Last week, my family went shopping for school supplies. While working through the litany of items our fifth-grader and third-grader need, we also got supplies to donate to the United Way’s BackPack Attack.
As I grabbed the 15-cent folders and 60-cent notebooks, my wife gave me a look of disbelief. She reminded me that these supplies are for kids from families who can’t afford them on their own. A Peyton Manning folder or notebook with fuzzy kitten could be a treasured keepsake for a child who doesn’t have much.
I had a different point of view. The fancy and branded supplies are more expensive than the plain and generic. The 60-cent notebook costs $2.99 with a licensed image on its cover. By buying the generic, we could give five notebooks for the price of one expensive one. No one would have a “cool” notebook, but at least they’d all have one.
In the end we compromised. We got a couple “special” items and spent the remaining budget on as many generic supplies as we could. My daughter made me proud when she traded one of her licensed folders for a regular one.
But this has me wondering. What is the best path for charitable giving? Is it better to make a great impact on a few individuals, or does it make more sense to help as many as possible?
What do you think?
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Each year my husband and I also give to Back Pack Attack and we choose the same plan as you - to get as many supplies as we can for a specific amount of money. However, I truly feel that both plans are appropriate responses to giving and, much like your own situation, it depends on what drives the person who is donating. If giving fewer, more special items to help just one person means more to you and motivates you to give, then that is the appropriate response. But on the other hand, if helping more people makes you want to give, then that is what you should do. In the end, with so many people in need, isn’t giving at all really what matters no matter how it is accomplished?
What a philosophical question! This is essentially the conundrum posed to foundations. I think the issue is different for individual charitable giving than for institutional charitable giving?
That’s funny…even though I was shopping for BackPack Attack alone, I had the exact same internal debate with myself over which supplies to get, and I ended up making the same compromise with myself–one Colts notebook, several plain ones.
Logically, it makes the most sense to help as many people as possible, but especially where kids are concerned, it’s hard to resist the opportunity to put a big smile on their faces, knowing they might not get many of those.
I always pick up a few extra supplies while shopping with my daughter. I let her pick them out, and her choices are always interesting.
She grabs a extra plain spiral notebooks, notebook paper and a ton of pencils. Then she gravitates to some of the non-essentials, pink pens with plumes, funky pencil boxes and nifty mechanical pencils.
I asked her why she made those choices. She said, “Let’s face it, mom. The notebooks get all beaten up, but the other stuff is just fun.”
It made sense to me. If it’s fun to write with a pink-plumed pen then maybe the homework will be more fun to finish. We bought a couple extra of the fun things and gladly sent them in for anyone who needed a purple-swirled mechanical pencil.
The question you pose is really why I’m such a champion for United Way. My personality and background make me want to get the most out of every dollar, whether it’s for me and my family or for someone I don’t even know. With that point of view, participating in United Way — where I’m also fortunate enough to work — makes so much sense. I don’t have to make choices between giving to help someone with a crisis today or helping someone to succeed longer-term. My United Way gift enables me to do it all for more than 104 agencies and dozens of important educational and youth development programs in Central Indiana. But I do agree with the first comment. Whatever motivates someone to get involved, or as we at United Way say, LIVE UNITED, by giving, advocating or volunteering, it’s all good. Thanks for sparking an interesting conversation.
This is Eric Wiliams and I am part of the committee that plans and organizes the BackPack Attack each year.
The people who give to the drive have decided that meeting the needs of more children is their priority.
How do you know?
In 2008, 250 donors gave 430,000 supplies. As of the afternoon of 8/14, 311 registered donors gave 628,000 supplies. In a down economy, this is a huge increase.