Charitable opportunities everywhere

When I started giving out the equivalent of nickels, my mother warned me to limit my benevolence to the norms. I wondered what she meant till I was overwhelmed by a persistent following, including some who had already received their alms just minutes before. They were simply testing the limits of my foreign naiveté. Evidently, word had spread via the local grapevine. When I ventured out the next day, a beggar’s brigade greeted me. Indeed, I had to end up being quite rude, to escape their attention.

The situation is not different in America, where I live now. Once you give to any charity, you become a marketing target for those who know that you are indeed a donor. You are inundated with junk mail and telephone soliciting which you have to fight off and discard until you eventually dwindle to the status of a bad prospect.

How much? To who?

Religion is always the first bastion of benevolence. Who better to set the ground rules than the links with the Almighty? You go to church to feel holy, and peer pressure takes over - if your neighbor puts some coins in the plate, why not trump that with paper money? If they have already papered the plate, no one will notice your $ 10 bill, so it may be better to put in a few dollar bills instead.

The salesman - uh, the pastor or rabbi - takes care to present both sides of the argument: if you give more, you’ll receive more; if you don’t, then your selfishness will get what it deserves. To test your giving to the limit, you are advised to give till it hurts. To make it easy for you (and consistent for the bookkeeper) tithing was invented - give a percentage of your earnings, and in return you will receive the maximum blessings, a good investment.

You go to church to feel righteous and peer pressure takes over. If your neighbor puts some coins in the plate, why not trump that with paper money? If there is already paper in the plate then no one will notice your $10 bill, so it may be better to put in a few $1 bills instead.

Plethora of Possibilities

You can donate to United Way, or the Salvation Army, or the Y - secure in the knowledge that your giving is in good hands and indeed is tax deductible. You can melt when you see the pitiful pictures of poor orphans in some far away place and hear Sally Struthers’s plea for your generosity to help them survive for another day. Does charity apply to humans only? How about those poor cats and dogs in the animal shelter? Perhaps children should be first; but would a starving adult be more deserving than a not-so-starving child?

Perhaps you should know exactly how much of your donation actually goes to those orphans after the marketing and administrative salaries have been paid and the expenses for TV advertising and sales brochures have been deducted. Ask your favorite charity for that percentage. You will be surprised.

Tax deductible?

Begins at home? Where?

And where is home? Is it my neighborhood, or the huddled homeless in the seedy part of town? Should I help the earthquake victims in El Salvador first, because they are nearer to where I live now? Or should my first allegiance be to the Indians in Ahmedabad because of my origin? If I can afford it why not help both? I’m supposed to give till it hurts. So, how much should I hurt?

Music & the Arts

Cynics point out that charity brings its own reward. The good feeling you get when you serve the needy is itself the benefit you derive. Anyone who has his or her name advertised as the benefactor of the new library or hospital wing already receives the benefit of recognition. Let’s not call it charity and make it tax deductible in the bargain.

Charity is something within