Can we just relabel today "Spamming Tuesday"?

[rebeccmeister]

The person who originally invented the concept of making today a big day for charitable donations was brilliant.

However, it was only a short-term strategy, if we're being honest.

I do periodically read through my college's alumni magazine, and this time it included a fascinating gem of an article about some of the shifts in charitable giving to elitist educational institutions. Apparently they've figured out that the people that the college could potentially hit up further for money aren't so much the kind of people who want to have buildings named after them anymore. Instead, they are people who want to know that the contributions they're making are actually making a difference for groups of people in actual need - for instance, first-generation college students from underrepresented minority groups. And coalition-building is now more popular than individualistic giving: peer pressure your friends into helping out, and whatnot.

I do think this is a good shift. But I also think it's fascinating, because it indicates a cultural shift in acceptable vs. unacceptable displays of wealth. At least in the context of this one particular elitist educational institution, heh.

Every time they tweak their money-extracting algorithms to try and extract more or different money from me, I try to turn around and donate to my closest community college. And food bank.

During the early stages of the pandemic, I attended a rowing fundraising workshop that was led by someone with a background in fundraising for a large, state institution of higher ed. One of the things I took away from the workshop was that institutions of higher ed have gotten to be pretty darned sophisticated in their fundraising strategies; WAY more sophisticated than a tiny, volunteer-run 501(c)3 nonprofit rowing organization that's just barely scraping along might hope to ever become.

A lot of the same basic principles do apply, though. In both cases, organizations absolutely need to be able to demonstrate that they have their financial books in order. Based on this, the rowing club's Treasurer and I conducted a much-needed, very thorough overhaul of the club's books. That felt SO GOOD to accomplish. Similarly, the organizations need to be clear about what it is that they're asking for, and why. We have gotten a whole lot better about asking for help to literally keep our docks afloat, and asking for help securing crucial safety supplies. Asking for help to buy a shiny new racing boat is a slightly more challenging ask.

Just today, I encountered another good version of how to do this for a rowing club: they put their donation request this way: "Your donations will help us keep rowing and paddling safe, pay our coaches fairly, and continue to grow our community!"

Personally, I would generally group financial contributions to a rowing club in a similar category to financial contributions to an elitist educational institution. How much do they really need it? Of course, there's always nuance to the matter: some clubs have long, elitist histories and cater almost exclusively to people who are already exceptionally well-off, while other clubs have a much more checkered past and have more potential to make a huge difference in the lives of underprivileged people.

And I see other forms of these divides, too: there are at least finally *some* larger programs in place to support rowing opportunities for underrepresented folks or underprivileged people. It has only taken decades to get there. But there's also a chicken-and-egg problem: right now someone has to already be somewhere, already actively starting and doing something, before they can obtain access to any of the resources these programs offer. It is far easier for a large boathouse that has fancy things like heat, indoor seating, and running water to offer the right and successful combination of rowing and afterschool programming than it is for a utilitarian space held together by a small handful of volunteers using duct tape and string to try and scrape these things together somehow. Don't ask me how I know.

More broadly, isn't it just funny how we hear the names of a small handful of white men paraded out and about, again and again, as the world's most Filthy Rich? Literally blasting their money into outer space, as if we've ever managed to get any closer to anything resembling immortality. Meanwhile, some of the biggest actual philanthropists of this era are the women who figured out ways to tolerate some of those white men for just long enough to gain access to enough financial resources that they could then turn and farm out to places engaging in actual, substantive good.

So I think what I'm saying is, please, tax the rich already, and please take that money and give it to the poor. Also give some of it to those grad students and other academics who have been striking in California for an actual freaking livable wage in an impossible housing market. That's a public education system that has been bled utterly dry.

And maybe leave my email inbox out of it, if you can.

Comments

[bluepapercup]

I give generously but almost always outside the non-profit-industrial complex and my reasons are similar to yours. I know where my dollar goes the farthest and it’s usually not somewhere shiny.

However, I have been giving to Ye Olde University since I was able to afford it only because they allow you to specifically earmark your donation down to the department level. At least at our former undergrad institution, the geology department is terribly underfunded (one of the most poorly funded on campus), and I know from having chats long with the profs that they do receive my earmarked money every year and my donation goes directly to the needs of the students. Can’t beat that.

[twoeleven]

IJLS, "non-profit-industrial complex". It's a lovely piece of black humor.

[rebeccmeister]

I do actually give a symbolic amount to Ye Olde University. Thank goodness for earmarking!

But I do NOT give money to the public university where I got my advanced degree. They got those 8 years of my life and that's enough! :^)

I suppose I could use this day of Spam as an occasion to ask and learn about more of the places that could benefit from genuine support. But it's so much more fun to complain! (this last sentence is in jest in case the sarcasm font isn't clear, heh)

[mellowtigger]

Minnesota already has a strong community ethic. It's visible in our statewide environmental efforts. (The MN state tax return has a data field specifically for donating.) Voter participation rates here often exceed the rest of the USA. And there's a statewide recognition of non-profit efforts. I especially like the annual Give To The Max day that's popular here, although the website is live and available throughout the year for donating to registered charities. The publicized event puts virtue signaling to a good use.

[annikusrex]

i've given money to my public undergrad--the most was when its arts & sciences college was under fire from some political appointees to the board of regents, and i directed the money to the college. i think my undergrad is a better investment than my law school, for sure, though over time i have given more money to food banks and low-income housing providers. i like the annual prompt--it helps people start off and maybe think about becoming a more regular supporter in time.

[rebeccmeister]

You know, this comment is making me think: I think I might have registered a similar complaint on this blog last year! Or else the subject came up in another context - I'm just now remembering of your comment regarding the annual prompt. It is true, it can still serve some use. I guess I tend to associate charitable giving more strongly with Lent, of all things. But obviously that's not relevant to much of the population.

[annikusrex]

the timing of the end-of-year charitable giving push is, for a decent portion of the target population, tax related.

[twoeleven]

More broadly, isn't [...] immortality [...] actual, substantive good
;) Um, R? This paragraph has a lot of word salad, mixed with a little cherry-picking.

But besides that...

But there's also a chicken-and-egg problem[...]
Yup, there is. And there's two classes of reasons for it:

1) Bad reasons: that's just the nature of bootstrapping; exponential growth starts out taking forever. Vicious cycles of them who has gets (or virtuous cycles, depending what one thinks of the groups involved).

2) Good reasons: the little groups are incompetant, uninvested, cliquish, wasteful, and/or dishonest.

Having run and help run a number of shoestring to fancier shoestring groups, it's hard to tell from the outside which is which without detailed investigation. That's asking a lot of people who often don't have tons of resources themselves. Throwing money around at random doesn't really help, but often enriches the wrong groups at the expense of the right ones.

tax the rich already, and please take that money and give it to the poor.
Sing it, sister, sing it! I have my own ideas about who's rich and who's poor -- there are multiple definitions of both -- the taking and giving parts, and the utility of third parties, as well.

[scrottie]

Had one wtf moment when a conference was at CMU, the birthplace of the Mach kernel, that powered NeXT and now runs iOS and MacOS X (everything after 9, so all of recent history). The CS building was/is dedicated to Bill and Melinda Gates. (The MUD ran on a NeXT at CMU, for a while, but it ran a lot of places.) I don't know the details in this case, but there's a lot of history of Microsoft giving money to stop any operating system research program at any university, obstinately because it's not needed, and learning to *use* MS stuff is enough, cutting off their own supply lines in order to help kill knowledge competition might benefit from. After a long time, they lost that gambit, even though they likely hobbled CMU and cut CMU off from Mach's and Apple's success. Looking out at the audience from on stage in that building, it was a sea of Macs. When I talk about how education should be outside, this is one memory behind that. Random, but one example of the legacy of old money trying snuff out any future, though computer junk is just one corner of all of this. The other, larger competitor came from operating research and education in the Netherlands and proved beyond Bill's grasp. Tech is a corner of the universe but this stuff happens everywhere. Phoenix Spokes People followed me on the extinct herbivore network and joined them. Stuff like that feels good. I miss the free food pantries. Those are one of the few good things about Albany. Removing stigma from aid by making it ubiquitous goes a long way.

[twoeleven]

This seems like a case of the regents needing more spine in rejecting behests with anti-intellectual strings attached. In the case of state universities, we can give them more spine by admending university charters.

(Admittedly, I think state universities could stand to have their charters focused in general...)

[rainswolf]

I went to an undergrad college that is one of the richest in America-- their endowment is like almost 3 billion dollars. I had to ask them to get off their phone list for donations but I still get stuff in the mail and it's like, yeah right. I wasn't even happy there. I work at a college with an endowment that's more like 70 million. Also I think it's BS public institutions can't ask for money in the same way--they may be tax funded but they are certainly underfunded. Imagine if people gave to their K-12 public schools! Anyway, that's my rant about it.