snobby" Singer, I am pleased to see your open-minded view that addresses choosing a select few effective organizations is the best way to go. During our discussion on Giving Circles and our panel with Anita, we learned that her circle voted to donate to only one organization and they donated 100 thousand dollars. With our budget at a measly one-tenth of Anita's circle, diluting the pot serves to severly lessen our money's effectiveness.
ReplyDeleteI propose striving for one organization to donate to. In my previous blog comment to Hannah regarding how to come to an agreement in our decision, I argued that we should all be as open minded as possible and relax our opinions to make a donation that the vast majority of the class will approve of. Although this is a difficult task, I believe that it is necesary if we want our donation to be effective.
Jason, I really liked the creativity of your post. It would be an interesting idea to host a sort of awards ceremony for those who greatly excelled in philanthropy. Though it would be a great example to set for those watching and get inspired to donate or do community service as well, I do agree that "glamorizing" philanthropic work can create many problems that can, in turn, greatly effect the way we donate and how successful our donations will be. I've commented this before in our group discussions in class and in previous blog comments, but I don't agree with people trying to publicize their own philanthropy. In this sense, I don't think it is positive or effective to apply your name to the charity work that you do, BUT I do think that it is important to publicize the actual work that you do to inspire others and set an example. I believe work and donations should be done anonymously to avoid any type of competition or glamorization, so the idea of an awards show in general is a bit against what I think philanthropy should be all about.
ReplyDeleteWith that being said, I think I'm going to have to disagree with Tim on the point of only donating to one charity. I agree with Jason in that we should strive to limit the amount of charities that we want to donate to so that our money can be effective, but to say that we should really only be donating to one charity and focusing on one cause is something that is impossible for a class of 20+ people to come to an agreement on and just doesn't seem remotely beneficial to the Binghamton community in general. The way I view this task of donating money as a class is that we want to choose a couple (2-3) charities that request our help in order to both effectively use our money AND assist as many charities as we can to further improve the community as a whole and not just one sector or area of concern. I think that if I had a personal amount of $10,000 to donate, I wouldn't want to give it to just one charity with one cause, but to a few charities so that my donation wouldn't be linear, but hit a multitude of areas.