With the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge overtaking everyone’s newsfeed, and school starting along with the fundraising requests that come home in backpacks, I wanted to take the opportunity to talk a little bit about how we look at giving, donations, and fundraisers. This fits right in with our series on ‘we’re not minimalists, we just don’t like over complicating life‘ series that we’re doing right now.
First, let’s look at giving. Giving is a wonderful experience for everyone, no matter how little time or money you have. It’s fulfilling, and is as beneficial for the giver as much if not more than those receiving. I LOVE giving. It’s one of my favorite things about having a less stressful life – I feel like I’m in a better position to give freely.
I struggle and have had to think through giving often, though. It’s a balance between seeing how much is needed and how much poverty there is in so much of the world. People don’t have access to clean water, education, or basic medical care and here I just spent more than I would like to admit at Costco yesterday on things that we could quite easily do without or make do with less expensive alternatives.
If I’m not careful, I will spend too much time in my head trying to sort out the ethics of this, feeling guilty that I’m not doing more, or not making a decision and therefore not doing anything at all.
To keep my bleeding-heartness in check and avoid analysis paralysis, I went ahead and made some simple ‘ground rules’ that I’m comfortable with and prevent me from giving to a point that it’s at the expense of my family. This is what our family does right now. I’m in absolutely no position to judge what other families do – this is just what works for us, and in case you find yourself feeling overwhelmed with donation requests you might find this helpful for simplifying.
- Monthly giving – we sponsor children through Compassion International. They have a very good reputation for being good stewards with the donations they receive, and it feels more involved for our family because we get letters and pictures of the children we are helping, and we get to write them. There are lots of lessons to be learned here for my children and they seriously love getting the mail!
- Weekly giving – we give to our local church. I give the children money to put in the offering buckets. I do watch how the church stewards their money (hold your tomatoes – if you feel called to give 10% no matter what, I’m not judging that, I’m just sharing what we do) and I will give more to a church that I feel is using their money for helping people more than they are for buildings, decorations, and social events.
- People who ask for money (in parking lots, etc) – I give cash without judgement, as long as I’m not struggling financially myself (ie – if I just came out of Costco having purchased things beyond the basic necessities I am not struggling). Not a lot, but if I have a $5 in my center console (where I keep loose bills) I’ll give it. I don’t feel it’s my job to know or judge what they will do with it. I think it’s beneficial for my children to see me give freely.
- People I personally know that are struggling due to accident, illness, job loss, house fire, etc. – I”ll give as much as I can. People have been extraordinarily giving and generous to me in times like this, and I do what I can to pay it forward. I prefer to give this way rather than through a charity that has overhead.
And then what I personally don’t give to, and what I do instead
- I don’t give to big fundraising organizations with high overhead like the ALS groups, breast cancer groups, or charity walks. Instead I will contribute more to Compassion, which I feel drawn to contribute to. Having a go-to charity prevents me from feeling pressured to contribute to every charity that shows up on Facebook.
- I don’t participate in school fundraisers unless I was going to buy something anyway (I occasionally buy magazines, that’s it though). Instead I offer to pick up any needed supplies the next time I’m at Target for my children’s classrooms. I also send in twice the amount of money requested for most school field trips to help cover kids who’s parents can’t afford it right now (often teachers will pay these field trip fees out of pocket to help the family save face)
- I don’t provide free childcare for the neighborhood. Because I work from home with a flexible schedule, some families will think that I have free time to watch their children. I have a child with special needs who gets stressed from too much stimulation, so I keep our house calm. I do offer to take neighborhood kids to the park to give their parents a break when it’s a convenient time for me and my daughter is in the mood to be social.
Do you have ground rules for giving? What has worked for you?
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That is some excellent advice. I’ve always felt a little uncomfortable giving to people on the side of the road, thinking that they will use it for drugs or such, but we do give regularly to our local Christian rescue mission who will help people who truly are in need.
That’s how I was raised too. I’ve lived a few places where I interacted with quite a few homeless people, and I”m more concerned about the people detoxing on the street or stealing to get their fix than the ones that are drunk/high. That’s just my personal thoughts though :)