Is Charity Dead?

Noting that her friends in nonprofit circles spend most of their time looking for gifts and grants, Julia Moulden writes:

What if, I wondered, non-profits weren't charities at all - what if they didn't have to depend on catching our eye in order to continue their work? What if the world's poor didn't have to wonder if those of us fortunate enough to have been born into a place of privilege on this shared planet would ever turn our hearts and minds in their direction? What if the act of giving didn't have to please us first? Or what if we didn't think of it as "giving" in the first place? Might "sharing" be a better word?

She then goes from "sharing" to "social investing," but she also mentions "fellowship." This awareness, that we are past "have and have not" into a new era, where our life support systems, whether ecological or financial, are in peril, that social investing, and philanthropy, and charity, or taxes, or voting, will not make a difference big enough soon enough must be dawning on many of us. We are in a world now where it takes tens of trillions to maintain the fiction that we are a going concern, to reboot what is broken, to make it run through one last cycle of boom and bust. Fellowship is sharing, as it was and is among beggars. We are all beggars now.

Comments

[Claartje]

I think we should all stay positive about charity. If everyone thinks their individual donation won't make a difference, we will never reach the higher goal we’re aiming for: creating a better world. The philosophy of www.pifworld.com is this: maybe we cannot make a big difference on our own, but together we can make a positive change worldwide. On www.pifworld.com you can choose to support a development project that matches your ideals. On the website you can easily donate in small credits. If you want to take it a step further, you can invite your family and friends to support your project or even set up your own fundraising page. Through blogs and video-posts you will be regularly updates on the developments of the project you’re supporting. This way charity becomes fun, personal and transparent.

[Julia Moulden]

Thanks for this thoughtful comment. I'm with you that we need to stay positive.

If you read my post, you'll see that I'm calling for a shift in thinking and approach. That we've been following one model -- "I have and I must be moved to give mine to you" -- for a long time now. Although all kinds of creative ways of doing this are emerging, I'm no longer sure it's enough.

It's time for something truly and radically new. And I'm searching for examples, which I will share in my HuffPo column each Saturday.

[Phil Cubeta]

Right

[Phil Cubeta]

Despair, I was taught in Catholic Youth Organization, is a sin. Charity is a virtue, and even an obligation. Faith is maybe what keeps despair at bay, whether in a higher power above, within, or amongst.

[jeremy of the gregg]

great piece (as always). blogged it. glad to know we are fellow alum of the Catholic Anti-Despair Coalition.

[Phil Cubeta]

Birth control is prohbited, is prozac too?

[Christine Egger]

Describing an environment in which nonprofits perhaps gain empathy for those they serve, who are also often in a position of 'asking', with dignity, for the support of those around them...

[Phil Cubeta]

Somehow this seems a related conversation to the one Peter Karoff is trying to start around "the Moral Dimension of Phlianthropy and Social Action."