Category Archives: philanthropy

Financial report 2011

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My total personal spending in 2011 was £6’981.51. I made the following charitable contributions:

Matched donations

Of that total, £5’172.14 was either money due to me or my own personal cash, £1’799.01 was donations by others in order to match my donations.

When I made the pledge I was about to get £10k of investment. I was in the UK for the first time in 3 years and I was finding it very hard to reconcile the wealth, excess and waste of the first world with the developing world where I had been living. I was about to be flush, was trying to make sense of the world around me, and the pledge seemed like a sensible way to do that.

Then reality set in. The investment never came, I pissed about for a good six months before generating any income. It was a tough year. I was feeling serious financial pressure from the pledge. In November an opportunity arose. Mark Shuttleworth was offering to match Movember donations. The year was drawing to a close, I was well behind with my donations, and here was a chance to half the cost of donating.

I gave over £1’000 on 24 November. Not because I thought Movember was a great charity to support, but because I was feeling the serious financial strain of giving half my money to charity. I was barely generating enough cash flow to stay afloat, and at the same time facing a huge charity bill. I caved and took a soft option.

That sparked a lot of thinking about matched donations. Is it reasonable to count the whole amount towards my giving total? After reconciling it back and forth, yes, I think it is. To be clearer then, my commitment is not so much to give to charity, but to generate charitable contributions. I was directly responsible for generating those donations, even if they weren’t with  my own money. If money were no object, I’d ignore the matched donations just because I could, but I think it’s “fair” (whatever that means) to count them.

Giving to Movember was still a cop out. I gave to ease the financial pressure, not because I wanted to support the cause. I’m trying to learn from the experience.

Response

People’s responses have been interesting. The negative response far outnumber the positive. Stop and think about that for a second. Somebody says they’re going to give money away, and people criticise, condemn, and complain. Sad.

From here on, if you have something constructive to say, please do share it. If you want to bitch, whine or moan, keep it to yourself, I’m not interested. You all know who you are.

Spread

I aimed to split my giving into 3 parts. One part give a man a fish, one part teach a man to fish, one part part first world philosophical nonsense I think is important. The first two thirds were to focus on the world’s poorest people, those who genuinely are in need. I reckon 39% of my chosen organisations were in the third category. That number was mostly skewed by my donation to Movember. It soaked up all of the third part and more.

I hope to keep better within my aims in future giving.

Going forward

While writing this post, for the first time, I’m considering that I might not continue the pledge fully in 2012. It was a demanding commitment last year. I simple assumed I’d continue on the same basis, but maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll find a different way. I’m going to take a week or two to think about it and then make a decision.

I believe that people dying through lack of food is simply unacceptable and we each have an obligation to take action. Over the next few weeks I’ll consider how I want to honour that responsibility in 2012.

Opportunity International UK

From my research, Opportunity UK International is an organisation worth of support. For any UK citizens reading this, the government is matching all donations to the Opportunity 2011 Christmas Appeal until 21 February 2012. If you’re considering a charitable donation, I recommend supporting their work. Your donation will go twice as far if you support this campaign now. You can read more and donate online here. Think about it.

Happy new year. Do something worthwhile in 2012.

My 2011 pledge: Spend 1, Give 1

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Inspired by zestyping’s pledge (hat tip Peter Singer) I have decided to make a similar pledge for 2011. For every £1 (or $1 or €1 or ¥1) I spend during 2011, I will give £1 to an effective charity.

I’m still working on my definition of an effective charity. I’ll focus on that in the coming weeks. I hope to use an existing system of measuring charity’s effectiveness rather than trying to re-invent the wheel. Any tips / suggestions?

In effect, this doubles the cost of everything. Every time I spend, I give, on everything. My current outgoings are approximately £400 a month, so this pledge doubles my financial needs to about £800 a month. Time to get some projects cranking… :-)

The spending and giving won’t necessarily be simultaneous. For the next few months I may accrue debt towards charities as I might not have the cash to make payments. But by the end of 2011 I will have settled, and every pound spent will have been matched with a pound given.

As this decision has serious financial consequences, I’m giving myself a 7 day cooling off period. So I can back out, without penalty, in the next 7 days. I don’t expect to.

A non MBA with Seth Godin

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Wow. I just woke up and read this. Awesome. I’m physically excited. My first thought is, apply, do it right now, immediately, without hesitation. Ok, reality check:

  • I have 6 months of expenses saved, I can afford it.
  • I could still spend 3 hours / day working on my own stuff.
  • How would I get a visa to remain in the US for 6 months?
  • I’d need to apply and be accepted!

It would be a huge commitment. I dreamed up a new project last night. One new customer per day. If I can find one customer per day for StraightPress, in 6 months, I’ll have a sustainable business. I was thinking to launch on 1 January, try to get a few other people on board.

There’s something about Seth’s focus that really connects with me. I’ve always been hesitant to fully engage with purely commercial projects. I’ve never felt quite … comfortable about it. Somehow like just making money was a little corrupt. I think I’ve managed to solve that within StraightPress by making our service available, for free, to non profits, charities, NGOs, and others.

Application deadline is 14 December. That’s 2 weeks. I have some time to consider. Anyone care to comment? Should I go for it? Either way I’m about to email the top 10 people I think would benefit from it. Now who are they? :)

Choosing a charity

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I’m listening to Robert Kiyosaki’s Choose to be Rich series. I was given it by a friend, so contact me personally if you don’t want to pay the $220 price tag. I’ve only just learned it costs $220 this very minute, as I looked up that link. Interesting. I wonder if I would pay $220 for it. I’ll know when I’m done I guess. :)

Part of the program that struck me was the three piggy bank idea. Kiyosaki advocates getting three piggy banks. He says every morning, get up and put something in each bank. Start with a dollar per bank per day. Start with any amount you want, but do it every day.

The three piggy banks are for saving, investment, and tithing. He explains the tithing concept as philanthropy. It’s the idea of being generous, giving money away. Supporting good causes.

I’ve long talked about the idea of supporting charity. I always said I’d do so “when I had enough money”. Well now I earn more than I spend. It’s that simple. Now I have enough money. I’ve taken the decision that I’m going to start making recurring, automatic donations to charity.

Which raises the powerful question, which charities?

I’m concerned about the environment. Human rights, particularly freedoms. Freedom of speech, freedom of movement (between countries, etc). We all have a soft spot for children. I’d like to help those in most desperate need. I don’t believe anyone needs to starve in our world today. I think basic medical care is a human right.

I’m very interested in organisational theory, so I want to support a charity that’s efficient. I believe that on-street fundraising (people asking you to sign direct debits) is fundamentally wrong. I believe it is an over commercialisation of charity. I believe charity is about doing good, about philanthropy, not about operating as a business with a good cause in mind. If I sell drugs on the streets of Los Angeles to support children in Africa, that is not charity.

Considering all these motivations, can you recommend a charity to support? My friend Jared founded the ambitiously named CHOSA. I’ll definitely consider that charity because I have seen the work Jared does.

Can you recommend a charity comparison web site? I’d be particularly interested in a service which asks me a series of questions, then recommends a charity based on my answers. I’d happily pay for that service, or pay a commission to the service.

Here’s a fairly unrelated picture (flickr tagged “philanthropy”) to break up the monotany of text on this page. :)