Is this Charity Plan Selfish?

[lazygood4nothinbum]

thanx but don't have to read again. i am aware that you qualified your statement by saying you were speaking for yourself. but that does not shield you from having expressed opinion on how you view the world and so the sentiment of my statement still applies.

 

[cantlogin]

as lovely as that sounds, what some see as self-sacrifice others call self-righteous.

abundance is a relative term. anyone who gives to another person some of what they have either has enough to share (whether or not you perceive that as an abundance worthy of your coffers, it is apparently abundant enough for them) or they didn't need it in the first place (it was just taking up otherwise needed space) or--when there is no plenty at all--they choose death, the ultimate in self-sacrifice. i have only so much air, but my neighbor needs air and has none, so i will give my neighbor my air to breathe that he might live and i might die.

have there been many sacrifices for nothing offered up to the gods, or is the history of sacrifice more a matter of deal-making? i offer up to you the life of this virgin if you will just send down my people some rain. i sacrifice my life for god that i might one day be rewarded with heaven. so much for the sacrosanctity of sacrifice, the transactions practiced by merchants of morality.

where is the sacrifice which is not self-serving? would you have felt better to have kept your air and left your neighbor to suffocation? or did you do without to relieve your own empathic suffering so great as to be remedied only by your own death?

is it a bit judgmental to presume first that your charity is selfless while another's is self-serving and then to assume authority to absolve what you see as another person's moral decay with "it is better than giving nothing." i would examine what motivates my own tithing before passing such judgment on others.

I have always known this to be true but I was never able to express it so clearly or succinctly. Thank you.

 

[homestead]

thanx but don't have to read again. i am aware that you qualified your statement by saying you were speaking for yourself. but that does not shield you from having expressed opinion on how you view the world and so the sentiment of my statement still applies.

Sorry, I should have given more information.
I didn't want to judge the poster so I applied it to myself.
In my situation if defer charity for 30 years , some of the charities I am currently supporting that feed hungry children will go hungry and possibly die. If if defer that charity until I die so I can have a bigger nest egg that
I can fall back on if needed seems self serving in my opinion. So in my case its bad to defer. If you are not currently giving to any urgent need charities then the proposal would be positive.

 

[DangerMouse]

There have been some interesting points put forward. When I first read LG4NB presentation of the facts, I was a bit annoyed, I was quite peeved that he would label charitable giving as being selfish. However, on reflection, I do agree to a certain extent that he is right. My favourite past time at the moment is managing my portfolio on Kiva. I know these are only loans, but thinking about it, I realise maybe I do make these loans because I get enjoyment out of it. However I think of this as being a bonus as my true aim is trying to help someone I don't know get a leg up in life.

some of the charities I am currently supporting that feed hungry children will go hungry and possibly die. If if defer that charity until I die so I can have a bigger nest egg that
I can fall back on if needed seems self serving in my opinion. So in my case its bad to defer. If you are not currently giving to any urgent need charities then the proposal would be positive.

However I have to take issue with those that deem it selfish to defer giving until death. I don't believe that it is selfish for me to keep what I have earnt for the purpose of supporting myself and my family. If that is selfish you could actually recognise most things in life as being selfish. Some of those who find themselves in the position of needing charity can be traced back to their own selfish acts - for example the family who can't support 1 child but continue to bring additional children into the world requiring charitable support - is that not selfish? Those who have horrendous medical bills because they have chosen to have children even though they know genetically there could be issues, or those who have medical bills because they decide for whatever reason they can not accept that death is in the future and they want a loved one saved at all costs.

The truth is many things in life are selfish, we each have to decide what works for us.

 

[youbet]

I wonder if the same kind of delays would work for charity takers as well as charity givers? For example, if your child attends a college you can't afford and you accept charity (a need based schlorship), should the college delay providing that schlorship until the college ceases to exist and distributes its remaining assets? Or at least delay it until some time in the distant future, say 40 years, until the endowment managers have a chance to see how things are going to work out financially? Would make good sense to me....... And you certainly couldn't consider it selfish on the part of the college or university.

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

I have always known this to be true but I was never able to express it so clearly or succinctly. Thank you.

your words humble me. for the record, i also did not have the expression until responding just then as i tried to make sense of what someone else was saying.

as much as we can fool ourselves and be fooled by others, ultimately, truth does not escape us. from even as far down as we have allowed our fears to hide true selves, we still connect & know. though we might not see it or live it or express it clearly, in a medley of senses, what is untrue continues to strike a bad chord or you hear--even if distant--disharmony of the lead or it somehow tastes funny or it might take upon the look of badly woven cloth, often easily shredded; the buttons do not quite match up with the button holes, the fit forced.

where possible you don’t want to embarrass anyone about their dress, and you wish they maintain dignity that they don’t walk around with their fly open. so you work to figure out how to express the esoteric into the vernacular, that what easily hides might be more readily exposed, understood and accepted.

…if defer charity for 30 years , some of the charities I am currently supporting that feed hungry children will go hungry and possibly die. If if defer that charity until I die so I can have a bigger nest egg that I can fall back on if needed seems self serving in my opinion. So in my case its bad to defer. If you are not currently giving to any urgent need charities then the proposal would be positive.

while it may be magnanimous (if not inconsistant) of you to hold yourself up to a different standard than you hold others, i wonder if it is difficult to reach the mouths of those starving children from up so high on that horse.

let me show you what i hear & see about what you say. these are the words i hear:
“I didn't want to judge” and “if you are not currently giving to any urgent need…the proposal would be positive.” but this is the action i see: “a bigger nest egg that I can fall back on if needed seems self serving in my opinion.”

how is it that your plan of action is less self-serving than that of another when considering how you would feel about yourself were you to stop being so current in your charity, regardless of perceived immediacy? is the guilt which motivates the self-righteous any less sinful than the greed of the self-serving? perhaps one for some is easier to swallow but it is no less a poison.

not to diminish you or your efforts, but someone helped feed the starving before you and someone else will be there afterwards. though i think it is true that your action reduces suffering in the world, it does not end it and some might argue that feeding a person a fish and not teaching that person to fish merely perpetuates their suffering instead of reducing it. but i will assume for the sake of your argument that there are not that many places left to fish and so it is good that you help feed the starving now just like it is good that others try to build their wealth so that they will not become charity cases themselves and that they will be able to help even more tomorrow when you have run out of fish.

though i trust that you do not wish to judge another, i am confused as to why you do not thank them but instead chastise them in your repeated confession that you think their action more self-serving then your own. for even though you help now and so will not have as much funds to help later when maybe the world might need your help more, well, i suppose, as you say, “that is better than nothing” too.

When I first read LG4NB presentation of the facts, I was a bit annoyed, I was quite peeved that he would label charitable giving as being selfish. However, on reflection, I do agree to a certain extent that he is right…The truth is many things in life are selfish, we each have to decide what works for us.

please excuse my occassional poor grasp of language as i can not always find the word to express my thought and so i tried to qualify my use of the term selfish by saying that it is “selfish in that…”. charity is, of course, not selfish per say as it helps others (though it can even be argued that charity might not only be in deed selfish and particularly manipulative because there might be some charity which helps your cause yet deliberately hurts mine). so to clarify, the selfish part to which i referred is what moves us to charity, not necessarily the charity itself.

my point being that we always do for ourselves but that the more of what we do for ourselves which helps others determines the degree of attributed selflessness, the antidote of selfishness. alternatively, the less others benefit from what we do for ourselves the more we call it selfish. but we can also be generous and giving while we are being selfish and not being selfless at all. for instance, we can reward ourselves with a night on the town or a lazy day in bed, all and only for ourselves, because we deserve it. at that, to deny ourselves such selfish pleasure would be, oddly, selfish. such is the complexity of being human.

so while all our acts are self-serving, the question is how much of what is self-serving selflessly serves others as well. there you will find charity.

“there are places where the mind dies so that a truth which is its very denial may be born.”~~albert camus

 

[homestead]

while it may be magnanimous (if not inconsistant) of you to hold yourself up to a different standard than you hold others, i wonder if it is difficult to reach the mouths of those starving children from up so high on that horse.

let me show you what i hear & see about what you say. these are the words i hear:
“I didn't want to judge” and “if you are not currently giving to any urgent need…the proposal would be positive.” but this is the action i see: “a bigger nest egg that I can fall back on if needed seems self serving in my opinion.”

how is it that your plan of action is less self-serving than that of another when considering how you would feel about yourself were you to stop being so current in your charity, regardless of perceived immediacy? is the guilt which motivates the self-righteous any less sinful than the greed of the self-serving? perhaps one for some is easier to swallow but it is no less a poison.

not to diminish you or your efforts, but someone helped feed the starving before you and someone else will be there afterwards. though i think it is true that your action reduces suffering in the world, it does not end it and some might argue that feeding a person a fish and not teaching that person to fish merely perpetuates their suffering instead of reducing it. but i will assume for the sake of your argument that there are not that many places left to fish and so it is good that you help feed the starving now just like it is good that others try to build their wealth so that they will not become charity cases themselves and that they will be able to help even more tomorrow when you have run out of fish.

though i trust that you do not wish to judge another, i am confused as to why you do not thank them but instead chastise them in your repeated confession that you think their action more self-serving then your own. for even though you help now and so will not have as much funds to help later when maybe the world might need your help more, well, i suppose, as you say, “that is better than nothing” too.

As I said before all my statements were about myself. I was not judging you or the OP. I did not intend to chastise anyone. The charitiy I was talking about does feed, clothe & educate the children and helps the family too. They send you a picture of the child and information about them. You get to see them grow up and after they learn to read and write they write you letters. You tend to think of them as part of your extended family.

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

my mistake entirely homestead. it sounds like a wonderful program and i hope that it brings you much satisfaction.

 

[free4now]

TromboneAl your plan is similar to how I treat the bulk of my charitable giving. I'm not down with the "my charity really needs it now" idea; there will always be charities with urgent legitimate needs, even after I'm dead. The reason charities say they want the money now rather than later is because a bird in hand is worth two in the bush. Also charities are often incredibly shortsighted, for good reasons like the constant threat of extinction.

But there is a way in which giving is about more than maximizing dollars transfered. Giving really is a two way street and by delaying it until death you miss out on lots of the benefits of giving. Just the satisfaction of seeing your impact on other people can improve your mental and even physical health. I believe it can literally save you healthcare dollars by keeping you healthier.

Being ER has changed my attitude towards giving. When I was working giving was largely about transfering money to worthy causes.

Now that I'm ER, I am realizing that most people don't give for the abstract idea of making the world a better place. Most people give for the present feeling of happiness that it brings them. And that happiness increases the closer you are to the results of your giving.

Whereas I used to choose charities based on their performance at achieving their mission, now I place a lot of weight on how much a part of my life they are. Charities that I interact with directly are just more satisfying to give to, both for me and for them.

 

[vinnieg24]

I think the plan sounds okay. I can see other side of how it can be viewed as selfish but the idea behind it is good. go for it!

 

[Walt34]

"People are as generous as they believe they can afford to be."

Arthur C. Clarke

 

[Walt34]

What amazes me is how many more homeless people there are in colder climates . You are homeless wouldn't it be easier to sleep outside in Florida than Washington DC.

The practical issue of getting there probably keeps them from going. If they're homeless they almost certainly lack the financial resources to travel, or possibly even the ability to plan ahead that far.

I've dealt with homeless people on a short-term basis. (I'm a retired police officer, and the county had a program to put them up in a motel overnight, then contact social services in the morning.) Few of them would bother to contact the agencies that offer help. Or if they did, few of those followed through on what what was required to extricate themselves from their situation. Many were "repeaters" simply looking for a free meal and warm bed and were banned from the program and left to fend for themselves.

Harsh, but why should the taxpayers have to bear the cost of supporting someone who consistently does not - for whatever reasons - make even minimal efforts to support themselves?

 

[free4now]

As anyone who lives in a big California city will attest, the homeless do indeed seek out warm weather. But there are always a subset of homeless people who are too mentally disabled or too drugged out to do what is in their best interests, and they are the ones who stay and die in the colder climates.

 

[bongo2]

Sorry Al, putting the money in a fund that you may or may not give to charity later on is not giving to charity. You sound like you want to give money to charity, but you also want to keep the money for yourself. To make yourself feel better you are going to put some money in a fund and say “this is for charity,” but you’ll spend the money yourself if you need it later on. You can’t have it both ways. You need to decide if you are going to give money to charity or not, and then do it. If you want to keep your money that’s your right, but don’t try and fool yourself with this “separate account” gimmick.

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

...To make yourself feel better you are going to put some money in a fund and say “this is for charity,” but you’ll spend the money yourself if you need it later on. You can’t have it both ways...If you want to keep your money that’s your right, but don’t try and fool yourself with this “separate account” gimmick.

fortunately my local pbs station broadcasts in color and not just in black & white.

WPBT: Bequests, James I. Keller Society

A bequest may be a specific dollar amount, a percentage of your assets or a gift from the “residue” or “what’s left,” after providing adequately for your loved ones. Leaving a percentage or a portion of the residue allows for the size of your gift to vary over time with changes in the size of your estate.

 

[Khan]

Sorry Al, putting the money in a fund that you may or may not give to charity later on is not giving to charity. You sound like you want to give money to charity, but you also want to keep the money for yourself. To make yourself feel better you are going to put some money in a fund and say “this is for charity,” but you’ll spend the money yourself if you need it later on. You can’t have it both ways. You need to decide if you are going to give money to charity or not, and then do it. If you want to keep your money that’s your right, but don’t try and fool yourself with this “separate account” gimmick.

What else can you expect from a bunch of selfish ERs?

 

[bongo2]

Lazy, some even broadcast in HD (more clarity - get it?). If Al wants to leave money to charity in his will then that’s great, and I’m sure they will appreciate it. If you think that the point of giving to charity is to influence your own happiness, then maybe this should be your only charitable giving. All the warm fuzzies, none of the sacrifice. Al’s post strongly suggests, and he’s definitely on to something here, that he feels it’s important to give money to charity now. But then he get’s this idea: he can just pretend to give money to charity. He’ll be “giving” now, but he can spend the money later if he feels like it. If he doesn’t feel like it, they’ll get the money eventually. He knows this is wrong, but the idea is seductive, it sounds so good. Maybe it’s just him. He goes to his friends at the ERF to set him straight. Don’t worry Al, I’ve got your back! Don’t do it! Listen to your heart, and do what’s right!

On the other hand, maybe Al feels that this is the right thing to do, and he’s trying to convince his wife or something. In that case, me coming out against his plan is surely the best way to convince everyone that he’s right! It’s win/win!

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

we favor what makes us happy while avoiding causes of unhappiness. it is silly to say that the point of charity is to make you happy just because giving to charity happens to do so. the purpose of charity is, of course, to help others. but unless you are masochistic, if it made you miserable, you wouldn't do it. just like if it made you miserable to not give, then you would give so you don't feel badly. then there are people who don't give to charity at all and don't feel one way or the other about that. do you suggest that the people who do give to charity are equally uneffected?

another poster correctly observed that watching the results of current charitable giving can bring additional happiness during life, because you can see the results of your giving. from that, it can be extrapolated that it is less self-serving to delay giving until after death because in doing so we sacrifice the very happiness that we'd receive from seeing our charity benefit others during our own lifetime.

so no, this is not all black and white to me even in the more expensive hd version.

does this deny atruism? sorry, but to put your hand in your pocket and pull out some change--regardless of the timing of it all--is just a matter of sharing and does not, to me, a hero make.

 

[bongo2]

Lazy, I think you are inferring something which I did not intend to imply. I'm not saying that bequeathing money is wrong. All I'm saying is that Al seems to feel that he should be giving money today (that's what I read in the "$2000 a year" comment). Perhaps he doesn't, and I am also inferring too much. But if he does, then he shouldn't try and fool himself into thinking that he is giving money by putting it in a slush fund. That is the only black and white issue.

Now, I do think that giving money today is better than waiting until death, but that is more subtle. As you say, the purpose of charity is to help others, and I happen to believe that the returns from charitable contributions (carefully chosen) will be much greater than the returns from investments. This suggests that the best time to give to charity is now, but other reasonable people may disagree. I think there is a second reason to give to charity, and that is that the practice of a little self-sacrifice benefits the giver. It's a little bit karmic, and a little bit therapeutic. If you defer until death then you give up that second benefit. However, this is not a selfless reason, as you point out.

 

[Nords]

What else can you expect from a bunch of selfish ERs?

Apparently that we work until we die, except that when we achieve FI we continue working to send our paychecks to charity.

 

[ziggy29]

also disadvantages: no immediate tax deduction

You don't get a deduction unless you itemize anyway. We sent off more than $3,000 to charity last year but we still claim the standard deduction. Ergo, no tax writeoff.

Sometimes I've thought about setting aside $20,000 or so into a charitable giving trust, so I can get the write-off, and just give out a chunk of that each year for a few years.

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

Lazy, I think you are inferring something which I did not intend to imply. I'm not saying that bequeathing money is wrong. ...then he shouldn't try and fool himself into thinking that he is giving money by putting it in a slush fund. That is the only black and white issue....

actually i was mostly referring to:

...If you think that the point of giving to charity is to influence your own happiness, then maybe this should be your only charitable giving. All the warm fuzzies, none of the sacrifice. Al’s post strongly suggests, and he’s definitely on to something here, that he feels it’s important to give money to charity now. But then he get’s this idea: he can just pretend to give money to charity. He’ll be “giving” now, but he can spend the money later if he feels like it.

by saying that i don't think this is a black and white, right or wrong, one size fits all matter.

i also don't believe that charity is limited by time. if it were, there would not exist charitable foundations. i do not believe that al-t would be fooling himself by funding his foundation now and considering that to be his current charitable giving even though it might not fund that new library until after he is long gone.

 

[deserat]

T-Al - it's your money, do what you want with it - frankly, I give spot checks to organizations that I see are beneficial. This year it was the USO - I gave them money right then and there when I had to partake due to some circumstances. Some years it's the Salvation Army - some years it's nobody. Am I selfish - perhaps - I don't consider myself selfish if I am self-sufficient and don't have to draw on the 'collective' for my needs.