Two weeks ago, I had a new massage client who briefly misbehaved and apologized with a huge tip. I found that morally confusing, because although I did absolutely nothing illegal or unethical and his transgression was pretty mild compared to some of the crap I've had to deal with, it felt like I was sending the message that "it's okay to mistreat me as long as you pay for the privilege".
The next morning, I took the exact bill that he'd stuffed in my purse to the post office, bought a money order for that amount, and sent it to one of the charities I've mentioned in previous blog posts - the Nepalese Youth Opportunities Foundation. I asked that it be directed toward either their original program of rescuing little girls from bonded servitude or the college scholarship fund for "dalit" (untouchable caste) girls.
I got what I needed from that donation - it cleared my over-sensitive conscience, and it helped a cause I'd been planning to support this year in a more lucrative way than I might otherwise have been able to.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
A Soft Spot for Cambodia
A couple of years ago, I wrote a brochure for a charity whose main project at the time was assisting young Cambodian survivors of human trafficking (a slightly nicer term for forced prostitution) in their recovery by funding psychology services and vocational training. I learned that Cambodia is a really hard place to donate safely, because there are too many shady people - no doubt the same shady people that promise nice jobs to teenage girls and then sell them into sex slavery in Bangkok - who make a business out of tricking foreign NGOs. Seriously, they will put together a fake brothel full of fake child prostitutes for official visits and solicit funds to save them.
So when I see a decent loan on Kiva to a Cambodian, I snap it up. A couple of my micro-borrowers finished repaying their loans - Congratulations to Marta the Dominican vegetable fryer and Estela the Peruvian grain-seller!! So welcome to my portfolio for the next 8 months, Try Kan, and best of luck with the expansion of your vegetable farm :)
So when I see a decent loan on Kiva to a Cambodian, I snap it up. A couple of my micro-borrowers finished repaying their loans - Congratulations to Marta the Dominican vegetable fryer and Estela the Peruvian grain-seller!! So welcome to my portfolio for the next 8 months, Try Kan, and best of luck with the expansion of your vegetable farm :)
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Uncharitable Feelings
This past week I've been feeling less than charitable to my fellow man, because they've been treating me pretty shabbily. I'm a self-employed massage therapist, so there's no way to NOT take it personally when clients do things like pull a no-show (an existing client, not a newbie playing nasty games) or create an opportunity to not pay me. Now have both of those things happen on the same day, when they rarely even happen in the same year. I felt stupid, used, and worthless. It's been a week and I'm still recovering...yeah, I know, I'm way too sensitive for a Manhattan 30-something, but I'd like to think that's part of what makes me good at what I do.
Here's the thing: all of the people who have refused to pay (mostly because I wouldn't provide prostitution services) were overtly religious. Most of them couldn't shut up about what a good fill-in-the-religion person they were, and always wore something that visibly shouted their faith to the world. Last week's jackass left behind his ugly resin bracelet where each little square had an image of Jesus or Mary. This is a man I lent dry clothes to, built up a sweat manipulating the heavy limbs on his 6'5" frame, loaned my phone to, and then sent off with a bottle of water and a thank-you. I won't go into how I didn't get my fee, but I will say that I think he had every intention of paying (my intuition on this is excellent), but saw a chance to stiff me and took it. It was very personal and very hurtful.
What does this have to do with charitable giving, you might ask. Well, I have historically not donated to any charitable work done by religious organizations. I do things in the name of humanity, not some concept of god, and I don't want the disadvantaged of the world to feel that they only deserve help if they sign up to someone else's belief system, or at least suffer through some pointless, self-serving sermon and nod as if they give a crap in order to get food, clothing, school tuition, whatever. But I have come across some specific work that is only or most efficiently done by a church, and felt tempted to give despite my feelings on the subject. Then things like this happen to remind me of the many reasons why I don't, and the purse snaps shut. Hypocrisy should not go unpunished.
Here's the thing: all of the people who have refused to pay (mostly because I wouldn't provide prostitution services) were overtly religious. Most of them couldn't shut up about what a good fill-in-the-religion person they were, and always wore something that visibly shouted their faith to the world. Last week's jackass left behind his ugly resin bracelet where each little square had an image of Jesus or Mary. This is a man I lent dry clothes to, built up a sweat manipulating the heavy limbs on his 6'5" frame, loaned my phone to, and then sent off with a bottle of water and a thank-you. I won't go into how I didn't get my fee, but I will say that I think he had every intention of paying (my intuition on this is excellent), but saw a chance to stiff me and took it. It was very personal and very hurtful.
What does this have to do with charitable giving, you might ask. Well, I have historically not donated to any charitable work done by religious organizations. I do things in the name of humanity, not some concept of god, and I don't want the disadvantaged of the world to feel that they only deserve help if they sign up to someone else's belief system, or at least suffer through some pointless, self-serving sermon and nod as if they give a crap in order to get food, clothing, school tuition, whatever. But I have come across some specific work that is only or most efficiently done by a church, and felt tempted to give despite my feelings on the subject. Then things like this happen to remind me of the many reasons why I don't, and the purse snaps shut. Hypocrisy should not go unpunished.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
PenaltyFee for ChariTee
I've recently put the wheels in motion to start a new little business sideline, "TreadMate Kate" (Kate = me). While it's certainly not a charitable venture, there are a couple of elements of giving back wrapped into the plan. One is that I'm only charging half the market rate for the service, which is along the lines of personal training, because after conquering near-morbid obesity, I sincerely want to help others begin that fight and stay the course. The second is more relevant to this blog: the cancellation fee.I suck at being a hardass about things like late arrivals and last-minute cancellations, but it's essential for the service I'm offering. I know the gamut of seemingly valid excuses we make to ourselves and to others for not squeezing in a little exercise, so it is absolutely essential to the service that I enforce a policy. Well, what better way to make it more palatable than to earmark $5 of each fee (which runs from $10 to the whole enchilada) for charity?
Then there's the matter of choosing a charity. I didn't want one that was too big or too small, or that might not have wide appeal. So for the moment, I'm going with one of my stand-bys, Kiva. No, not because I can claw back the money one day - but I can send my truant clients a link to the microloan recipient's information so that they can see what some of their thrown-away money is accomplishing. It may even encourage then to become a lender.
Now how's that for a win-win-win situation?
Friday, June 20, 2008
Locally v. Globally
Inspired by a recent comment from Chris F....
I'm not a big fan of giving within my community. My "community" is New York City, and it has always felt to me like everyone is working a scam of some sort, no matter what the context. Also, I grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey, where it seems every town councilor in charge of the recreation program embezzled huge chunks of their funding. Then there was grandma, giving her local church thousands for the roof fund, the mortgage fund, the new organ fund - and then they had the sanctimonious balls to reject my aunt's request to be married there because at 46, she wouldn't be producing new Catholics to fill the pews. Oh, and let's throw in that she's mentally retarded and wouldn't have been able to safely raise children anyway. When it comes to local giving, the one thing I have always stepped up for has been blood donation in the name of someone ill or recently deceased - unfortunately, I had to give that up a few years back when the phleboto-nurses warned me that my veins were difficult and I should save them for my own future medical needs.
But the main reason I give outside of the USA rather than within: what passes for poverty here is wildly rich and stable by the standards of more than half the world. So I indulge in "economic triage", targeting those teetering on the edge. From my cushy vantage point, those that have less than nothing are living proof of the human spirit and the indomitable will to survive in the face of hardship beyond my comprehension. It's why I've put off travel to Africa for so long - fear of staring mortal poverty in the eye and feeling utterly helpless, guilty, overwhelmed, ashamed. So with my tentative plans to go there early next year, that part of the world has featured prominently in my Adventures in Giving. It would feature more in my Kiva lending as well except that so many of the loans for African applicants are in Nigeria, and I still hold it against them for fleecing me out of $35 in their scholarship scam in the 1980s.
I'm not a big fan of giving within my community. My "community" is New York City, and it has always felt to me like everyone is working a scam of some sort, no matter what the context. Also, I grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey, where it seems every town councilor in charge of the recreation program embezzled huge chunks of their funding. Then there was grandma, giving her local church thousands for the roof fund, the mortgage fund, the new organ fund - and then they had the sanctimonious balls to reject my aunt's request to be married there because at 46, she wouldn't be producing new Catholics to fill the pews. Oh, and let's throw in that she's mentally retarded and wouldn't have been able to safely raise children anyway. When it comes to local giving, the one thing I have always stepped up for has been blood donation in the name of someone ill or recently deceased - unfortunately, I had to give that up a few years back when the phleboto-nurses warned me that my veins were difficult and I should save them for my own future medical needs.
But the main reason I give outside of the USA rather than within: what passes for poverty here is wildly rich and stable by the standards of more than half the world. So I indulge in "economic triage", targeting those teetering on the edge. From my cushy vantage point, those that have less than nothing are living proof of the human spirit and the indomitable will to survive in the face of hardship beyond my comprehension. It's why I've put off travel to Africa for so long - fear of staring mortal poverty in the eye and feeling utterly helpless, guilty, overwhelmed, ashamed. So with my tentative plans to go there early next year, that part of the world has featured prominently in my Adventures in Giving. It would feature more in my Kiva lending as well except that so many of the loans for African applicants are in Nigeria, and I still hold it against them for fleecing me out of $35 in their scholarship scam in the 1980s.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Yay, Rosario!
Rosario Coronado is a cheesemaker in Nicaragua. I like cheese. I'd probably like Nicaragua. So on that basis, I contributed to her Kiva loan request back in February and she just paid it off yesterday. That gives her a better repayment record than anyone in my FAMILY (three loans outstanding with the Bank of Big Sister, one of them for nearly 5 years). I immediately reloaned the $25 chunk to Delfina, an herbal medicine maker in Ayacucho, Peru.
I have a strange relationship with Peru. I hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in 2006 and saw a particularly bitter form of poverty. I dropped change out of my pocket, and old ladies swarmed to pick it up and run away with it. I dealt with 12-year-old stall vendors who pouted and sneered at my attempts to bargain (I hate doing that, but for god's sake they were charging more than the airport for something half as nice!). I had a shoeshine boy inflate the price of his unwanted services by a factor of 25 (I agreed to a factor of 15 and still felt fleeced). I gave money to a few beggar kids - 30 cents, which had the buying power of $1 there - who bitched me out for not giving them more, until I threatened to take the coins back. The camp porters while on the trek had to stand guard over us at night because the locals would steal our shoes or worse if no one was watching. I do not like bargaining with people who sleep one layer above dirt, but I also don't like having them laugh at another stupid American for paying a week of their wages for a piece of pottery. I felt like shit for being shoved into a position where I resented and deplored the seriously poor, thanks to the palpable, unabashed disdain of said poor.
As such, I have no interest in returning to their country. I won't even consider pan-South American tours that include Peru. However, I will help from a distance and hope that I'm lending to people who don't secretly despise the source of their funding. What can I say? I think it's disgusting that the descendants of one of the greatest empires of the New World have been brought so low. So to Delfina the Medicine Maker and Estela the Grain Seller (due to complete her loan in a couple of weeks) - you go, girls!
I have a strange relationship with Peru. I hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in 2006 and saw a particularly bitter form of poverty. I dropped change out of my pocket, and old ladies swarmed to pick it up and run away with it. I dealt with 12-year-old stall vendors who pouted and sneered at my attempts to bargain (I hate doing that, but for god's sake they were charging more than the airport for something half as nice!). I had a shoeshine boy inflate the price of his unwanted services by a factor of 25 (I agreed to a factor of 15 and still felt fleeced). I gave money to a few beggar kids - 30 cents, which had the buying power of $1 there - who bitched me out for not giving them more, until I threatened to take the coins back. The camp porters while on the trek had to stand guard over us at night because the locals would steal our shoes or worse if no one was watching. I do not like bargaining with people who sleep one layer above dirt, but I also don't like having them laugh at another stupid American for paying a week of their wages for a piece of pottery. I felt like shit for being shoved into a position where I resented and deplored the seriously poor, thanks to the palpable, unabashed disdain of said poor.
As such, I have no interest in returning to their country. I won't even consider pan-South American tours that include Peru. However, I will help from a distance and hope that I'm lending to people who don't secretly despise the source of their funding. What can I say? I think it's disgusting that the descendants of one of the greatest empires of the New World have been brought so low. So to Delfina the Medicine Maker and Estela the Grain Seller (due to complete her loan in a couple of weeks) - you go, girls!
Friday, June 13, 2008
Mixed 'Motions, Part 2
Shame on me for not blogging for 2 weeks. Shame on me for sitting on my little pile of money to donate, paralyzed by what you could call an excessive angst about getting it wrong.
I'm a big fan of Crunchy Chicken's blog even though I'm not an eco-warrior type, and I felt awful reading about how she'd been duped by an online donation site (registered as a non-profit, to boot) and lost about 1/3 of the money she had raised for a cancer charity. Being an athiest, I can only hope that what goes around comes around. Anyway, my point is that it's just too easy, despite one's best efforts, to find yourself on the wrong side of a scam.
I understand that one of the more popular theories of how to make your donations count is to contribute to one charity. But I view this as a portfolio, so the risk is spread. It really would break my heart to find that a charity I'd given all my donor dollars to was mismanaged, had financial irregularities, etc. But if it's "only" 1/5 of the money I give away, there'd be some comfort in still having 4/5 out there doing what it's supposed to be doing.
And still, that trip to Mexico is weighing on me, as are those heartbreaking reports from Burma. It's really important to me to know that the money and help are getting to the people who really need it, not just the people who are convenient.
I registered for email newsletters from the Nepalese Youth Opportunities Foundation, and got both automated and personal confirmation emails very quickly. Their big campaign to rescue children from bonded servitude is timed for the January labor-contracting "events", so I've got funds earmarked for them in November. I think there's a semi-commitment to keep funding the rescued child until they're out of school, so I won't go nuts with that one. I am, however, tempted to bump up plans to go to Nepal so I can maybe meet the retired Californian lawyer who started all this...she's in her 80s now, who knows how much longer she'll be able to keep up her half-year in Nepal, half-year in the US travel habit. I'll bet she's cool as hell.
Speaking of travel habits, I've started giving thought to my next big trip, planned for November. An interesting dichotomy has arisen: most of the countries I'm considering are not ones I wish to support on a charitable basis. Specifically, I'm thinking India - rather than work on the dire poverty that the majority of their population lives in, their government spends money on a nuclear weapons program in a big ol' pissing contest with Pakistan. Why should I pick up their foolish slack and appease their obligations, what kind of lesson does that teach? And the other one is Egypt - as someone who was living in NYC on 9/11 and watched the towers tumble live and in the streets, I can't forgive the widely-televised glee they demonstrated in the aftermath. I've been putting that destination off for years because I can't reconcile my interest in their ancient culture with my abhorrence of their contemporary one. Wouldn't that make me a hypocrite?
Sigh. I should just cut a check to Doctors Without Borders and call it a day, right?
I'm a big fan of Crunchy Chicken's blog even though I'm not an eco-warrior type, and I felt awful reading about how she'd been duped by an online donation site (registered as a non-profit, to boot) and lost about 1/3 of the money she had raised for a cancer charity. Being an athiest, I can only hope that what goes around comes around. Anyway, my point is that it's just too easy, despite one's best efforts, to find yourself on the wrong side of a scam.
I understand that one of the more popular theories of how to make your donations count is to contribute to one charity. But I view this as a portfolio, so the risk is spread. It really would break my heart to find that a charity I'd given all my donor dollars to was mismanaged, had financial irregularities, etc. But if it's "only" 1/5 of the money I give away, there'd be some comfort in still having 4/5 out there doing what it's supposed to be doing.
And still, that trip to Mexico is weighing on me, as are those heartbreaking reports from Burma. It's really important to me to know that the money and help are getting to the people who really need it, not just the people who are convenient.
I registered for email newsletters from the Nepalese Youth Opportunities Foundation, and got both automated and personal confirmation emails very quickly. Their big campaign to rescue children from bonded servitude is timed for the January labor-contracting "events", so I've got funds earmarked for them in November. I think there's a semi-commitment to keep funding the rescued child until they're out of school, so I won't go nuts with that one. I am, however, tempted to bump up plans to go to Nepal so I can maybe meet the retired Californian lawyer who started all this...she's in her 80s now, who knows how much longer she'll be able to keep up her half-year in Nepal, half-year in the US travel habit. I'll bet she's cool as hell.
Speaking of travel habits, I've started giving thought to my next big trip, planned for November. An interesting dichotomy has arisen: most of the countries I'm considering are not ones I wish to support on a charitable basis. Specifically, I'm thinking India - rather than work on the dire poverty that the majority of their population lives in, their government spends money on a nuclear weapons program in a big ol' pissing contest with Pakistan. Why should I pick up their foolish slack and appease their obligations, what kind of lesson does that teach? And the other one is Egypt - as someone who was living in NYC on 9/11 and watched the towers tumble live and in the streets, I can't forgive the widely-televised glee they demonstrated in the aftermath. I've been putting that destination off for years because I can't reconcile my interest in their ancient culture with my abhorrence of their contemporary one. Wouldn't that make me a hypocrite?
Sigh. I should just cut a check to Doctors Without Borders and call it a day, right?
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