I have a philosophy when it comes to charitable donations; I will not give my money to any group or cause that serves a particular group of people and no other UNLESS the issue itself is inherently specific to a particular demographic.
For example, I gladly donate to Breast Cancer Research even though the primary beneficiaries are women BECAUSE women are the primary victims of Breast Cancer. I would NOT donate to a charity that only helped white/black/asian/latino women who are afflicted with breast cancer because I think ALL victims of this devastating illness need and deserve help, and said help should not be meted out on the basis of race. Make sense?
‘nuther example: a childhood friend of mine died of Sickle Cell Anemia, and I would (and have) gladly donated to research for that ailment, as well. Now, Sickle Cell most often afflicts blacks (or so I am told), so I would feel comfortable knowing that all my money went to a group that helps one race more than another, because that’s the way the disease works. BUT I would not donate to, say, any fund that was designed to fight lung cancer in EXCLUSIVELY black men, because white/asian/latino men and black/white/asian/latino women get lung cancer, too, and they are no less important than my father, who died of lung cancer, was.
Does that make sense?
OK, so…
There I was at a local outlet buying a shirt. The lady behind the counter asked me if I wanted to donate $1 to the Women’s Heart Disease Fund (note: the title of the charity might be off, but the purpose of the donation was to aid in eliminating heart disease in women). I asked her if any men would benefit from my donation and she said no and reminded me that it was a WOMEN’S Heart Disease fund.
I told her I would not donate to any such group because men have heart disease, too, and men are no less important to the fabric of our society than women. She gave me a very dirty look, mumbled something under her breath that I didn’t catch, and tossed my receipt at me. Literally, she didn’t hand it to me, but tossed it to the other side of the counter. I was shocked. I mean, I thought I made a valid point.
Is it because I am a white male? Is that why such charities seem wrong to me? I honestly don’t hate any group of people or wish ill on anyone, I just think that all people should be treated equally, and that includes recipients of charitable donations.
Also, along similar lines, I can’t help wondering why we have Breast Cancer Awareness Month but not…say…Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, or Testicular Cancer Awareness Month. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have nothing, repeat, NOTHING against raising awareness of breast cancer or funding research to cure it, and I donate to those causes (sporadically, I admit), but having lost loved ones to prostate cancer I can’t see how it would be any less or any more devastating simply because of where the tumor is located and the gender of the afflicted person. If I am wrong, and there IS a Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, please feel free to straighten me out.
So what do y’all think? Am I a bad person? Feel free to tell me I am a jerk if you want.
See Y'all!
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15 comments:
so much money for causes goes into administration, bureaucracy, advertising, or straight down the toilet.
meanwhile, human love and attention has no price tag. if you aren't personally involved in a cause, chances are throwing money at it will just cause your money to get misused. hate to be even MORE cynical than you here. but where you can, donate time, and you'll have a clean conscience.
Oh, I know, moonrat. I know. And I am tempted to argue against administrative costs for charity employees but the truth is, they gotta eat, too.
I'd love to donate time. Several years ago I was alone for Christmas on a regular basis (recently D'd and ex had my daughter every year), so I volunteered for a help ministry. I loved it, but always wished I could do more.
But these days I don't have time to use the potty. :(
David,
I don't think you're a bad person, maybe misinformed. The person asking you for a donation probably should have explained why women need a charity for heart disease.
It's because MORE women die from it than men because women have different symptons that doctor's ignore or are not familiar with. Some doctor's DISMISS women and their symptons because it was thought to be a man's disease. Heart disease is killing more women than breast cancer...get the point?
You're right, everyone is important, but we don't live in a perfect society, everyone IS NOT treated equally, if they were, there would be no laws that were specific to certain groups of people. In a perfect world, yes, everyone would be equal, but unfortunately we still have a long way to go... :*) My two cents...
OK, Tyhitia, thanks for that. See, that's the kind of thing I need to know before I donate anything. If I had known that, I would have had no issue at all.
You're welcome, David. I'm here to help...lol. Um, have you been to my blog lately? What's up with that? LOL...
David;
I do no think you are a horrible person in the least, and I happen to agree with you completely.
Thanks, Ladybronco. :-)
You just made my day.
I don't see anything wrong with that viewpoint at all, David. Makes sense, really. But I guess thast now you know heart disease afftects more women than men...
Sheesh ... me and my lousy typos!
Just found your site, You have some really good points, I also agree with Moonrat as well, where the heck IS our money going? There's too many people out there that will volunteer funds if we knew for certain said funds would actually go straight to research.
A lot of the time I can't donate a lot of money to causes, i'm a divorced mother of two trying to make it in todays world. But let me say, i'm the first one to give toys for tots or clothes or even food to those less fortunate. I have met some great people that way as well. I like the more hands on approach than just giving something away blindly, you never know where it truly goes. Great site David..
You're a jerk!
No, not really.:)
I think you have a valid point.
I have a story about my husband who I adore, and this is only one of the reasons.:)
My dad is very charitable man, but he does not give to people on the street. He is of the mindset that most of them will simply by drugs or alcohol and he prefers to give to other charities. That's how I was raised. So about six months after I got married I was walking down a busy street with my husband and we passed a guy panhandling on the street. I averted my eyes and walked on by. My husband didn't stop walking, but he reached into his pocket and dropped the change he found there into the guy's cup. Probably less than a dollar. We got about ten feet away and I hissed, "Why did you do that."
He looked back and asked, very sincerely, "Why not."
My instincts kicked in and I said, "He'll probably just buy beer or something. He might not even be homeless!"
My husband just shrugged and said, "So? I can't control who he is or what he does. But I can control what I do, and I choose to give. What's wrong with that?"
I opened my mouth continue spouting the ideals I'd been brought up on and then stopped. What was wrong with that? Nothing. It was just the change in his pocket. My husband taught me to simply give of what i had that day and it's a lesson I have always considered priceless.
However, David, I see your point. I don't want someone who needs it to be turned away form a charity because they don't fit the prototype. I would be much more willing to give to a charity that targeted all victims, not just some. I belong to a church that is know for giving to people outside it's membership. I love that! I know that when I give to my church it will help people of my own faith, but not only them. It will help whoever needs it. I also know that very little of that money will be used for administrative cost and that's a plus for me too.
So I guess my opinion is that I don't think it matters who you decide to give to, so long as you give. If your stance was you don't give at all because you don't like who the organizations serve, that would be one thing. But you do give. You just choose your charities carefully. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
BTW, David, that's me up there. (A.R.) I forgot to sign in to my regular username. Ooops.:)
To Moonrat's point - check Charity Navigator before donating to non profits. They'll rate them for you, and tell you exactly what percentage of your money goes to overhead. [My favorite charity is Save the Children, just to do a shameless plug :)] Unfortunately, there's no way to avoid the overhead. You just hope that the people running the organization have good enough business acumen to minimize costs and maximize what they can do. But think about it - we spend so much stuff on OTHER things that also go into some other company's overhead + more. The people who run charities, do research, help others, etc etc, can't do all of that on sheer willingness alone, so we have to do what we can.
To your point though, I think it depends on the cause and the charity. Unfortunately, most research these days (esp medical research) tends to look at men, and typically white men, only because they have the largest population in our country. By contributing funds to an organization that specifically seeks to help certain groups of people, you're ensuring that they're getting the attention that they need for particular diseases too. While I think your argument is completely valid here, and makes a lot of sense, research and resources for minority groups (whether race or gender etc) tends to be underfunded. So for instance, the Cammy Lee Foundation is, I think, a leukemia bone marrow organization for Asians. It's not meant to be racist or exclude other races or to even diminish the importance of help that is needed equally by others, but it's the fact that, unfortunately, there are not enough marrow donors for Asians in America. I also think, believe it or not, depending on certain types of disease, people of different races may react differently to different diseases. Just a couple of years ago a heart drug - BiDil - was found to be statistically effective only in African Americans over other races. Perhaps this shows that African American's have different symptoms, reactions, needs when it comes to heart disease than non-African-Americans.
That's just a thought. I don't think you're a bad person :) I can completely see your line of reasoning, but I do think it depends on what exactly it is that we're talking about.
Excellent points, angelle, and thanks for sharing them. :)
I think in this case you should have just said, "Not today," and left it at that. The sales clerk is required to ask, and may have been personally affected in this case, and isn't necessarily going to know anything about the charity, so getting into your philosophy about it with her was unnecessary. She wasn't in a position to do anything about it, you know?
Anyway, I agree, it's impossible to give to every good cause, so we do what we can.
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