When Ulash first asked me to explore a theme of philanthropy for an August article, the Giving Pledge story of Fortune magazine was about a month old. Now, the proposed agreement among the super-rich to give away half or more of their wealth has been in the news for most of the summer. Plenty of time has elapsed for opinions to circulate in the blogosphere and for the Fortune magazine website to be inundated with hundreds of comments on that single story. So, I wondered, how much of a difference could the Giving Pledge make?
Money
According to the article that started all the fuss, the net worth of the Forbes 400 in 2009 was about $1.2 trillion, so we’re talking about perhaps $600 billion in bequests and lifetime donations. Many of these donations would go into foundations set up by the philanthropists to distribute funds as grants. According to the Giving USA 2010 Executive Summary, a report prepared by the Giving USA Foundation, total giving in the U.S. for 2009 alone came in at about $303.75 billion, of which 75% came from individuals (in an estimated 75 million households).
The vast majority of charity comes from the $2000 or so per household the rest of us give each year. According to www.mint.com, those who earn less than $20,000 annually contribute a larger percentage of their income than those who earn five times as much. In other words, my neighbors and I have the most impact on whether or not our out-of-work neighbors can pay the utility bills and stock their pantries, not any single billionaire.
As a case in point, I have the 2009 annual report for North Hills Community Outreach (NHCO) open in front of me. NHCO runs a food pantry and other services from an office a few minutes from my house. According to the report, grants from foundations like The Grable Foundation accounted for 24% of NHCO’s financial support last year. However, contributions from individuals and local religious and civic groups, businesses and schools amounted to 44% of NHCO’s revenue. In fact, the single largest portion of NHCO’s revenue pie came from individual donors at 30%.
Time
Warren Buffet’s open letter entitled “My Philanthropic Pledge” cites time as the most valuable asset, and he readily admits his pledge doesn’t require him to donate any time (although other members of the Buffet family do). I appreciate his candor in acknowledging the value of this commodity.
Volunteering is the engine for an organization like North Hills Community Outreach to deliver the benefit of all its financial and in-kind gifts. Last year, volunteers logged more than 37,000 hours for NHCO. They stocked shelves at the food pantries, provided one-on-one caregiving for older adults, performed data entry for the office and more. NHCO’s annual report recognizes the twenty-five volunteers who logged the most hours last year, with volunteer No. 25 on the list putting in 233 hours in support of the outreach’s projects. The most active volunteer logged 926 hours.
On the day I visited NHCO, the center’s director of communications, Wendy Gordon, introduced me to the volunteer receptionist, and then led me down a labyrinthine corridor to introduce me to everyone on site that afternoon. Two volunteers were organizing donated backpacks and school supplies in one room, while a third was assisting with the school supplies in another room. Another was doing data entry at a desk piled high with paper. The easy banter among them hinted at a substantial amount of time spent together.
Wendy explained that summer is often a low point in NHCO’s activity, and the day I visited was particularly slow. Many of the organizations supporting NHCO aren’t in session, and plenty of families are engaged in their own summer plans. Even so, there was still plenty going on around me, enough that I wondered immediately how busy this building is during peak periods, like the holidays.
Community
North Hills Community Outreach has adopted the slogan “People Helping People” for its signs and letterhead. It also appears at the top of summer 2010 newsletter for the organization, The Connector. Inside, boldface type emphasizes the scout troops, postal carriers, church groups and local businesses that have supported NHCO’s mission in recent months. Various groups organized pasta dinners, a classic car cruise fundraiser, drives for food and clothing and more. Volunteer drives and dispatchers for the Free Rides for Seniors program kept dozens of area senior citizens out in the community and forming friendships with drivers and other riders.
The organization was started twenty-three years ago on United Methodist Church property in response to serious flooding in the region, but today it operates out of five locations. NHCO’s recent merger with Community Auto saw participants from Lutheran, Presbyterian and Jewish traditions celebrating the dedication ceremony, as NHCO identifies itself as an interfaith organization.
“As much as we’ve grown, we still consider ourselves a grassroots organization, depending on the support of the community to achieve our mission,” Wendy told me.
In chatting with the volunteers and scanning the photos in NHCO publications, I can’t help but think any billionaire would have gotten lost in the crowd of more than 1,100 individuals who gave of their time and talent to assist the people around them last year. No single champion is at work for this cause. Instead, NHCO has its impact because my neighbors want to see the family next door be able to pay the gas bill, the little old lady across the street get a lift to the pharmacy, and the single mom around the corner get a vehicle she can use to get to work.
But there are other, less celebrated benefits to having a community-based charity like this one in the neighborhood. Local small businesses get some PR and build good will with potential customers by donating goods and services. Local clubs socialize and renew a sense of purpose by sponsoring projects. School and extracurricular food or clothing drives by area kids allow them to learn about economic hardship, to feel gratitude for their own circumstances, and to see themselves as participants in the well-being of their neighborhood.
While I applaud plans by Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and others to give away billions of dollars, I think we’ve already heard too much about it. I wish them every success in convincing others with that kind of wealth to join in the Giving Pledge, but their money by itself won’t guarantee improvement in anyone’s circumstances. Money doesn’t call to check up on shut-ins or ask how else it can help. If $600 billion more does flow into the coffers of America’s charities in the coming years, we will need more hours of volunteering and a renewed commitment to helping our neighbors…a pledge any of us can make.
Understand My Mind wishes to thank Wendy Gordon and the team of volunteers at North Hills Community Outreach for generously sharing their time and data. To learn more about NHCO or to further its mission with your own contribution, visit www.nhco.org.
By Lisa Jancarik
Resources
Giving USA 2010: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the year 2009. Giving USA Foundation, c. 2010.
http://givingpledge.org/Content/media/My%20Philanthropic%20Pledge.pdf
http://www.mint.com/blog/trends/charity-who-cares/
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Thank you, North Hills Community Outreach (NHCO) for all you amazing work!