Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
You must have noticed that we have turned into a nation of beggars. Every way one turns, someone has a hand out with an entreaty that you cover it with a folding money. Charities, scams, political groups, religious organizations, colleges, and thousands of gimmie-gimmie organizations stare unrequitedly at your wallet.
It may seem ungracious and parsimonious of me to turn away from the blitzkrieg of beggars, but I am blocking their calls, saying no to most, if not all, of their face-to-face requests, and feeling righteous and emboldened to say “No.” No, no, no.
No, I am not a skinflint. Over the years, I have contributed to many good causes, and that pattern will continue as long as I remain rational, but the pushy foot-in-the-door approach to fundraising has soured me and, sad to say, given me a distinctly Scrooge-like attitude toward those whose job it is to extract money from the public. Dozens of requests for donations flow into my email box each week. The phone brings more beggars. The radio voice hectors me with solicitations to donate my car, my boat, even my house for a good cause. There is no escape. Which brings to mind Herman Melville’s last novel, The Confidence Man, an allegorical story that puts the question to the reader: Should anyone be trusted? Hustlers present themselves whichever way one turns.
Just this morning a call came through, a man wanting donations for a law enforcement fund of some sort. Was it a scam? Who knows? Perhaps some of the money raised actually goes to law enforcement needs, but how can we know? Later, I went to a website that grades charities for honesty and percentage of funds put to good use. Whoa! Before I could find out about that police fund, an appeal blocked my screen asking for a donation for the very website that rates charities. By the way, that law enforcement charity distributes a mere 6% of the funds they receive to aid police departments. After operating costs, about 92% goes to fill the wallets of the swindlers who prey on an ignorant but well-meaning public. If I were a cop I would want to throw those crooks into the hooscow.
Certainly, all beggars are not frauds. Most of the highly trafficked corners near the off-ramps of I-5 here in Washington state feature a drifter with a sign asking for money, usually ending with an invocation to higher powers, something such as, “God Bless.” If honesty were in play, many of these signs would read, “I’m addicted to drugs and/or alcohol and need your money to get high before nightfall—God Bless.” So the ethical dilemma comes to this: do I help someone who is in need, or do I help to kill someone who is a martyr to addictions? Giving a few bucks to the one holding the sign may be lifesaving. On the other hand, I could be aiding a person’s suicide. To further complicate matters, on rare occasions I make prejudicial visual assessments (well, that guy certainly does not look like a tweaker) before handing over a few dollars. Should I trust my impromptu judgements?
As I do weekly, I drive into the Fred Meyer parking lot. A woman pulls alongside of me as I walk toward the grocery store. Her window rolls down. “Pardon me, sir,” she says. “I just came from the airport to drop off my brother, and I spent my last dollar on a gift for him. Now I am nearly out of gas and fifty miles from home. I wonder….” You know the rest.
After filling my basket with eggs and veggies, I swipe my credit card through the digital reader. While I wait for the transaction to post, the checker asks if I would like to contribute to the Children’s Hospital Fund. “No!” I say emphatically. Perhaps because I all but shout “No” I want to explain my refusal, but it would take some time and probably sound disingenuous to the indifferent checker. To cover my overreaction, I merely say, “Another time.”
A simple explanation to a long disputation: if I choose to donate, it will be my initiative, not by someone forcing the moment with shame or awkward insistence. Some aggressive begging strategies come close to extortion. Each year a “Fill the Boot” campaign to support the Muscular Dystrophy Association finds dozens of firefighters in the streets to raise money for an unarguably good cause. They walk between the two lines of traffic waiting at the red lights. No way to avoid them because they knock on your car window as they shake the rubber boot presumably loaded with spare change and dollar bills. This practice is not only dangerous but qualifies under any definition as aggressive begging, which many municipalities prohibit. Wipe away smiles and friendly demeanor; the motivation coming from the solicitors is “Give me your money.”
Because of all the requests, I now use the advice of Charity Watch or Charity Navigator, two online sites that do enough research to direct one to worthy charities, ones that do not fleece the unsuspecting donor. These watchdog organizations vet charities and provide transparency by breaking down the percentage of money that goes to soliciting funds, the number of dollars paid to those who manage the charity, and finally the actually number of dollars invested in the non-profit cause itself. You will find that an alarming number of organizations prey on people’s munificence by paying executive management as much as 96 of the take. Some charities funnel money to special undisclosed causes (Kars4Kids), so the kind giver is bamboozled into thinking his or her money is going to do one thing but will actually do something quite other. In short, too many of these switcheroo campaigns are not what they seem. Deception and dissembling effectively detour the good intentions of generous people into the wallets of deceitful predators.
Anyway, after I left Fred Meyer I turned on the radio and landed smack dab in the middle of the fund drive for our local PBS station. How many ways can beggars make the point that public radio is a good cause? Yes, it sure is, but, oh, they do go on about it. All of a sudden commercial-free radio hosts the longest most annoying commercial ever imagined. Come to find out they fail to mention that their reserves are incredibly loaded, $10,000,000.00 to the good. But they want more, much more. They even suggest—rudely, if you ask me—that before I die I should include them in my will. Maybe I have a car I don’t drive. Sure, they’ll take it. As part of the listener’s motivation to contribute on this particular fund drive (“As soon as we reach our goal we will stop this fund drive.”) was to end the fund drive. That is a cause I can get behind.
All sorts of organizations raise money to aid people or improve research. Yes, I want to fight cancer. Yes, I care about veterans. Of course, I want to feed millions of starving people. Thousands of good causes and worthy organizations try to meet the needs of a sick and unjust world. But be aware of the amount of money that actually squeezes through the administrative strainer. In some cases, few if any dollars go to the target cause. If you contribute to a phony charity scheme, you’d do as well to send Bernie Madoff a check for his defense fund.
A few Christmases ago, I bought a goat as a gift. I have forgotten how much I paid for the goat, but it wasn’t much. The animal I donated through Oxfam went to sustain an impoverished family somewhere in what used to be known as the third world.
It is fitting for one to seek good causes that are meaningful to the gift-giver, so I am cutting off the noise from all beggars who hector us, even if some of them represent praiseworthy charities. I know that may sound unkind, but I subscribe to Hamlet’s declaration: “I must be cruel only to be kind. Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.”