One potato, two potato

Counting rhymes help determine who is “it” or whether to eat the apple chunk or the pear slice in the fruit salad, but they are not much help in deciding where to give charitable contributions. Because we think it is important to give intentionally, our three daughters started early to learn how and why to give.

The year Ann and Elle turned seven, adults in my extended family decided to give to charity instead of exchanging holiday gifts. We involved the girls, too: each could pick a charity, and we would give $25 to it. How do you help a seven-year old (or five–year old, as Lia was) pick a charity?

We played a game like Twenty Questions, turning it into a grade-school level, secular discernment process. First query: “Do you want to help people, nature, or animals?” Ann wanted to help people, Elle was interested in nature, and Lia said animals.

So we asked, “Do you want to help a group you belong to or a different group?” Here or somewhere else in the world? Something new that is being tested or an activity that people already know works? And so on.

Ann picked helping people who need food, starting our long-term commitment to Gleaners Food Bank. Elle selected the Nature Conservancy. For Lia’s preference to help horses, I checked GuideStar.org to find an organization that also met parental expectations for accountability. This led us to Days End Farm Horse Rescue in Maryland.

We gave our children choices about their giving early, and our money has followed. Now, even their own money follows, showing perhaps a little success from our methods. But our money still keeps following their giving preferences, and the process is not confined to December.

This week, as the academic year winds down, we have made a pledge to the Gay Straight Alliance, which advocates respect and tolerance. The local chapter just elected Lia as an officer for next year, so we want to show support for the social justice mission of this high school program.

We are also writing checks for the twins’ fundraising as part of the 24-hour Relay For Life to benefit the American Cancer Society. This engagement stems from multiple motivations—memorial and tribute purposes to honor people we know, plus a desire to bring about change so fewer children die. But also note that Ann and Elle will accrue hours toward community service, which is required for their academic program. This last is important for why we are supporting this cause right now.

Would we give to this organization at the beginning of summer, when my husband’s academic pay stops for two months, if our children were not involved? Probably not.

Our gift is one of millions, so it even though we give a little, it adds up. Yet, we are giving up something else to do this.

In the end, we decided that giving matters as an example, because of the good it can do, and because it forces us to consider our choices and how we express our values on a day-to-day basis. We can find flowers on sale later to fill the window boxes, but we will not have the same chance to be part of our children's promise to their team mates and themselves to do something good.

Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?

Three bags full…..that’s what we’ve been asked for — bags of food, clothing, and money. To paraphrase lyrics from Smash Mouth’s “All Star” — the requests start coming, and they don’t stop coming.

We cannot give to everything, so we have to choose. In the spirit of blogs that share the path to happiness, how to be a better (or at least different) parent, or even how to write a blog, this blog is about how and why this family makes choices about charitable giving and volunteering. Not that we are especially important donors, but that thinking about the process, and sharing some of those thoughts, will have benefits for us and maybe for you.

First some background. Our five-person household is one of the two-thirds of U.S. households that give to charity in a year. Some of us are also in the roughly one-third of individuals in the U.S. who volunteer in a year. Plus, more than ten years ago, my extended family decided to stop exchanging holiday gifts and give money to charities instead. As further incentive to reflect on our giving, both my spouse and I are affiliated with the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. Perhaps more than many, we discuss the how and why of charitable giving at dinner, during “car time” with the kids, and even long-distance with our parents and siblings.

Now, back to those bags. This past week, after sorting the many appeals received, it took no effort to decide to clean the pantry and fill the plastic grocery bag for the Letter Carriers’food drive and sort through a closet to pack a parcel of clothing for Goodwill. These “gifts” cost us only a few minutes of time. These donations are also consistent with our on-going commitments to local organizations that meet basic needs.

The tough choice comes with the request to give money for homeless services provided by Volunteers of America. The appeal is clever, with the letter printed on a lunch-size paper sack folded as a “self-mailer.” The bag itself contains some printed information and a gift form and envelope. I like clever, so I am tempted to give to reward creativity.

However, this charity would be a new one for us—and that doesn’t work just now, as my business just begins. Further, except for tossing a little into Salvation Army red kettles in December, I feel like a traitor supporting homelessness services other than the Homeless Initiative Program, where I worked in the late 1990s.

We also very seldom respond to direct mail (or email) or telephone appeals. Even a clever appeal asks for an emotional response, rather than an intentional commitment to an organization whose work we’ve checked out (or know first-hand).

So, we gave two bags full, not three, to our household’s priorities for the most fundamental of needs on Maslow’s hierarchy: food and shelter. For now, we’ve set aside about a dozen other appeals received to consider someday soon. And the requests keep coming--there were six more in today's mail.