{"id":4174,"date":"2022-05-10T11:15:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-10T15:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/?post_type=project&p=4174"},"modified":"2026-08-07T17:54:45","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T21:54:45","slug":"money-in-the-world-feeling-good-versus-doing-good-charity-and-philanthropy","status":"publish","type":"project","link":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/project\/money-in-the-world-feeling-good-versus-doing-good-charity-and-philanthropy\/","title":{"rendered":"Money In The World – Feeling Good Versus Doing Good – Charity And Philanthropy\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
So far, we have discussed the nature and effect of government money on society, the nature and effect of other people\u2019s money on society, and the nature and effect of people on the stock market, and the stock market on people. Now let\u2019s take a look at the nature and effect of your own personal money on the world at large.<\/div>\n
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There are more than 1.5 million nonprofit organizations in the United States alone, as of 2019, according to the National Center For Charitable Statistics (NCCS). This includes all manner of nonprofit organizations such as public charities, civic leagues and chambers of commerce.<\/div>\n
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According to charitynavigator.org<\/a>, in 2017,\u00a0\u201cAn estimated $410.02 billion was given to charitable causes. For the third year in a row, total giving reached record levels.\u201d Wow! That\u2019s a lot of money. Over the past few years alone, well over a TRILLION dollars have been spent in charitable causes tackling everything from poverty, malaria, and lack of clean water to education initiatives and political reform.<\/div>\n
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People give money to charitable efforts for a number of reasons. Some give because they are focused on the mission of that organization. In turn, they feel like a good person, morally, for supporting something they feel is important. Similarly, some give because they like the tax break. In turn, they feel smart for reducing their tax bill by doing some good at the same time. Others give because their faith says they should. Again, they then feel like they are on the moral high ground. In all of these cases, giving to others causes us to feel good, literally and physically. It activates pleasure and reward centers in the brain, releasing dopamine. Check out research by the Univeristy of Oregon on that subject. Ultimately, all of these reasons boil\u00a0down to feeling good about ourselves.\u00a0Yikes. That is not what you expected, was it?<\/div>\n
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What about people who are out there volunteering and working for charities? Well, that is a slightly different story. Those who give of their time and effort still enjoy a shot of dopamine and the feeling being a good person. But they also get to see the end result up close. For example, those volunteers who actually hand food to the hungry or install a wood stove into someone\u2019s home or place a mosquito net around a bed in a malaria- vulnerable area, see first hand the smiles of those they serve, and the ripple effect of their efforts within that community. In this way, giving your time and effort towards a cause you care deeply about, is orders of magnitude more satisfying. But there it is again… personal satisfaction.<\/div>\n
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This dopamine reaction to giving money or time to charitable causes is what keeps donation numbers going up every year. It is quite literally addictive. That\u2019s great! So we might expect donations to charities to keep going up over time.<\/div>\n
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Now here is the hard question… Why\u00a0do these problems persist? Why is it that we, as a collective humanity can throw over a trillion dollars at these problems and not have solved them? Because money alone is not the answer. If throwing more money at the problem worked, over a trillion dollars in the last three years would have solved something. But of course, SOME good has come of it all. The question becomes, where and how are our charitable efforts actually EFFECTIVE?<\/div>\n
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According to GiveWell.org, the list of most effective charities in the world today are dominated by initiatives to distribute mosquito netting and vaccinations. These represent the most lives saved per dollar. But that is just one way to measure effectiveness. Saving lives is not always the goal. Sometimes the goal is increasing literacy or rehabilitating prison inmates.<\/div>\n
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One particularly clever charity example is Puppies Behind Bars. This charity solves two seemingly different problems simultaneously by training prison inmates to raise service dogs for wounded veterans and other uses. The inmates learn new skills and feel purposeful, reducing the percent that end up back in jail, and wounded veterans get much needed service dogs. These kind of local, niche efforts are often the most successful, but rarely publicized.<\/div>\n
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There are towns all over with small neighborhood level efforts providing lunches for local homeless children by sneaking food into their backpacks at school, businesses using pay it forward strategies to offer free food and drinks to first responders and those in need, small church mission groups adopting villages in other countries and actually flying there with wood stoves and installing them, and every other kind of effort you can think of. These are just examples that I saw first hand in the small town of Purcellville, Virginia inside the richest county in the nation.<\/div>\n
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But you don\u2019t have to go to the richest county in the nation to find great local charity ideas. When I was growing up, we would spend every Christmas with my dad\u2019s parents in the small, rural town of Oakman, Alabama. This was steel mill and strip mining country back then. Each year, my grandparents would adopt a family in need and bring them a Christmas tree, food of all kinds, toys for the kids and everything else to make for a well fed and happy holiday. My sister and I would tag along sometimes. They would get to know them, make several visits and encourage them in their goals. They were always making real connections with everyone, from the poorest to the richest and everyone between, and they treated them all the same.<\/div>\n
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None of\u00a0these efforts were publicized. They were led by everyday people who spotted a need and decided to solve it with their own effort and a little money from others… but mostly their own effort.<\/div>\n
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These small scale, local efforts, championed by everyday local people are capable of major impact. Why? Because locals know what the town needs. Locals know what the problems really are. Locals are passionate about their hometowns and about helping the people they are personally connected with. And why wouldn\u2019t they be? When you can see the immediate impact of your efforts with your own eyes, it is very exciting indeed.<\/div>\n
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So the question becomes the most important question… what does YOUR town need? Even in the most affluent place, there is homelessness, hopelessness, poverty, crisis and needs of all kinds from education to civic reform and everything between.<\/div>\n
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