It’s that time of year again. A time when we commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ, embark on a consumerist frenzy, get together with family and friends, set out milk and cookies for the patron saint of Coca-Cola, or at least some of the above. It’s probably a good time of year to reflect on giving; how we like to give, how much we give, and whether or not we’re each individually giving enough back to society.
Each weekday morning on the way to work I walk across London Bridge amidst a stampede of workers (five or six abreast) leaving London Bridge Rail Station and marching north into the City. There are usually one or two homeless people sitting almost wedged against the bridge wall, precariously close to the swinging leather shoes of city workers as they bustle past. Quite often actually, the odd person does seem to stop and have a bit a chat with them, which is always a cheering thing to observe. In general, however, its hard to imagine a more disheartening scene from the point of view of someone sitting down there, on one of the busiest pavements in London of a working morning. Amidst the wintry gloom, it must be possible to watch the cold heels of thousands of people as they scuttle past, people who in their focus on the immediate task of getting to work, really don’t seem to care about anything or anyone except themselves.
This thought leads me to give some consideration to my own working philosophies of giving, and how I give. I certainly don’t volunteer my time as much as I would like, although I am an inveterate indirect giver; I donate regularly to several charities. In more direct situations however, involving collectors on the street or indeed beggars, I tend to be less generous. When I’m out and about around shopping centres and the like, I do tend to be focused on the task at hand, and while I’m careful to be polite, I usually don’t engage with collectors. I’m not a spontaneous person – I am a planner. Beggars and the homeless all too often present an array of questions to the rational component of my brain too complicated to be answered in the seconds that pass as I walk by. Do I have change? If I give you some change, what will you spend it on? If I pull out my wallet to see if I have change, is it likely to be snatched from me? And perhaps most definitively, if I give you some change, am I effectively encouraging you to persist at the begging game and to postpone attempts to find a lasting solution to your troubles?
Au contraire, in walking by, am I just being a bit of a coldhearted git?
This is the truth of my giving – I think it would be great in the comments if you could reflect on your own, and challenge yourself and your own preconceptions. Let’s try to be constructive rather than judgmental, eh? Everyone’s circumstances and indeed, everyone’s psychology on this matter can be quite different, often with good reason.
I tend not to give money to randoms on the street. I’m interested in systems, and so prefer to support anti-poverty initiatives at home and abroad by systematically supplying (relatively small amounts of) cash to organisations that do this. It seems unfortunate to assist people based on geographic proximity to me, rather than some assessment of need.
I give Medecins Sans Frontieres $125 a month, or about four per cent of my annual salary.
I’m thinking of a big one-off donation to a local/domestic charity this Christmas, who aren’t the Salvos or other mobs that require the hard-done-by to say their prayers.
I don’t inhabit precincts much where people have their hand out, but I’m told that around The Valley and New Farm in Brisbane it’s advisable to have some loose gold coins in your pocket so you don’t have to get out your wallet.
Australians apparently are not good givers. In talkback recently, two reasons were given. One is that compared with the US our social security net is stronger. So “they” should sort it, whereas in the land of individualism, individuals need more help.
They other is that among the rich we display wealth by what we wear, what we own and what we do etc. In the US giving is said to be also a marker of wealth. I haven’t been there, so I wouldn’t know.
The Salvos don’t require people to say their prayers.
I’m another systematic giver – I generally donate ~5% of after tax income in June, periodically trying to leverage friends with higher marginal tax rates but without much success. I also donate time and energy, which don’t show up on my tax return but still probably have some value. I do like the lack of limkits on donations in Australia, when I lived in NZ you could only claim the first $1500.
Part of my reluctance to make random donations to individuals is my suspicion that doing so is not as helpful as donating to organisations. That said, you also need to watch how much the organisation loses to fundraising costs.
Blood to the Red Cross, money to Medecins sans Frontieres, time (in some hypothetical future of leisure) to visiting women in prison and/or isolated old people, and one-off emergency relief donations, again through the Red Cross. I haven’t given money to anyone in the street since the time I was ambushed by a young man on George Street in Sydney, fit, healthy, good-looking, articulate and better dressed than I was, who accosted me, physically stopped me from walking on, and more or less demanded money with menaces.
I love choosing and wrapping and giving Christmas presents, too, actually. I know it’s obligatory at this time of year to go on about commercialisation and so on, but there’s a great deal more to it than that.
There’s a very good summary here of the ideas in Mauss’s classic The Gift.
I give monthly to four charities and this post made me do the arithmetic and realise that it adds up to about 5% of my gross income.
But, I also give to beggars and couldn’t care less what they spend the money on. It’s a judgement I choose not to make. It maybe because one of grandfathers ended up homeless and begging, so I very much have a ‘there but for the grace God go I’ sort of attitude, in an atheistic sort of way.
I remember when I was kid, there were beggars who regularly come knocking on the door looking for food, not money. Mum always kept non-perishables for them. They used to make the gatepost with a piece of chalk; presumably some sort of record keeping system.
Monthly donation to UNHCR for past 8 years or so, as a family Amnesty as well.
Have mixed feelings about people begging in the streets of Sydney I’m afraid, though I feel differently about the same thing in many overseas countries. Don’t know if this is a fair judgement or not.
Brian, that’s my understanding from family members over there – giving money is very much seen as part of the thing that wealthy people should do.
I find it a very tough issue.
In the main I figure that I pay quite enough in tax to support the social security net and that the Government can do a better job than me of prioritising need. I’m more inclined to support overseas charities since I don’t believe Australia does it fair share for third world countries. But even that isn’t easy. Those countries desperately need a leg-up in terms of trade expertise and removal of trade restrictions rather than charity and I suspect most of our charitable contributions aren’t doing much good.
I support the orangutans even though by best guess is that ultimately the only sizeable animals likely to survive the next 50 years are those that provide obvious economic benefits, such as farmed animals.
I don’t like the health-based charities that we are constantly asked to support in the work place. I’m sure cancer is a rotten disease but I’d rather see priority given to the major world issues such as malnutrition, malaria and cholera before rich elderly whitefella diseases.
So my preference is that charity is provided by Governments based on careful balancing of competing priorities. And if they need to bump up my taxes to do so, then so be it.
Since I am not merely an Amazing Master of Charitable Giving but also an Amazing Master of Hypnosis (my first love, really), I am able to kill two birds with one stone:
When I am approached for money on the street by a beggar or hobo, I simply hypnotize the supplicant and make him believe that he is a sober and industrious, highly-skilled and much-sought-after member of the Employable Respectable Middle Class — and presto! off he goes, to improve himself at once.
Generally the next time I encounter these chaps, they have become fully functional well-fed, well-paid and well-scrubbed sales managers, dental assistants and newspaper moguls.
Who knows?? Perhaps even the occasional Member of Parliament, or LP commenter.
Find out more at trustnooneever.com!
Moderated?
Funny how we compare our giving to the US. I’ve never seen data on a comparison with Europe, with a much larger Social Security program.
I give primarily to Oxfam, with smaller amounts to MSF. It’s not just that I think the need is greater overseas than here, but the effectiveness of a dollar in the developing world for change is so much more than that dollar locally. But it doesn’t make me feel much better when I turn down people in the street, which I have to do 2-3 times a week.
I’ve always aspired to giving 10% of my income to charity. Last financial year I was very excited when I felt I could afford it for only the second time in my life. Alas I think it will be smaller proportion (of a smaller pool) this time.
That’s not counting donations to the Greens or suchlike, which I see as a different thing.
I had some mental health issues when I was younger and as such, I sought out some government and non-government social services. Eventually I found myself with no place to live so I slept on my brother’s lounge well past my welcome. I was surprised that I was able to get pubic housing rather quickly, a nice apartment in a good location in Sydney. I felt, and still feel, very guilty about how the government helped me and yet I see so many homeless people everyday. Despite my experience I do not give money to homeless people on the streets; this is not how the system should work. I think the law should be reversed so it is the person giving money is the one who is committing the crime not the beggar, probably a hundred dollar fine would suffice.
The other problem with ending up depending on welfare or begging is that you find yourself trying to prove to everyone including yourself that you are useless and that is really not so good for mental health. I really think the libertarians negative tax, or maybe a universal $200 for passing “go” every week off-set by removing the tax free bracket or something would be better then having to have people prove their uselessness to the government and charities continually.
We give monthly or quarterly to a number of charities. One is Compassion, a non-denominational Christian charity that support third world schools through child sponsorship.
Our first “son” has graduated the system and is going on to study architecture after his national service. Despite some of the stories you hear about the amount of money going to advertising and admin ( though not withy our group), I feel that education for those who would otherwise have none gives their whole society a leg up.
Buskers who are any good at all get a coin. There used to be a guy who hung around near Flinders St station whose spiel was “I’m not gonna bullshit you – I’m asking people for money to buy alcohol, as I am an alcoholic with no job”. I gave him a coin a few times just for the lulz.
Otherwise, it’s via charities or when I can’t afford it (e.g. at the moment) nothing. Other people being worse off than me only carries so much weight, when I temporarily can’t work myself.
One of my best friends is a busker and she makes a decent living out of this and it is her only source of income. She plays the accordion on King Street in Newtown. She is young and funky and certainly contributes much to Newtown’s culture. She isn’t being paid out of sympathy; She is being paid for being talented. Some busking is begging, while sometimes it isn’t.
Congrats all on your generosity.
Some interesting points I think:
Alister @1 – That pretty much sums up when I am as well.
Pavlov’s Cat @6 – Were you robbed or were you donating?
Hadn’t heard of Mauss but thanks for the tip, sounds interesting.
Jenny @10 – Tough is definitely right. And its something one tends to grapple with on an almost daily basis if one frequently travels through large towns and cities.
The question of whether to direct efforts locally or internationally is a tough one. I tend to be a bit of a global citizen on this score and seek to give wherever I feel it will do the most good.
James @14 – Mental health is a big part of it that is often overlooked isn’t it? One wishes that local councils would be better empowered to provide social assistance to people who are living rough.
FDB @16 – Yep, love a good busker. I agree with James @17 though that busking and charity tend not to overlap. When I give to a busker (admittedly not as often as I should), its because they’re doing a great job of brightening up a typically drab place with their talent.
Nothing like walking along somewhere and being swamped by a tune you recognise being belted out unexpectedly well by someone!
I am probaby too soft – I think I was scammed by a middle-aged woman outside one of Melbourne’s better-known hospitals.
Best solution – a few vouchers for one or other of the major supermarkets. If they want food, let them eat.
I give people a headache.
Does that count?
‘Buskers who are any good at all get a coin.’
Hell yes, but that’s just fair pay. I saw a little Chinese girl playing ‘Danny Boy’ on her violin in the street here a few months back and told myself that if she got the high note right I’d give her five bucks. She did, too.
Busking =/=I recently worked with a guy who was fully employed in a fairly highly paid position (IT, contract) but he’d go out every Friday night and busk just for the love of it. He has the looks and talent and voice to do very well, too. I think he makes more on a Friday night busking sometimes than in the previous couple of days work!
Sorry, first sentence should have read “Busking =/= begging”.
Yeah, the subtext of my busking comment was that when it’s more beggin than busking, I keep walking. When it’s genuine busking but sounds shit, same.
Actually, even being good at it doesn’t get money out of me – however skilled, a dude in a ponytail playing cheesy spanish guitar over a ten-part backing tape he’s probably using without license from a “Letz Play Flamenko” self-teaching guide is also out. Especially if it’s so loud that another busker can’t set up within 100m. YES I’M LOOKING AT YOU BOURKE ST MALL GUY.
Many years ago I used to read my poetry outside of Woolworths at King’s Cross on a Friday and Saturday night and write instant love poems for young couples. Used to only do it for a couple of hours. Did quite well out of it too. On a good night I could make $30-$50.
Once a whole bunch of us walked through the Cross trying to give oranges away to people. You’d be surprised at the number of people who wouldn’t take them. I think they thought they were laced with LSD or something.
PB — back when I was a surly teen, once on a dadaist whim I stole a metal napkin dispenser full of paper napkins from a pizzeria, then walked thru the streets of Manhattan for an hour or two, handing out free napkins to pedestrians.
I was surpised how grateful people were, got a lot of “Why thank you, young man.”
Think I was trying to emulate Harpo Marx, who when asked by a vagrant for a dime for a cup of coffee, instead pulled from his raincoat a full, hot cup of coffee, complete with saucer.
Now THAT’S giving.
“when it’s more beggin than busking,”
Sometimes this is explicit. When I was Mexico for a couple of months, there was this partially de-toothed guy in Coyoacan whose entire schtick was that that he was so goddamn awful you should pay him to leave your table. Very persistent – earned quote a lot as far as I could see!
LE – as with the “I’m a drunk and I’m begging for alcohol money” guy, those folks deserve a tip for their moxy.
I give monthly to MSF and to Red Cross NSW (apparently my $ go to school breakfast programs?). I also donate time each week to Girl Guides, but that is a bit different – the girls I work with are certainly not underprivileged, although some groups are.
I sometimes give to people begging – there is one man who often hangs around parliament station in Melbourne in the evenings, who looks so woebegone holding out his hat quietly that I often slip him a few dollars. I’ve also had the fun of unexpectedly giving people asking for ‘just a dollar’ a $10 note – the pleasure on peoples’ faces is worth it. I always buy a gift to go under the ‘wishing tree’ each Christmas.
Somehow, writing it down, it seems too little. I live very comfortably, perhaps I should give more. Tricky.