Gift Hub

Jeremy Gregg, A Fundraiser's Confession

Jeremy Gregg who raises money for Dallas Central Ministries:

I’d rather be the anonymous box of fruit pulled from the vineyard;

I’d sooner be the stone that grounds the wheat pulled from the chaff;
I do not want my name and title hung upon a lanyard;
I prefer to be the trough than the blade that piths the calf.

Let board members bend their bows one last time, aimed at me:
my back is stiff and bent from rowing; my planned gift waits for thee.

Biblical influence, no doubt, but by way of Gerard Manley Hopkins, maybe? In any case, "the blade that piths the calf" - is he talking about philanthropy, social capital markets, a real job, or what? As poetry, I can't make it yield common sense and so read it over and over. I mean, what is this about it being his planned gift? How are the board members so ungentle? And is the "he" Jeremy or the one who sent him?

Hard Times

Philanthropy, like business, social sciences, and government, is a serious matter best handled with statistics.  We deal in Facts. We must measure and manage every moment. Time is a scarce resource. Invest your time, children. Invest for return on investment!  Consider me. How many years have I denied myself all pleasure and human feeling to become what I am. You have no time for the Circus! What results will you achieve with such idle frippery? (In the spirit of Gradgrind, from Dickens, Hard Times.)

Of Kindness

Random Acts of Human Kindness

Want to be kind? Many things you can do, from Help Others.  Maybe philanthropy is not so much about money or markets per se. Maybe philanthropy is a special case of good deed, or kindness?   

"Kind" (from Online Etemology)

"friendly," from O.E. gecynde "natural, native, innate," originally "with the feeling of relatives for each other," from P.Gmc. *gakundiz, from *kunjan (see kin), with collective prefix *ga- and abstract suffix *-iz. Sense development from "with natural feelings," to "well-disposed" (c.1300), "benign, compassionate" (1297). Kindly (adj.) is O.E. gecyndelic. Kind-hearted is from 1535; kindness is from c.1290.

Your Corn is Ripe Today....

Here is a famous parable from David Hume. He is thinking of neighborliness, contracts, social contracts, trust, and our limited kindness for one another:

Your corn is ripe today; mine will be so tomorrow. 'Tis profitable for us both that I shou'd labour with you today, and that you shou'd aid me tomorrow. I have no kindness for you, and know that you have as little for me. I will not, therefore, take any pains on your account; and should I labour with you on my account, I know I shou'd be disappointed, and that I shou'd in vain depend upon your gratitude. Here then I leave you to labour alone: You treat me in the same manner. The seasons change; and both of us lose our harvests for want of mutual confidence and security.

If we can trust each other to reciprocate kindness, we might both profit. As we cannot trust to the kindness of our neighbors, we each behave out of narrow self-interest, "and both  of us lose our harvests for want of mutual confidence and security."

Families, closely knit communities, markets, contracts, ethical systems, the accounting of Heaven and Hell, are in Hume's view ways we humans have engineered shared wins out of what would otherwise be the shared losses of the war of all against all.

Blanche (on YouTube)

"Whoever you are, I have always relied on the kindness of strangers."

Auld Lang Syne

We all know the sentiment of drunken camaraderie, toasting one another to bring in the New Year, but do you know that these lines mean, "And you will  buy your pint and I will buy mine"?

And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp,
And surely I'll be mine!
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For old lang syne.

A Toast to my Compatriots!

So, in the social capital market, this ownership society, as the wars settle in, and terror is the new normal, and neighbor is turned against neighbor, we will take a cup of kindness yet, whether requited or not. For through these acts of kindness reciprocated or betrayed we conspire for a better world. And we'll take a cup of kindness yet for old lang syne.  Hard times bring out the best in some people.

Lessons from The Geese

What The Geese Taught Me, on HelpOthers via Charity Focus.

Social Bonds in Vino Veritas

In vino veritas? An extraordinary poem, The Stranger, by Alexander Blok from 1906 via a comment from Jeff Trexler. You know how it is at funerals, all the sadness, and the flower smell so heavy to block out the stench of death? When Rabelais salutes his comrades and calls for wine, it is not just about getting drunk together, as the Black Death spreads. As things get bad, what we have is one another. Not social capital markets only, but the toast, the glass raised high, whether it is a beautiful woman, a bride and bridegroom, or a casket, or soldiers at The Blue Angel we have in sight. When things get hard we have each other, a few friends. Raise a glass to the good men and women at Homeland Security! Today we drink together; tomorrow you round us up. Come, let us drink!

The Century of Self

4 part BBC Series available on line.  Shows how propaganda, public relations, marketing, and brands in cooperation with psychology, polling, and focus groups have made us who we are, as individuals and as societies. We have highly responsive markets now for goods, services, meaning, politicians, and of course philanthropy.  There is no outside of Wealth Bondage, nor need there be since we express ourselves, and actualize ourselves, best through atomized market choice. We simply have to make the markets more effective, efficient, and responsive to desire.  How many of us in philanthropy are in the thrall of this market-based vision of humanity? Lucy? Sean? Holden? Kevin? Goodnight, sweet children, good night. May throngs of markets sing thee to thy rest!

Case Foundation Giving Guide for the Holidays

Case Foundation Staff suggests these charitable gifts  to make yourself or in the  name of someone on your holiday gift list.

Giver's Emotional Greed

Justin Hudnall on Giver's Greed, our tendency to make the gift serve our emotional needs as givers rather than the real needs of the recipient: 

One of the most depressing images ever conjured for me came from an Indonesian official after the tsunami of 2004. He was pleading on television for the world to stop sending teddy bears, because the climate of the region is so humid they become diseased and must be burned.

Elderly Man Beaten to Death By Neighbor for Watering Lawn

Interesting article from Sydney, Australia. A 36 year old man beat his elderly neighbor to death in an altercation over the old man's watering of his lawn. The reporter raises the point that as the resources on our planet run out, we will see the consequences not only on the national level (wars for Freedom in oil rich lands), but also on the local level (killing our neighbors over water). We will see, I think, the best and worst in human nature. The resurgence of interest in philanthropy and civic renewal can be read as a sign of increased wealth at the top, but it can also be read as human nature reacting with love to loss. If we do die out as a species, how should we handle our last decades? In what spirit? Answers will differ. I hold for loving kindness. I am reading the Stoics for a reason, to keep myself sane.

Beyond Success on Fortune's Wheel

Fortune's Wheel is always turning. Boethius wrote the best book on that subject, The Consolations of Philosophy. Having been a major political player himself, he got sideways with an Emperor, was imprisoned (where he wrote his book), and at the Emperor's request, was taken into courtyard, strangled with cords until the eyes bulged from his skull, and beaten to death with clubs. I am sure Boethius took it philosophically. What lies beyond success can make failure look good by contrast. The mighty come to grief. The meek inherit, become arrogant in their turn, and fall again. How we integrate what might be called "wisdom traditons" with the new philanthropy is an open question. What monks were to the Middle Ages so MBAs are in our time, the keepers of the tribe's wisdom and sense of what life is. Maybe when Harvard Biz-School teaches the Vanitas Tradition (reminding us of our fraility, the brevity of our lives, and the unintended ways we endlessly subvert ourselves)  we might have a real winner.