{Part I in a series on re-envisioning philanthropy}

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In my corner of the world, we have entered the season of giving.

I built a career on the art and science of offering people the chance to give.  Here are some of the buzzwords: opportunity, meaning, year-end and benefit.

If you have spent any time in a non-profit setting, you know what I mean.

The person they hire to write the irresistible fund-raising letter guaranteed to make you cry as you double your intended contribution – that’s me.  I was told once by a fund-raising consultant that long-time donors watch the mail during the holidays to see what I’m going to say this year.  They look forward to the letters, especially those of the Thanksgiving and Christmas variety that carry a certain air of warmth and belonging, along with a hint of cranberry or cinnamon.

With this credibility in mind, I’m going to surprise you.

This year I’m asking people to choose to not give.  In fact, I will never again encourage a person to give money.  After 23 years I have come to the conclusion that no one should give to charity.  Period.

There’s no trick here, no sleight of hand.  I believe that giving simply does not work.

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The first problem with giving can be found in the data.  The bottom line is that very little giving is really happening.

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Here’s a cursory look at the details.

• The United States is the most generous nation in the world.  Americans give more money and volunteer more than any other people.  We are also most likely to help a stranger on the street.
• An interesting component of our generosity is the relationship to religion.  People who attend religious services give more money as a percentage of income to charity than people who attend infrequently or don’t claim a religious affiliation.  As with all things there are exceptions.  As a rule, however, faith plays a pivotal role in members’ philanthropic giving, both to faith-based and secular organizations.
• This relationship to faith helps explain American’s position as most generous nation.  It also explains the most generous of U.S. states – predominantly “red” states, most in the Bible belt.  My vision of generous giving is often progressive Northern cities, but the fact is Southern people of faith give the most as a percentage of income.  The exception among “top-5” states is Utah, whose church giving places it at the top of the list.
• The distribution of giving is said to be U-shaped, although there are people who disagree.  Generally it’s true that people who have the least and the most give less than the people populating the middle of the curve.  The highest percentage of giving is among middle- and upper-income people whose giving is directed to religion and education as well as social causes.  The “ultra rich” do not give the most as a percentage of income.  In fact, the poorest Americans give more than those at the very top as a ratio of household income.
• The bottom line on American generosity is high – some $316 billion in 2012 – yet this number is only 2 percent of our GDP.  American philanthropic giving has hovered at this level for decades.  Our recent market slump caused a noticeable decrease in charitable giving, and the last year has shown a clear rise.  But this increase is only a correction that takes us back to a place we have been stalled for many years.
• Human need continues to grow with world population.  More nonprofits are launched into existence each year to address these needs.  At the same time, our collective response through giving remains static as a percentage of GDP.  Consequently, each and every day we are losing ground.

Seen in this light, American giving doesn’t seem so impressive.

The second problem with giving has roots in a more fundamental social issue.  Giving feeds a Western social and economic worldview in which someone stands to lose and someone stands to gain.

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The very nature of the word “give” is part of the black-and-white problem.

Take a look at the language:

give:receive

win:lose

benefactor:beneficiary

appreciate:depreciate

donor:recipient

Westerners are earners, seekers and consumers. The very process of “giving” works against its intent because it sets up a false dichotomy in which making a financial gift implies a loss for the giver and a gain for the recipient.

The underlying issue is not about giving at all.  It is the natural result of our black-and-white, all-or-nothing Western mindset.  In this case the basic dichotomy is gain vs. loss.

Recently in attempting to buy dinner for three close relatives, I was told by one, “You’re not buying mine.  There’s such a thing as being too generous.”

There’s a big score sheet in the sky and one in our inner recesses that triggers fear of loss, influencing how we see everything.

Until this foundational problem is addressed through the transformation of the individual, giving as a percentage of GDP is likely to remain static.

I’m more likely to walk on Mars than change our entire consumer culture.

What’s even more disturbing to me in the “black-and-white” arena is the positioning of the players on the field in the game of giving.  To be the benefactor places a person in a superior position to the beneficiary.  There is no partnership, no brother- or sisterhood in this view of philanthropy.

While there are non-profit organizations and donors who view the players differently, they are in my experience the minority, fighting an uphill battle of dignity and mutuality in the sport of giving.

The result of this is not merely a worldview that’s distasteful to me.  That’s also true.

This bottom line in the meaning department keeps us distant from one another.  It is an unintended wedge that keeps “the poor” and other disenfranchised people in their place, defending our place somewhere above.

Giving dehumanizes some, making heroes of others.  It makes the conditions of our world acceptable.  It reinforces the perspectives that keep us locked at 2 percent of GDP.

It’s also a really ugly theological position.

The third problem with giving reflects our tendency to live in our small egos and not our larger, more universal selves. It is a reflection of personal, theological and moral development.

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This problem it most significant and, by nature, the most difficult to grasp.  It presents itself in at least two ways.

1. We believe we deserve what we have.  The necessary corellary to this theorem is that other people deserve their lots in life, too.
2. We believe the things that we possess actually belong to us.  This justifies or at the very least reinforces our tendency to hold on to our money, our possessions and our status.  We earned it after all; it’s ours.

These are weighty issues that are only changed through personal transformation of one individual, and then another.  In short, there’s very little that can be done from the the outside to influence these problems on the macro level.  All we can each change is ourselves.

Perhaps the most effective thinker I have encountered in this realm, the spiritual worldview, is Richard Rohr.  Thousands of pages have been written about the growth of the self from the small I, the ego.

Another beacon here is TED winner Karen Armstrong who writes compellingly about compassion and the rise from ego to spiritual enlightenment.

I’ll leave the details to the experts.  Their perspectives are worthy of attention.

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So these are some of the problems with giving.  What next?

I assure you what I am not suggesting is that we do nothing in response to such insurmountable odds.  Quite the contrary.

There is, in fact, a way out of this conundrum.

Hang in there with me.

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Join me in examining two assumptions that, when investigated, change everything.

I.  Our birthright is the product of chance.

About five years ago I had the chance to work with a thought leader in the world of philanthropy, the owner of a local B Corp with national influence.  If you haven’t heard the term, B Corps are, in their words, “a new type of company that uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems.”

More specifically, it was my job to script this B Corp CEO in an event that would lead up to a fund-raising pitch we hoped would yield $300,000 or more in three-year pledges.

No pressure.

It was, in fact, a pleasure.  Writing for him was easy.  And for the most part, unlike many volunteers in these roles, he followed his script.  The exceptions were thrilling because they reinforced my work and strengthened our pitch.  He made our case better.  Here’s one of his invaluable contributions: the ovarian lottery.

He attributed the phrase to Bill Gates.  Just this week – Black Friday 2013 – I heard it attributed to Warren Buffet.  I haven’t done the research and don’t care as much about credit for the phrase as I do the consequences.

You see, how we are born in the world is sheer chance.  We are lucky, or not.  The circumstances into which we are born influence our outcomes as strongly as the choices we make along the way.

A kid born into the hell of addiction and poverty in a large city is more deeply influenced than we can imagine, and whatever happens in that child’s future, whatever more or less effective choices he makes, there is permanent damage – permanent loss in the form of missed opportunity and even brain functioning if you ask the neuroscientists.

The same is true of every-day suburban kids who are abused and neglected or who simply don’t receive all-important nurturing at the appropriate developmental stages or who never learn appropriate problem-solving skills.  Ditto for kids born into the massive garbage dump outside Guatemala’s capital city.

Some supporting research comes from the world of psychology.  I read recently that children born into poverty have statistically higher chances of poor mental and physical health in adulthood, even when they overcome the obstacles to become the “success story” we Americans so love.  Fear, scarcity and helplessness literally hard wire us into different people.  Fear permanently alters our brain functioning, and we pay the price forever.

The important nugget here is not how we do or don’t respond to our birth situations.  What’s most important is the indisputable fact that we all begin life as pawns in a universal game of chance.

Some win in relative terms; others lose.  Call it luck, chance or fortune, none of us deserves the circumstances into which we are born.  Good, bad and ugly, it is all one big crap shoot.

If we can agree here, follow me to another, related, point.

II.  There are enough resources in the world for every human need to be met.  The problem lies in the distribution.

Our district governor spoke at a Rotary meeting several years ago.  He offered mind-blowing statistics I have mainly forgotten and that I never actually researched to substantiate.

That aside, I remember one important figure.  The exactness of the numbers aside, here’s the heart of it.

• The amount of money it would take to alleviate world hunger for a year and to immunize all people against every disease against which one can be immunized: $28 BILLION.
• The amount of money Americans spent on their pets in the previous year: $31 BILLION.

Are you with me?

I was awestruck not only at the meaning of the math but at the fact that if you were to seek one person to hold up at the example of pet-loving extravagance, based on spending for life-extending healthcare alone, it’s me and two half-blind cockapoos, one of whom died just this year.

Between them they shared one good eye, two passable kidneys, one liver and zero good knees.  I sustained them for years through disease, unfortunate DNA and unintended poisonings to a degree that is almost unparalleled in human history.  An exaggeration?  Maybe,  or not.

It’s important to admit at this point that at least one of eight surgeries was funded by a credit card during a year of unemployment between non-profit gigs.  It seems I have no boundaries.

I am guilty.

Ten thousand children died today from hunger-related disease, and my dogs just got another chance at life – more lives than the average cat.  In the 13 years Button and Clover spent under the umbrella of my limitless love, 19,500,000 people died from hunger-related disease.  That’s ~4,110 deaths a day x 365 days x 13 years.

Here’s the other thing you need to know.  In our 13 years together, I spent more than $7,500 on surgeries alone, not taking into account hospitalizations, medication and the fallout from renal failure that was later diagnosed.  That gets me somewhere close to $10,000 before the kidneys started to slip.  While I haven’t calculated that ride, I know my most expensive month cost about $2,000, and there were several close to $1,000.  And most of this time I was unemployed.  Thank you, universe, for early retirement distribution.

So, let’s be conservative and say I spent $15,000 on emergency intervention and another $5,000 on general care in our 13 years together.

My $20,000 investment to honor my dogs’ souls could have purchased basics of living such as food, clean water and decent shelter for an untold number of people born less lucky.

While the result of such comparisons is often guilt, I don’t believe that’s an effective response.  Guilt and shoulds nor should-nots drive us into rabbit holes of shame and silence, encouraging us to do nothing at all.

The bottom line is there is enough of everything to meet the needs of all of us uniquely beautiful and equally valuable people in the world.  Every single one of us is God’s favorite kid.  We simply have fared differently in the crap shoot of life, and our resources are not even close to being evenly distributed.

We are all one.  When my brother or sister hurts, I, too, hurt.

The only response is to take daily steps to make things more just, to equalize the distribution.  When one small wrong is made right, I am healed.  We are all healed.

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In summary I have proposed the following:

• All humans are born into life circumstances by chance.
• All people are uniquely beautiful and equally valuable.  There is no one worth less, or more, in a humanistic, philosophical or theological sense than anyone else.
• For that reason, no person deserves the situation into which s/he is born – good, bad or ugly.
• These early life circumstances hold great power in directing our futures, although they are not the only influencing factors.
• While our outcomes vary widely in influencing the satisfaction of basic needs, there are enough resources in the world to offer safety and stability to all people.
• The distribution of these resources is uneven.
• Finally, giving as a means of addressing the resulting human need is stuck at best.  At worst, our philanthropic model is not only insufficient but also inefficient, losing ground against the rising tide of human suffering each and every day.

What next then?

That’s Part II.