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The Sin in Doing Good Deeds

nytimes.com

31–38 of 38 posts

Re: The Sin in Doing Good Deeds

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the article. I wouldn't call one anecdote data, though it's about 1/10,000 of a good start.

That's a little harsh. It was a pretty significant anecdote - a 6.5x decrease with the only clear change being Pallotta's company-charity being forcibly stopped from continued involvement. Is there room for other plausible reasons to have caused the drop? Definitely. And of course if, hypothetically, Pallotta's company-charity was involved with sufficiently many causes, you would even expect there to be at least one…

a 6.5x decrease

That would be negative 5.5 times, or 5.5 times below zero.

Re: The Sin in Doing Good Deeds

#32
post #13

If an organization is turning a profit for its owners or shareholders then it's a business, not a charity. That's a definition, not a moral judgment. There are lots of businesses that do good work for people. The tricky part is when you're soliciting for donations, you just need to be extremely transparent about where the money is going. What we need is not a rethinking of what a charity can be, but a rethinking of w…

There are problems pretty much inherent in types of organisations. These are a consequence of the forces creating them, growing them & making them thrive.

Businesses as a complex are great at some things & problematic at some things. The defining characteristics are the drive to make money, responsibility towards shareholders, legal obligations etc. The ones that survived, had others modelled on them where those that made money, those that got big, etc. Pg & others talk about vestiges piling up, but that assumes traits being useful at some point. Businesses that go bankrupt, stay small, get sued to pieces... do not have much of a lasting impact. Positive social impacts is only a surviving trait inasmuch as it aids the others.

Governments & government organisations have other issues. A big part of what makes them survive is looking good to electorates/media etc. They're not as scrutinising as shareholders, but they know when a neighbouring country has better roads, lower taxes, or if things have been getting worse.

Charities have issues to do with the fact that 'survival,' growth & such are mostly to do with fund raising ability. Proficiency in whatever they're stated purpose may be helpful for fund raising. But it is not in itself a guarantee of success. At first glance you might think, businesses may make brilliant products & go out of business. But that misses the point a little.

A charity's job could be to help relieve rural poverty in remote P&G. OK, where do we go from here? Well, raise money & run poverty relief programs in P&G. Done. Of the 10 charities, which did a better job?

Similar working out who created the best portable music player, best sneakers, best film. You can argue that 'Alexandra Leaving' is far superior to 'Oops I did it Again'. You could argue the contrary. Not much fun arguing who made more money.

If your goal is make money, we have a clear winner. We can't tell who relieved more poverty per dollar. We can tell who raised more money. We can tell how (on what) they spent it, but we can't tell how well they spent it.

Governents are charged with the opposite. 'Educate Youth'. That is the goal. But since they have responsibility for the entire job, you can gauge their success. You can tell how educated the country is. Better then 20 years ago? Worse? Charities don't even have that. All they have is spending.

I'm sure there are many cases where charities could break through from the constraints of the conditions on their grants, donor public & thrive. But there is also a danger of charities overspending on fund raising or hitting all sorts of tragedies of the commons in spending over chasing an existing amount of money. It's really hard to tell.

So we shoot from the hip. What can you do?

Re: The Sin in Doing Good Deeds

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. People give money to charities because they want to help a cause, not because they want to help the chief executive get paid lots of money.

No. That's exactly the point: people don't give money to charities to help a cause, they give money to feel good. If they gave to help a cause, then they would support whatever (reasonably ethical) methods best helped that cause. The fact that so many donors bitch about frankly miniscule CEO compensation proves that the majority of them are not in it to improve the world -- or at least that there are other things the…

I don't know anyone who actually gives just to feel good. Feeling good is a by-product of giving, but only because you've done something worthwhile (or so you believe).

That people bitch about CEO compensation doesn't mean they don't want to improve the world. They bitch because they want to improve the world, and they believe that high CEO compensation (as they perceive it) is a modern evil that stands in the way of improvement.

Re: The Sin in Doing Good Deeds

#34
post #13

If an organization is turning a profit for its owners or shareholders then it's a business, not a charity. That's a definition, not a moral judgment. There are lots of businesses that do good work for people. The tricky part is when you're soliciting for donations, you just need to be extremely transparent about where the money is going. What we need is not a rethinking of what a charity can be, but a rethinking of w…

My first business was designed with two purposes: to earn a profit, and to support artisans in developing countries. Was it a business or a charity? Well, its legal structure was 'business' but its purpose was not only to earn a profit for me. I would consider it a failure if it had only helped myself, because that was not why I started it.

So I don't care whether you call it a charity or business. What is important is clearly understanding your purposes and means and making damn sure you communicate them well to the people who matter for your success.

The important realization I had was that it doesn't matter what traditional expectations are. As long as I stayed within the law, my limits were simply defined by the agreements I could make -- with artisans, with customers, and with all the other players in-between.

Later on I went to university, and that was the first place I was confronted with this inane idea that it was a structural necessity for a business to be driven solely by profit, etc. etc. -- as if this was an immutable law which transcends human nature and society.

I didn't get into business only to live up to expectations that society has created, as though I was a gas waiting to expand to fill whatever chamber I was put into. I got into business as a way to express myself through thought and action in whatever ways might lead to the most impact.

Re: The Sin in Doing Good Deeds

#35
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. That's exactly the point: people don't give money to charities to help a cause, they give money to feel good. If they gave to help a cause, then they would support whatever (reasonably ethical) methods best helped that cause. The fact that so many donors bitch about frankly miniscule CEO compensation proves that the majority of them are not in it to improve the world -- or at least that there are other things the…

I don't know anyone who actually gives just to feel good. Feeling good is a by-product of giving, but only because you've done something worthwhile (or so you believe). That people bitch about CEO compensation doesn't mean they don't want to improve the world. They bitch because they want to improve the world, and they believe that high CEO compensation (as they perceive it) is a modern evil that stands in the way of…

I agree.

Also, they bitch because it's hard to measure performance directly. The best we can do is often look at the % of administration vs programs vs fund raising. Even there you can have a lot of funky accounting.

If you really want to get into it, we can look at the names & brochures of the individual programs. Going all out, we might news search the names of the programs to see what news references we come up with.

We know that charities are inefficient. But we can't work out who or how. Charities don't have ROI or p/e. So we look at things like CEO salary.

Re: The Sin in Doing Good Deeds

#36
post #22
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So as long as the charity compartmentalizes their income into different groups (depending on source) and pay the Porches from one group you're OK with it? Your line between OK/!OK seems really arbitrary to me.

No, not their income, their output, i.e. expenses. I'm OK with them spending money to make (i.e. earn) money, or to save money. I'm not OK with them spending money to collect more donations. For example if you want to hire an expensive but very very good organizer that will save the charity administrative costs greater than it costs to hire the person - no problem. On the other hand if you want to hire someone who is…

[deleted]

Re: The Sin in Doing Good Deeds

#37
post #22
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So as long as the charity compartmentalizes their income into different groups (depending on source) and pay the Porches from one group you're OK with it? Your line between OK/!OK seems really arbitrary to me.

No, not their income, their output, i.e. expenses. I'm OK with them spending money to make (i.e. earn) money, or to save money. I'm not OK with them spending money to collect more donations. For example if you want to hire an expensive but very very good organizer that will save the charity administrative costs greater than it costs to hire the person - no problem. On the other hand if you want to hire someone who is…

"And I don't care that they will bring in more money than it costs to hire them. I'm still not OK with it."

You need to get your priorities straight. The goal is to help people, not to look good doing it.

Re: The Sin in Doing Good Deeds

#38
post #37
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not their income, their output, i.e. expenses. I'm OK with them spending money to make (i.e. earn) money, or to save money. I'm not OK with them spending money to collect more donations. For example if you want to hire an expensive but very very good organizer that will save the charity administrative costs greater than it costs to hire the person - no problem. On the other hand if you want to hire someone who is…

"And I don't care that they will bring in more money than it costs to hire them. I'm still not OK with it." You need to get your priorities straight. The goal is to help people, not to look good doing it.

So, if I fundraise 1 million dollars, keep $999,000 for me, and spend $1,000 to do some good, you are fine with it?

No wonder people are trying to start for-profit charities. Based on my downmods other people feel just like you.

Well I am not OK with it. I don't care that they do "some" good. If their expense ratio is too high I do not donate. Period.

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