Almighty Dad | A stay at home dad blog

Be Selfish: Give to Charity

16 Written by Keith on October 21, 2009 – 12:36 pm

When I was a kid I used to participate in fund raising events for the various sports clubs that I belonged to.  The one I remember the best was the Jasper Valley Swim Team.  It was just a little local, Amherst NH, Tennis club that also happened to have a pretty darn good swim team (as youth swim teams go).  We held a fund raiser where I was supposed to get pledges for x dollars or cents for each lap I could swim at the event.  I’m sure the coaches told us we did it that way because it taught us that our actions were going to be directly responsible for the wellbeing of the club.  They must have said words like responsibility and learning experience.  The fact is though that those events encourage people to give more than if they had just been asked outright for money.  It’s the same reason we stop and buy lemonade from some kid with a crappy card table outside his house.  We say, “Oh, isn’t that cute!  He’s learning responsibility.”  We never want the lemonade which is always overpriced and never that good.  But, it wouldn’t be the same if the kid were just standing on the curb panhandling (even though that would probably teach him more).  So that’s why we give to charity.  We want to give freely to a good cause but, as Americans, we like to have at least the appearance that someone is working for it.

Let Someone Else do the Work

There are a ton of excellent charities that use the working-for-it model to collect money.  People will Ride, Walk, Run, Swim, and engage in any number of other physical activities for their charity of choice.  It works so much better than just asking for money.  They do the work and you give them something so you don’t have to feel guilty.  It’s a match made in heaven, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of because we all know the score.  The Susan G Komen race for the cure is probably the most visible of these charities.  There are also tons of smaller, local charities like the one my friend is riding his bike in in November.  It’s called Tu Nidito.  The guy’s going to be riding 109 miles!  Damn, that’s gotta be worth something, right?  So I gave him 5 bucks.  Ah, I feel so much better now.  See how that works?  Oh, and by all means, publicize to the world the amount you give.  We all know you want to.  Piety be damned; take some credit for your good deed.  It’s not like the charity is any worse off if you blab how good you are.  The only place not to advertise your giving is church.  If you do that in church you’ll go to hell.

My Favorite Charities

1. Project Linus: A few years ago my youngest son almost died when he stopped breathing in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.  He made a full recovery but had to spend several nights in the Children’s ICU at Madison’s Children’s Hospital.  He got a handmade blanket from Project Linus that he still uses today.  It was a little something that wasn’t hospital cold.  It has character and it was made by someone who really cares about kids.  Put the picture in your head and you’ll see what I’m seeing.

2. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: This is more than a simple charity.  These people take real action on a national level to get involved with law enforcement and engage in real time crime fighting on behalf of children.  They train law enforcement and run a constantly updated database of missing children.

3. Toys for Tots: I learned about Toys for Tots in college.  I had a bunch of Marine Reserve friends who participated in the toy drives every year.  I don’t know if they did it because they had to do it, but it’s a worthy and simple cause nonetheless.  Their mission is to collect new toys around Christmas time and distribute them to underprivileged kids in the local community where they collect.

There is a good reason charities exist; it’s to help people who need help.  We give to charity because it makes us feel good to do something for someone less fortunate than ourselves.  And, these organizations are masterful manipulators, which is not necessarily a bad thing as long as we know what the score is.  We know our heart strings are being pulled; but we also know that there are good charities that actually do good things for people, so we participate in that game.  And, as a reward for that participation, we get to advertise how good we are.  It’s the least we should get in return, to be able to show that we’ve done something good.  After all the organization, the promotion, and the races and events, we are the ones who open our check books and actually bring it all home.  Pat yourselves on the back for a job well done.