As we close in on the end of the course and prepare to vote, I'd like to make a change of pace with my post this week: Revisiting a topic we discussed earlier in the semester: The importance, or lack of importance, of intent.
One of the first videos we discussed in class was a segment from The Daily Show where Samantha Bee shed light upon the hypocrisy of an oil company painting fracking drill-bits pink and donating 100 thousand dollars to the Susan G. Komen foundation. At the conclusion of our debates, we had never reached a unifying consensus on the issue. A large number of us argued that money is money and the company's ulterior motives weigh little into the fact that a donation was being made. The rest held that philanthropy is more than just giving out handouts, a donors intention is just as if not more important.
3 years ago, the pornographic video site, Pornhub, underwent a several philanthropic campaigns. The company intended to raise breast cancer awareness by offering free breast exams and donating money for every view on specific categories of films. At the end of their month of campaigning, their videos had ammassed over 74 million views. However, when the organization offered their donation to the Susan G. Komen Foundation, it was rejected. In response, the website tripled the donation and split the money amongst several other charities. Did the Susan G. Komen Foundation make the right decision? If the foundation's mission was to raise awareness for breast cancer and work towards a cure, how does millions of views and thousands of dollars not work towards that goal? Does Pornhub's subjectively moral questionability matter at all? Does it matter that Pornhub gained a lot of positive press and attention as well as visits to their website?
In a past tweet, I mentioned how the One Laptop per Child Foundation worked to bring technology to impoverished children to empower self education and learning augmented by the power of connectivity, and computing. Their most famous initiative was dubbed "Give One Get One". G1G1 allowed people to obtain one of their laptops by buying two machines: One for the purchaser, and one that would be sent to a child in a developing nation. The program was widely lauded and successful, or so it seemed at first. After years of the program, investigators uncovered an uncomfortable truth. A large portion of the computers sent abroad were popping up on grey markets like ebay. The recipients of the laptops, or their parents, held their monetary value over their educational one and were selling them online. OLPC had a mission of improving education in third world countries by utilizing the power of technology, but instead, their efforts fell through: The G1G1 program ended soon after.
These contrasting examples of philanthropy are intended to make you question the importance of intent again. Would you rather give to an organization with good motives and lackluster results, or would you give to one with questionable or more ambiguous motives but concrete numbers to show their effectiveness? Are donors to G1G1 at fault for failing to foresee the program's side effects? Do your current thoughts regarding the "Pink Fracking" video match with your original impressions?
I hope that this tangent from the normal blog posts is a nice departure to what may sometimes feel like more of a fight for one's opinions as opposed to being about philanthropy itself. No matter what our final decision is, I don't think anyone can say they haven't left with a new understanding of the entire concept of giving and we should remember that more than our vote.
Tim, I love your post. I think you make a lot of sense, and this was an area of argument I happened to enjoy debating in the beginning of our class. My opinion was that intent is everything in philanthropy. To me, there is a large difference between acts of charity and acts of philanthropy. Charity is giving someone your money, philanthropy is giving someone your time. That's the simplest way I've been able to describe it to myself.
ReplyDeleteThe G1G1 campaign is a great example of charity. It requires money to do, but not so much time. The lack of time put into research about the after effects means this isn't philanthropy. The intent was overshadowed by the gift itself. This doesn't mean it's a bad thing, though. Charity is good and needed. But it wasn't an act of philanthropy, because it failed to do what we spend a semester doing--analyzing the actual results of what giving means. Giving a child a computer they didn't want as much as the money is good charity, but failed philanthropy.
Conversely, your example of Pornhub's fundraiser is a good example of philanthropy. There's the intent and the thought. Using breast exams as motivations is funny, as a nod to the website's pornographic intention, but it is also thought out to reference the issue they're tackling. The aim of donating money to an organization ( though a questionable one, as Susan G. Koman isn't necessarily the best around) was matched by Pornhub's intentions and research into what it would take to make their campaign effective. Personally, I'm glad Susan G. Koman turned down their donation. I'm glad they went ahead and tripled the amount, just to make their point--they want to help. Sometimes the intent can outweigh everything--who the donor is or how much they can help. If they want to help, let them.
Tim, I love your post. I think we need to be reminded of how important intent is in our class. At the end of the day, we have $10,000 and a bunch of great organizations. So, now we ask ourselves--how do we want to help? And how do we get started?
Tim, thank you for sharing your thoughts. Both of your examples are thought provoking and interesting. However, I would argue against what Rachel said in regards to intent. In my opinion, intent matters much less than the effect that acts of philanthropy can have. Regardless of how money is raised or how it is intended to be used, the overall effect that it has is what is important in the end. Philanthropy is using your resources in order to make the world around you better. If the money or goods being donated is making the world a better place, than that is successful philanthropy in my mind.
ReplyDeleteThe first case you brought up, Pornhub, is perhaps considered immoral by many but it is in no way illegal. The elaborate fundraising for breast cancer may have had other intentions (marketing the company in a both humorous and serious manner) but they set out to raise money to donate. The Susan G. Komen Foundation may have felt pressure to not accept the donation because of the degrading, misogynistic content on Pornhub, but in the end, money is money. I have to say that I am happy that Komen denied the donation because it ended up being tripled.
The OLPC G1G1 strategy I do believe was successful philanthropy. Though the donated laptops may not have had the intent that they wanted, the goods that they donated were able to monetized, and that money could have fed an impoverished family for a while. So even though the laptops specifically were not being used, the donation did do its part to counteract poverty and hunger.
For our final decision in class, I think it is important to think about the effect and impact that our money will have in different organizations. In the end though, I think all of the organizations are very deserving. No matter where the money goes, we will be doing our little part to try to make the world a better place.
Thanks for the responses, Alec and Rachel. It was interesting to hear different viewpoints regarding this topic.
ReplyDeleteAlec, I liked your point that although OLPC's intended use of the laptops was not carried out, the recipients still benefited from it. Would you argue that the fact that the laptops were still utilized in a different way made up for OLPC's lack of foresight?
Rachel, I enjoyed reading your perspective on the G1G1 debacle. I had chosen that example as a concession to the "intent > result" argument and I'm a bit surprised that it had an opposite effect for you. OLCP had good intent, which you agreed with, but demonstrated poor results. I felt it showed that intent does not always make an action more philanthropic and it's interesting to see a different spin on what I expected.
Tim, I really want to thank you for bringing a much needed breath of fresh air to this final weeks of this semester. While I clicked on this post to read about something that wasn't our finalist organizations, I really appreciated the fact that you connected the material we covered in the first portion of this course with the fundamental act of giving to a real organization. In recent reflection, I felt that the course was concretely divided between the philosophy and the actual giving. Along with our discussion of intent, we heavily covered the concept of head vs heart and how our personal interests could sway our giving. In recent weeks, I have felt that our class has been very heart-driven and wonder if the first part of the class was just too theoretical for us to actually apply.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the situations you brought up, I think that it is silly that Susan G. Komen didn't accept the contribution from PornHub, considering the direction that breast cancer awareness has gone (i heart boobies campaign and similar other awareness stunts). While I might think that it was fiscally arrogant as it displayed that they don't need that money that badly, I do respect the rights for founders of an organization to lead the organization with a moral code of their choosing.
To contrast that with the G1G1 situation, I think that was an example of trial and error. The organization gave the computers with good faith that the families receiving the laptops would have the same moral intention as they did, but their priorities just didn't match up. I would equate that situation to giving money to a person on the street. If you choose to reach out an give a couple dollars to a person, it doesn't mean that you can dictate what that person has to do with the dollar. The person giving the money can't really be mad if they see that same person using money for anything but necessities. It's obviously different with organizations, but I would argue the same premise.
Hi Tim,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your blog post. You asked some very important, hard-hitting questions that I have personally been struggling to deal with and answer all semester. I really can understand both sides. The Susan G. Komen foundation, from a public image perspective, probably did not want to be associated with a pornographic website, however that money is still valuable and can contribute towards research. Although the whole "think pink" premise gets kind of in your face, breast cancer is an absolutely terrible disease.
I think the conclusion I've reached at the end of our class regarding this dilemma is that it really depends on the individual. I think for me personally, the issue of intent must be treated on a case-by-case basis. If we know the money is going to surely help a cause, intent or not intent, the money should be donated. It's nice to think that we are all doing things for purely selfless reasons, but let's face it, we're all human and sometimes we get pressed into giving.
I think the most important part about your blog post is that you're recognizing the point of the class. Yes, we are giving away 10,000 but at the end of the day we're really trying to learn how to become better philanthropists so we can give most effectively and help a community/person in need.
This was a very interesting post and I really enjoyed reading it. I think most of the questions you have posed are extremely though provoking. I had heard of the PornHub controversy before, and I still don't know how I feel about it. If anything the pink drill bits disturb me even more. The fact that susan g. koman foundation accepted a $100,000 donation from a company whose business directly contributes to cancer in the US but not from a porn site is kind of disturbing. There was not reason for PornHub to start this campaign other then their desire to donate money (and possibly also gain good publicity). On the the hand, accepting money from the drilling company kind of seems like blood money. So in this case, the intent of PornHub honestly seems more pure then the intent of the drilling company.
ReplyDeleteI think your example of the G1G1 campaign is also very interesting. The intent to help children in impoverished situations is obviously present. However, their execution of the program could have obviously been better. This makes me slightly worried that even though we have such great intentions, it might not actually lead anywhere. We just have to have faith in the organizations and in our selves.