Rethinking Charity...

      Jessica Jackley is the founder of Kiva- the online microloan organization that allows people to issue small loans to people living in poverty with small grassroots businesses via the internet. The idea is to provide access to loans for people who would normally never pass a credit check or qualify for a loan from an average bank, but are innovators with a business initiative. Jessica Jackley built off of Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammad Yunus’ orginal model for microfinance and put it online and made it more interactive. Jackley however, I believe revolutionized microfinance and redefined the terms of charity. My last blogpost was a piece on the microfinance and all you need to know about it(It’s a little dry and descriptive so read it if youd like). To understand what I am going to try and to get at here, I think it is important to understand Jackley’s story. Jackley, in her 2010 Ted talk, starts by discussing her first confusing experiences with poverty and charity in Sunday school

       “I was six years old when I first heard stories about the poor. Now I didn’t hear these stories from the poor themselves, I heard them from my Sunday school teacher and Jesus, kind of via my Sunday school teacher. I remember learning that people who were poor needed something material- food, clothing, shelter- that they didn’t have. And I also was taught, coupled with that, that it was my job- this classroom of five and six year- old children- it was our job apparently, to help. This is what Jesus asked of us. And then he said, ‘What you do for the least of these you do for me.’ Now I was pretty psyched. I was very eager to to be useful in the world- I think we all have that feeling. And also, it was kind of news to me that God needed help. This was news to me, and it felt like it was a very important thing to get to participate in. But I aslo learned very soon thereafter that Jesus said, and I’m paraphrasing, the poor would always be with us. This frustrated and confused me; I felt like I had been given a homework assignment I had to do, and was excited to do, but no matter what I would do I would fail. So I felt confused, a little bit frustrated and angry, like maybe I’d misunderstood here. And I felt overwhelmed. And for the first time, I began to fear this groups of people and feel negative emotion towards a whole group of people. I imagined in my head, a kind of long line of individuals that were never going to go away, that would always be with us. They were always going to ask me to help them and give them things, which I was excited to do, but I didn’t know how it was going to work. And I didn’t know what would happen when I ran out of things to give, especially if the problem was never going away. In the years following, the other stories I heard were no more positive. For example, I saw pictures and images frequently of sadness and suffering. I heard about things that were going wrong in the lives of the poor. I heard about disease, I heard about war- they always seemed to be kind of related. And in general, I got this sort of idea that the poor in the world lived lives that were wrought with suffering and sadness, devastation, hopelessness.”

      Jackley continues and explains that as she got older she began to distance herself from the poor. She started to avoid seeing the pictures of Sub- Saharan African babies with their ribs showing and flies on their face, very simply because it made her feel bad, because they led to feelings of helplessness and insignificance. This of course is extremely common especially amongst Americans. She started to only give when ‘solutions were on sale.’ The sort of thing where you can donate 1 dollar and save ten dying babies. But she makes such a an absolutely mind blowing point when she says that she “gave when I was cornered, when it was difficult to avoid and I gave in, in general, when the negative emotions built up enough that I gave to relieve my own suffering, not someone else’s The truth be told, I was giving out of that place, not out of a genuine place of hope and excitement to help and of generosity. It became a transaction for me, because sort of a trade. I was purchasing something- I was buying my right to go on with my day and not be bothered by this bad news.” This is such a common feeling among many of us, that she has articulated so well. Giving should come from a sort of hope for the receiver. It should come from a desire to help, it should be a provision for decency. After all the purpose of charity is to help, and if charity is being done for an ulterior motive, then it is to some extent dishonest, and even cheapened to an extent. Charity is meant to help, you should want to see change and progress if youre intent on helping. All too often charity comes from a place of guilt, a place of avoidance. The difference between the two sort of feelings is an understanding and respect for the person’s very human and story whom you want to help. When you see the poor as faceless mass- a sort of statistic- a product, that you throw loose change and pocket lint at it- can you really say you give a shit? No. The same applies for larger sums of money. When big companies donate large sums to certain charity initiatives, they often do it mostly as a p.r. campaign, but the idea is the same- it is selfish charity. Charity for the sake of feeling better or for the sake of looking better- at the end of the day you’re in it for your damn self. This is why Kiva, and even the community service program at Allegheny places such a premium on stories. The human story. If you donate 50 cents but look after the difference those two quarters have made, and you look to take an interest in someone’s story and try to incorporate it into your own you are also donating a little dignity and self-respect. I also think you can call yourself more charitable than half of the ceos writing million dollar checks to charities. Taking time to listen to, internalize and engage with the stories of the poor that you want to help is just an essential aspect of an honest desire to help. Things like being a big brother or sister or even just taking the time to have a genuine conversation with your cleaning lady (or cleaning bro) are the keys to humanizing charity. I think giving a shit (also known as caring) is such a rare and valuable resource these days. As I mentioned in my discussion about social power, people with less money have less social influence, less people want to listen and talk with them. This is unfortunate because they are very often so much more creative, thoughtful, interesting and have so much more character than your upper middle class suburban friends. Also very interestingly, consistently people who have less money test higher for empathetic and lower for apathetic personality traits and people who have more test lower for empathetic and higher for apathetic personality traits.

Lets make charity less about money and more about humanity.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/jessica_jackley_poverty_money_and_love.html