But how do I choose?!? Some thoughts on year-end giving

Its that time of year when there is an all-time high of people in my community asking my opinion about giving and charity. I'm writing this for my personal blog, but in such a way that I hope it is shareable with all of our broader networks. It is by no means comprehensive, but its a start. When you, dear reader, are asked by your cousin or co-worker or housemate about giving, I hope this is something you will find useful to share!

Some of the questions I've gotten this week include: how do you know that the money is actually going to "the cause"? If an organization sends glossy fancy mailings multiple times year does that mean they're spending too much on overhead? Should I give to causes in the global South where things seem much more dire, or give domestically?

Should i give to large organizations that are well-established, with far reach and tried and true structure? Small or newer organizations that are doing experimental work? Give to a foundation, that has a specific focus and has a process for evaluating organizations, or "cut out the middle man" and give straight to the organizations?

Political advocacy and lobbying, or traditional 501c3? Give my time and personal growth by participating in a cross-class decision-making process about my and others' donation dollars? Or entrust the resources i'm stewarding to poor, working, and middle class leaders to make the decisions about where the money will be best used?

The goal of this post is not to hand anyone a proscribed method of giving, or precisely the vehicles or organizations your money should go to. I want to lay out a reminder on the different vehicles or types of giving you can do; and also some of the basics of what i think it means to be a responsible and accountable philanthropist and donor working for progressive social change. Check out Resource Generation's page on social change philanthropy for more info, or order RG's Social Change Giving Plan Workbook. The organization Bolder Giving also has great resources and stories on giving and philanthropic practices.

Some types of places to give...

• Non-profit 501c3 organizations: Much social justice work happens within non-profits, often called “501c3s” because of the IRS charitable status. Replace the word "philanthropy" with "non-profit," and many of these social change philanthropy principles are applicable to running a social justice non-profit org. The federal government incentivizes donations to 501c3s by making them tax-deductible, making them a popular favorite. I love to debate the collective societal cost/benefit of the government subsidizing charity, but that's a different blog post.
• Non non-profit community groups: The concept of the non-profit as *the* way to work for social justice is a relatively new and often times limiting model. Some important projects working for social change can't afford, or choose to avoid, the rigamaroll and red tape it takes to establish and run an institution like a 501c3. Some of the most groundbreaking work around migrant justice, for instance, is happening around personal kitchens or in church groups (this was also the case for myriad historical "movement moments" including anti-apartheid organizing in South Africa and Civil Rights organizing in the US South, to name two). Push yourself to look and think outside the box of the non-profit model. What might be brewing in your own backyard?
• Political lobbying or advocacy organizations: A key to any social change is shifting power. This includes who is elected into government, who can affect legislation, and what laws are on the books. Organizations that are working in these arenas to amplify the voices of people most directly impacted by injustice, get truly progressive people into office, get corporations out of bed with politics, etc. are crucial. Legally these organizations are often classified as 501c4s, PACs (Political Action Committees), individual candidates' campaigns, political parties, and more. Here is one example: the "New York Social Justice PAC."
• Social justice foundations: My definition of a social justice foundation is one that is committed to (1) funding work that is addressing the root causes of injustice, and (2) having grant decisions made by people most directly affected by oppression and injustice - aka, the people with the big money don't decide where it is most needed, they work alongside or hand over decision-making power to people with marginalized voices - poor and working class people, people of color, LGBTQ people, women, indigenous people, immigrants, etc. Here is one list of some social justice foundations, and here is a list of the foundations in the former Funding Exchange network. Checking out their current & former grantees is also a great way to find organizations doing work "on the ground."
• Donor circles:  Also known as giving circles or funding pools, donor circles can take many forms. Generally, they involve a group of individuals coming together to pool their resources, and make giving decisions collectively. Giving circles are great because they are a way to include the leadership of non-wealthy people in decision-making. More explanations and examples here on RG's website.

A responsible and social change oriented donor generally...

• ...gives to organizations led by the people directly affected by the cause they are tackling and amplifies the voices of people of color, poor and working class people, indigenous people, women and trans people, LGBTQ people, immigrants, people with disabilities, incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, and more.
• ...is clear and concrete about how much they are able to give (Do: "I can commit to giving $300 this year." Don't: "I can't commit to giving you a nice-sized gift.") Descriptors are so relative!
• ...makes multi-year pledges whenever possible, so organizations can plan their work (rather than having to re-evaluate every 365 days based on funding streams).  
• ...gives to (or mostly to) general operating support. Earmarking donations only for specific programs makes it so the funders are dictating what is important to prioritize - trust the folks who work day in and day out at the organization to know where the funds will be best used. It also tends to make extra hassle and administrative work to attach strings to your donation.
• ...gives to the little guys! Organizations with annual budgets in the tens and hundreds of thousand dollars (or even smaller) are usually not even considered by larger funding streams, like foundations. Mainstream "charity guides" like CharityNavigator.org won't even rate organizations with budgets less than $1 million, so the millions of individual donors that rely on such websites as a guide won't even have smaller organizations on their radar (which sucks). A good rule of thumb is to default to supporting small - social justice - organizations that don't have the cushion of mainstream philanthropy.  
• ...supports organizations that pay all their workers a living wage to the best of their ability. There is talk in mainstream charity analysis that if too much of an organization's budget goes to Personnel or Administration, it's not going to "the actual work." Lest we forget, it costs money to run an organization! Offices, computers, healthcare, salaries..."overhead" has become like a 4-letter word in the giving/charity sector, which is devastating for the health and long-term effectiveness of most organizations.
• To caveat the above: some (mostly larger) non-profits can slip into some not-so-social-change-y ways -- like paying Directors and Fundraisers more than 3 or 4 times what other full-time employees make. If you're curious - do your homework! All non-profits are required to put their 990 Form online as a matter of public record.
• ...does their homework. People working in the arena of social change are incredibly busy (I know, we all are. I know!). So it makes a huge difference - especially to small organizations, that may not have funding to hire a donor-relations staffer - to try your darndest to do your own research. The internet is amazing - do some serious poking on organizations' websites, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, blogs, to find the information you might be looking for about an organization's work.
• ...knows that some of the most groundbreaking work is the most experimental, has the least fancy web presence, and oftentimes fails a bunch before it succeeds. Dozens of wealthy, mostly white college students and their parents helped fund the Freedom Summer of '63 (read more here). Did some of that work "fail"? Yep. Did some of it meet their goals? For sure. The donors didn't always know exactly what was happening on the ground (there was no Twitter in '63, friends) but they trusted that their dollars were part of overall movement-building, of trying things out in the name of a better world. We need more of that.  

In closing...remember: we live in an economic depression of capitalism at its worst. Money needs to be moving - don't get stuck by trying to do it all exactly right. According to a report by the National Committee on Responsive Philanthropy, in 2011 less than 12% of all granted funds went to social change philanthropy (broadly defined as "“work for structural change in order to increase the opportunity of those who are the least well off politically, economically and socially”). Any money that anyone can give towards social change is so direly needed.

So! Give big. Take some risks. We'll all be better for it.

Christmas giving creativity: parts 1 and 2

PART 1: for the past few years at x-mas i've experimented with different ways of re-directing gifts. last year, i asked people to give to a cause they cared about, and share about it on christmas morning. this prompted my aunt to give $500 to a health center in west africa that does surgery for women with vaginal fistulas, a simple procedure in a region where women are totally shunned from the community for this condition. the center seems pretty comprehensive in their work: not just in-and-out surgery, but housing, support in recovery, education...whatever my personal views on medicine and cultural sensitivity, to me the point is that my aunt moved $500 when it otherwise would've stayed in savings. the exercise, and the sharing with the rest of the fam on christmas morning, felt well worth it.

this year i asked everyone to give to resource generation. i had hoped it would spark more conversation and engagement than it did; folks didn't ask me about the work any more than the bits and pieces i've shared before. BUT, i did raise $375 for RG, which makes me far happier than any gift certificate to amazon.com ever could (the fallback gift from extended family).

what have other people tried out with giving and gift exchanges?

PART 2: this year i got $3,500 from my grandma. normally i promptly just add these annual gifts to my inheritance-bank account (where i do my giving from, and which is also about 10 times as much money as i have in my personal earnings and checking account).

2009 is the first year i was seriously giving money away; and because of working under the table for some months, not earning *that* much money overall (relatively speaking!), and complicated tax laws, i have actually hit the maximum amount i can give away and still have it be tax-deductible. i am very unclear how i feel about paying taxes. very unclear. but what i am clear on is that my dad feels strongly that giving at a slower rate over time and having it all be tax deductible will in the end save significant amounts of money, which i can then give away. money that otherwise would've gone to the government as tax. but the point here is not to talk about taxes. the point of this Part 2 is to share how i moved this money.

so this is what i did-- i wrote the check over to my parents, who have high enough income that there is no danger of hitting this magical, give-too-much-and-don't-get-tax-deduction amount. the money totally surpasses me, going straight from granny to mom & dad. then, i got to sit down with my dad and direct him where to give $4,000*!

so suddenly instead of just having granny's yearly gift meld into my bank account, i got to move it all, immediately. it felt awesome to just do it; a good practice in not thinking too hard or too long...there is definitely a time and place for thinking long, hard, strategically, but there is also a place for taking an opportunity when it arises and realizing at the end of the day, $4,000 is being given NOW to places that need it. and, i'm getting to sit with my dad and tell him snippets about where i'm directing the money, he gets to see i'm trying to be responsible with my wealth, and we both get to participate in this practice of creative philanthropy.

so, those are some stories on christmas presents. what are yours?

*the extra $500 is what they now do not have to pay in taxes- the deduction on the $3,500 worth of gifts- so they let me give that away too! $1,000 each went to: Fund For Southern Communities, USSF 2010, POOR, and RG.

talkin' to family friends

this is an email i stumbled across this morning. it's in response to an email from a dear old family friend; her email was following up on a heated-ish conversation we, her partner, and my mother had had the night before. not all of the facts and figures hold totally true for me anymore, but i thought it was worth sharing as one way i tried to articulate my politics and thoughts around wealth.

4/26/09

dear ____,

first and foremost, you in NO way fucked up in our conversations last night! no forgiveness is necessary because i never felt angry in the first place. i did not feel like you were ranting in the slightest, and figuring out "the right words to use" is hard for all of us, myself definitely included-- it comes with the territory of talking about taboo topics that we fumble or don't say exactly what we mean, and i take that as a given in any conversation i have about this stuff. i love engaging in lively conversations about money and giving and i always learn from whomever i'm talking to, last night included. i'm honored that you took the mental space and literal time, especially given all that's going on in your life, to write me today and express your views and personal decisions. really, like you said, all this shit is kept so incredibly guarded in our lives, it truly means a lot to me that you're willing to share and actively discuss it all.

all that said, it doesn't mean i don't want to continue these conversations. i don't think the first step of simply breaking the taboo of conversation should be undervalued-- just discussing money and wealth as an upper-class person feels like a radical act in and of itself. and that's a lot of what my work is and what resource generation does. just getting people to talk about their values and their money, especially simultaneously, brings up all sorts of things, some that are really hard to wrestle with.

i'm having trouble figuring out how to respond to all that you said, because i hear you on so many counts and really value your model and beliefs. it gives me a lot to think about, and is very much along the lines of what my mother had said to me that afternoon. i guess i should start with a disclaimer, which is that i am hyper-sensitive to feeling patronized, and sometimes get exasperated too quickly because i get caught up in that (which is really just my own personal shit, and has a lot to do with being so small and "cute" and "little" my whole life-- hardly money issues!). i don't feel annoyed or patronized at all by you, but it's important to know that if i start to sound exasperated, it's because i often feel like what this comes down to is people not believing that i can know myself at age 22. and again, i really hear that over time, throughout life, you and i and everybody learns and matures and grows in ways they can't anticipate. but that's exactly why i'm not giving away my whole fortune. i'll be open about numbers, because i think its the only way to have real conversations about this stuff: i have a trust fund that i inherited at 21 that had $235,000 in it (currently it has $189,000 since the market crashed). i am planning on giving away $40,000 a year for the next two years, so by the time i'm 25 i'll still have over $100,000 left. this doesn't include my personal savings, which over the years has accrued and now totals around $20,000.

so just based on those figures, the most straightforward thing i can say is that because i don't know what life looks like down the road, and because i know that i don't know all there is to know about the world, i'm still keeping a substantial amount of wealth. i have no idea what my life and needs will be in two years, so i'm keeping what i consider more than a cushion-y enough amount so i have time to continually re-evaluate my priorities and decisions.

so then there comes this ever-present, never-answered question of what is "enough." what is enough to have, what is enough to give away, what do necessity and security mean? for me, it all starts at myself, at really knowing and trusting what values i hold true, and with teasing out true and meaningful security and happiness from "extras". for example, in my opinion, everyone should be able to have the financial and community stability to be able to support aging parents. that is a priority. but by the same token, supporting and building government and community infrastructures that ensure that all aging folks can be cared for is also integrally part of what i envision in the world. and both sides of that coin are integrally a part of my own personal ability to sleep at night, my own happiness and ability to "sit right" in a truly genuine way with the world i'm living in.

i also know about myself that the world i envision doesn't give me, or anyone, the option of some of the absurd richy-rich things that wealthy people engage in. i'm not talking about you or me here! i'm talking about like, people in LA who own multi-zillion dollar homes and private jets and fancy cars. i fundamentally hold true the belief that these things are a) not necessary, b) moreover, destructive (to the earth, eco-wise, etc), and c) never going to be available to everyone and thus fundamentally unfair. and these a, b, and c are the opposite of what i was talking about with aging parents-- the security of something like that IS something i think everyone should and could have in their lives, if only our country and world were shaken up a bit. the zillion dollar homes and fancy cars, though, not so much.

i guess i bring up these two sort of extreme examples to lead to all the gray matter in between. i think about this stuff all the time, trying to be compassionate with myself and others in my/their belief of what is necessary and what is extra. and i also try to push myself and others to rethink assumptions or ways to build a meaningful, balanced, secure, and fulfilling life. a good example of this in my life is travel. i have never ever been someone who has been drawn to traveling. sure, going to france and peru and chile were all wonderful and fun and inspiring. but when i really sit down to think about what makes me happy and what im naturally drawn to, it's not travel. i knew this about myself when i was 4 when i refused to go on sleepovers, and when i was 11 and decided to opt-out of a vacation to italy, and when i was 21 and decided not to go to st. john with my dad. it also extends to the fact that most of the people i love are pretty close by me geographically, so far travel isn't needed. for me, traveling is "extra," and not really something i'm willing to spend my money on. for other people, it's different. their families are across the country, or overseas, or they have trouble truly being happy without adventure to faroff places. in that case, the decision about need/extra is considerably foggy, and i try to trust people, in general, to make the decisions that are right for them. but for me- spending money in that way isn't what i want, so redirecting those resources to places that need them makes far more sense. does that make sense?

i also push myself to think about what really makes me happy when it's not quite as obvious as the travel scenario. take college, for example. the ability to attend any school i wanted, no questions asked, is something i am indescribably thankful for and wish that wealth of opportunity on everybody. however, something that i've learned is that there are many other places, and many other ways, that i could've learned just as much and been just as happy as i was at wesleyan. in fact, it is almost because of the opportunity i had to go anywhere that i didn't stop to think about all the great things i could've done instead of attending a highly prestigious institution. just like age and experience teaches you things between 20 and 40, it also taught me things between 17 and 22. such as, i would have excelled and done great things at UMASS, or smith [with the half-off tuition for northampton residents], for a fraction of the cost of wesleyan. i would have excelled and done great things if i had done an americorps program, or become an outward bound leader. i know that my ability to excel and do great things very much stems from the already-privileged position i came from, but that position also sheltered me from all of the wonderful opportunities i could have had if a place like wesleyan wasn't the "obvious" or assumed choice. and think about all i could've done with that $190,000 of tuition!!! i want to question the assumption that that's the best and idealized way to spend one's resources after high school.

phew! i'm sorry this is getting so long winded. i tend to be a rant-y writer, and also am thinking through so much of this stuff as i write my thoughts are a bit jumbled or roundabout. but i'm so super excited to just have these conversations, and have people push back against what i present, and be able to push back against them.

i guess the last thing i want to share is that i think so much about how even being able to have these conversations, and these options, put me in such a teeny tiny class of people, and that the vast vast majority of folks in the world can't even conceive of what i have. and while there are certainly loads of people in the world who are unhappy and unhealthy in all sorts of ways i would never wish on myself, there are also a whole lot of people who are happy and healthy and fulfilled living with a whole lot less than i have or could have. so part of my own quest for happiness and fulfillment is figuring out how to embody those ways of life myself. and for me, that also includes the act of giving money away. sure i have my fair share of days where i feel burdened by guilt, but by and large thinking about all my resources and how i can redistribute them is an incredibly exciting and empowering thing; it's exciting and empowering to be able to support, but also trust and learn from people and organizations and movements that are doing work to make the world a more just place.

so! this has been my food for thought lately, and i'd love to hear more of your thinking and wisdom on it. as much as i stated i am extra-quick to feel patronized, i also know that i can come off as incredibly patronizing at times, so i really really hope you are not taking any of this as personal judgment, or criticism, or dogma, or me preaching, or anything remotely like that!! this is me, thinking aloud and trying to make sense of it all and share that with you, so i hope you see it as a peek into my mind and nothing more.

i love you so much! it was wonderful, as always, to see you last night and i had a fabulous time catching up. i love that you've known me for so long and we can have these complicated conversations with the trust and knowledge of each other's goodness that (i assume!) we do. thank you, really, again for taking the time to be so thoughtfully concerned with how the discussion went last night and to write me with more meaningful things to say. i always look forward to talking with you!!

so much love, and please pass along my love and support to ____ as well.

hope you enjoyed today's sunshine!

xo,
j