New Year’s Resolution 2010: My Charity Black Hole
Posted on | December 27, 2009 | 6 Comments
Lately I’ve been having a feeling of scarcity. It is a feeling that I am ashamed of, because my fiancé and I are so blessed. We make good money, we recently bought the home of our dreams, we have two vehicles, enough money to fund retirement and entertain ourselves…but it has not felt like enough. In our defense, our bills increased substantially over the course of the last six months which certainly adds to this feeling of scarcity; we are working to pay off his car entirely, pay for our wedding and honeymoon in cash, and just purchased the home of our dreams, so funds that we were used to seeing on bank statements for the last several years have been depleted.
Instead of celebrating our life of abundance, I have let this feeling leave me insecure, and wanting to hoard money and earnings just like a squirrel who competitively buries all the nuts he can find for fear of the winter famine to come. But in reality, this is leading me to feel even more insecure and even less abundant.
And so it was with an empathetic and open heart that I listened to a segment on NPR last week that talked about the lack of pure, altruistic, charitable giving in the United States . In its place has been self-gratifying or self-rewarding charitable giving—the kind that you receive tangible benefits in return—or no charitable giving at all. The benefits include trinkets which prominently display your generosities (like pink ribbons and bracelets for breast cancer donors), or being able to tout your givings as a corporation and thus making yourself more competitive, or donating solely for tax benefits, etc.
Throughout the year I have donated several bags of clothing to local thrift stores, and I have given out soy joy bars to homeless people at traffic lights. I also have dropped off several bags of toiletry items to a domestic abuse women’s shelter. But have I really given of myself? When I donated those bags of clothing, it was more with the intent of cleaning out our closets so that we would not have to pack and ship more boxes. The soy joy bars are free items that I scored from extracare bucks at CVS. The toiletries were also from various free deals I gathered from CVS throughout the year. I absolutely loved donating these items and it made me feel good to help others out, but besides a little time on my end, these items did not cost me anything. And if they had, I could have taken that cost as a tax deduction . Is that truly charitable giving?
When I was fifteen, I approached my parents with the idea of adopting a child overseas. I was making my own money at the time mucking horse stalls, and so each month I would pay the money to my parents who would write a $15 check out to the organization, which clothed, schooled, and fed her. The child’s name was Belkis. One year for her birthday I sent an extra $10, and she wrote a letter telling me how she was able to purchase a pair of jeans with it. I felt such joy and compassion towards this child. By not sharing this with anyone, I did it for the right reasons (except my parents knew because they had to write the check each month).
Somewhere over the years even though my income has risen dramatically, I have managed to feel more scarceness than I did when I made $90 per week and supported a little girl overseas. I have given this some thought this holiday season, and have come up with a possible explanation. I am competitive at heart and so I don’t just want to save money, I want to save the most money. If I were to check ‘yes’ on my electricity bill to add a few dollars to the fund for people who cannot afford heating and lighting, then that would shave percentages off my money-saving margins that I tediously accumulated all month by unplugging power chords when not in use. If I were to give $1000 to a charity in 2009, then all of the extra earnings I received would not have been added to my bottom line .
No matter what the reasons have been, I would like to change this. I have decided that in 2010, I am going to choose a charity or a cause, and donate consistently to it with actual money out of my earnings, and without sharing what organization/person it is. I am sure I will continue to donate items that are gently used, and toiletries, but I will make this cash donation the crux of my charitable giving.
What are some resolutions, or things you would like to improve upon in your own life for 2010?
- Forced Donations: A Nuisance or a Necessity
- The 7 Links Project: My 7 Links
- A Guide to the Benefits of Being an OAP
- Can You Live Off of Your Estimated Benefits in Retirement?
- Pensions and Social Security: Will Your Benefits be Reduced?
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6 Responses to “New Year’s Resolution 2010: My Charity Black Hole”
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December 27th, 2009 @ 2:11 pm
I could list out a bunch of things but the sum of them is basically to not be such a sloth
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December 28th, 2009 @ 11:33 am
My husband and I are making a New Year’s Resolution List for each of us and sticking in on our fridge so we will see it everyday.
So far I have been thinking about a goal-oriented weight loss plan like training for a half-marathon. But the majority of my resolutions are a bunch of fun yet resource-consuming resolutions like visiting my college friends in the cities they live in now and giving more time to the charities I’ve been supporting.
Good luck on your goal too!!!
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December 28th, 2009 @ 4:13 pm
We’re slightly in the same boat as you when it comes to our 2009 charitable giving. While most of it is done out of the goodness of our hearts, the accountant in me keeps the tax advantages in mind! Our main receipient of documented (i.e. cancelled checks) charitable giving in 2008 was the church we were attending at the time. Due to various reasons, we no longer attend that church and are still searching for a new one. Since the IRS now says that you have to have documentation for your charitable giving, the cash we’ve put in various collection plates doesn’t count (and there’s no way I’m writing a check to a church that I’m only attending once or twice). The IRS rule has also stopped my tradition of slipping several $50 and $100 bills in the Salvation Army kettles.
My plan for tonight is to take care of the last minute charitable giving and figure out who besides our alma matters gets our hard earned money so the tax hungry government gets as little of it as possible.
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December 29th, 2009 @ 9:58 am
On one of the other finance blogs I read (freemoneyfinance.com), they had an article this week discussing charitable giving and finding the right charity for you…I’m going to check on charitynavigator.com to find the charity that gives the most to its cause after expenses. I’m looking for a solid charity that gives at least 90% of my donation to the cause it supports.
Right now, I donate the most to Pughearts: Houston Pug Rescue. They are a small rescue organization that has helped more than 400 Pugs in the last 2-3 years and has anywhere between 60-75 dogs on their plate at any time. I know they never receive as much as they need just to pay the vet bills since they hardly ever have to put a dog down, but they have $25,000 every few months in vet expenses. The 3 main families that run it do not receive salaries, so 100% of the donations go to the dogs.
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December 29th, 2009 @ 2:07 pm
It always amazes me how much we think alike. I have recently thought about how giving away things that don’t cost anything isn’t really sacrificing anything, and so I wondered just like you, is that really altruistic giving?
As a kid, whenever I visited my uncle and we walked around New York City around Christmastime he ALWAYS threw spare money into the Salvation Army bins we walked by and said to me “always remember that there are people that need money more than you do” and that has always stuck with me, and each time I throw money into one of those bins I think of that. Although I do give away some money throughout the year as opportunities come up (my employer’s annual United Way campaign, my neighbors annual American Heart Association drive, etc) I do sometimes find myself thinking in the same ways you do “wow- I just gave away $50 after putting in all that effort to clip coupons and shop sales to save $20 on my groceries”.
I think the idea of supporting an individual, such as the child you supported as a teen, is a great idea because (perhaps this is selfish?) you can have the pride of seeing how you have impacted that individual’s life in a way that you can’t always get by donating to large organizations. I think person-to-person giving is really powerful because both people benefit from knowing there is an actual individual on the other side and helps us remember that we’re all connected.
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December 29th, 2009 @ 2:19 pm
Charity Navigator is great!
If you’re still looking, The Houston Food Bank has a 4 star rating with them and they use 95% of the donations for the actual programs they run. No matter what city we’ve lived in thru the years, we always donate to the local food bank.
We’re not pet people so most of those causes don’t mean a lot to us. I ended up donating some of my CO frequent flier miles as they have a promotion going thru the end of January that if you’re a Continental credit/debit card holder and donate through a special link, they’ll match your contribution. They have several different causes so you can pick which one(s) you want to support. The miles are used to help provide transportation for the selected charities such as Make-a-Wish trips.
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