A Strategy for Giving

Subscribers Only Content

High resolution image downloads are available to subscribers only.


Not a subscriber? Try one of the following options:

OUR SERVICES PAY-PER-USE LICENSING

FREE TRIAL

Get A Free 30 Day Trial.

No Obligation. No Automatic Rebilling. No Risk.

In the emergency room and on the battlefield it’s easy to appreciate the wisdom of a triage system: those with the greatest need are helped first. But few of us, particularly the wealthy, apply that same type of thinking when it comes to making donations to charities.

December marks the height of the charity season, when Americans give the bulk of roughly $290 billion donated annually by individuals. Various studies have pointed to an overall increase in charitable giving in recent years, although new tax laws might adversely affect that trend.

Due to the higher standard deduction fewer Americans will itemize donations and that could lead to the unintended consequence of less money going to charity. Notably, however, the group least affected by the new tax rules is the one that makes the largest contributions: wealthy individuals earning over $200,000 a year.

So, which causes do these affluent folks support, and how do they make their gifting decisions?

The U.S. Trust study, published by Bank of America and Indiana University, reveals several troubling answers. First, roughly half of wealthy donors don’t have a strategy for giving. They are guided by relationships with organizations,’such as colleges, churches and foundations,’and by their own past patterns of giving. That’s understandable, but hardly the definition of a triage system.

Second, nearly half of wealthy people, 46 percent, make no contributions whatsoever to “basic needs” such as food and shelter. Even more concerning, among the 54 percent who did, the amount given represented only 19 percent of the total. In other words, although a majority of rich people see human need as important, they fail to give it the majority of their charity budget.

Statistics show that the poorer you are the more you give, proportionately, to basic needs. Why is that? Is it because poorer people more clearly recognize the plight of those even less fortunate?

Maybe it’s because wealthy Americans believe government is doing enough to aid the hungry and homeless. Perhaps some among the affluent are suspicious of the poor – believing they game the system and don’t take enough responsibility for their plight.

Such thinking only obfuscates the bottom line: despite an improving economy and a drop in unemployment, roughly 40 million Americans live in poverty. The latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau also show that child poverty remains alarmingly high – due in part to the number of single-parent homes, coupled with the fact that women continue to earn less, on average, than men.

Although poverty figures differ depending on the metrics, there is general agreement that the U.S. has far more poverty than most developed countries such as Canada and in the U.K. How wealthy must we, as a nation, become before this stops?

As I write this at my office in California I’m also overwhelmed by the fact that more than 14,500 of my neighbors to the north have lost their homes and businesses in the Butte County wildfire. And that’s just the latest in a swath of disasters from Puerto Rico to Florida, the Carolinas, Texas and California that have left many people in need.

The U.S. Trust survey says just 1 percent of charitable donations by the wealthy goes to disaster relief efforts.

So, I wonder, is this the best time to write a check to help the school band get new uniforms? For the super rich, does your alma mater really need another building with your name on it?

There are many good causes, no doubt about that, and it would be foolish to cut them out of our charity budgets. But perhaps everyone, especially the wealthiest among us, can make a strategic adjustment so that more money goes where it’s needed most.

As Orwell might have framed it in this season of giving: All charities are equal, but some are more equal than others.

A list of Peter Funt’s upcoming live appearances is available at www.CandidCamera.com.

Peter Funt is a writer and speaker. His book, “Cautiously Optimistic,” is available at Amazon.com and CandidCamera.com.B 0 82018 Peter Funt. Columns distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons, Inc., newspaper syndicate.

In print and on television, Peter Funt continues the Funt Family tradition of making people smile – while examining the human condition.

After 15 years hosting the landmark TV series “Candid Camera,” Peter writes frequent op-eds for The Boston Globe and The Wall Street Journal.

Peter is a frequent speaker before business groups and on college campuses, using the vast “Candid Camera” library to bring his points to life. His newest presentation for corporate audiences, “The Candid You,” draws upon decades of people-watching to identify factors that promote better communication and productivity.

In addition to his hidden-camera work, Peter Funt has produced and hosted TV specials on the Arts & Entertainment and Lifetime cable networks. He also spent five years as an editor and reporter with ABC News in New York.

Earlier in his career, Peter wrote dozens of articles for The New York Times and TV Guide about television and film. He was editor and publisher of the television magazine On Cable. And he authored the book "Gotcha!" for Grosset & Dunlap on the lost art of practical joking.