My most recent blog post was co-authored with Brian Yeung and is posted to his blog here:
I’ve always wondered how to split my resources between my own happiness and others’ happiness. One tangible metric for this is donation percentage.
Let’s start with some benchmarks:
- 10% tithe, standard with Mormons and expected of some Christians groups
- 2.2% average American in 2008
- 2.5% zakat for Muslim’s (on total wealth, not yearly income)
- 10% recommendation, 20% max for tzedakah in Judaism
- 10% of income over $100,000 from 10over100.org by founder of HotOrNot
- 50% for billionaires as per Bill Gates and Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge
- “whatever can be given freely and without resentment, through a feeling of sympathy for those who are in need” from Buddist teachings
- 1% under $105,000, 5% over from The Life You Can Save
- $150-750 estimated cost to save 1 life from TB
- 1,157 – lives I could save if I gave 10% for the rest of my life
- 50% of US donation goes to religious institutions
- 95% more – the amount over the average that the poor donate in the US
In my brief research, the “give until equal” approach, the most stringent, is philosophically backed by two Peters, Singer and Unger. The thought experiment they use to support this perspective is contrasting an immediate, personal need with a global, impersonal need. For instance, if there was a man drowning in a lake and you had to destroy your $500 shoes to save him, would you be morally obligated to? Yes, most say. However, if you get an envelope from Oxfam asking for $500 to save a life in a foreign country, are you obligated to? No, most agree. At the end of the day, these philosophers seem to practically encourage 10-20% themselves.
There is an enjoyment of giving communicated by large percentage givers I find interesting. This may be simply the surface words of a deep moral commitment, however I feel there is a real way in which they somehow derive more pleasure from the gift than they might if they spent the money on themselves.
This small amount of research has led me to this advice for those interested in aggressively achieving a generous donation percentage:
- Donate what you feel
- Start at 2.2%, if possible
- Aim for 10% (esp of income over $100k)
- Focus on enjoyment of your donation. The more you understand the process and appreciate the result, the more you will naturally give.
Myself, I started donating 10% of income when Bebo sold in 2008. It’s large enough to keep me from drowning in guilt and small enough I can relax and work on giving in greater ways. I put the money in a donor-advised fund because I wanted the tax benefit without distributing it immediately. So now the value slowly grows at AEF Online and gets sent out in regularly yearly donations to charities I believe in.
To be honest, I find it quite heartening that most people advocate 10% donation and very, very few advocate >20% donation for anything but the estates of the super-rich. Perhaps there is space to both give and enjoy in this crazy world.
Thoughts?
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Note: This post examines common donation percentages. Later, I may more deeply explore justifications.
PS. I found my inner debate echo’d here: How can I justify having luxuries while others lack necessities?
Also, I now plan to read: The Life You Can Save by Peter Singer
I’ve never been able to get over the stark contrast of my 1st world life and the desperation of many abroad. Or, perhaps my issue is that I could fix so much in their lives but I don’t. “Then why not help more?” is the clear question, but equally clear is the next difficulty: “How much is enough?”. If one mouthful of happiness and one night of peace is worth the same in my life as anyone else’s on the planet, then the logical, generous thing to do is shift spending into donation until I’m down to subsistence levels and a number of others are raised to subsistence levels. The massive disconnect between that life path and my own is something I carry with me.
I think it all started on a family trip to India when I was 13. Beggars without legs rolled up to me and I found it heart wrenching. My parents said amputee beggars often had their limbs removed just to make more money. I reflected on this as I fell asleep in 3-4 star hotels, digested heavy Indian curries and waddled through temples. Where was the logic? How could it make sense for me to enjoy while they suffered when the same dollar amount could buy more happiness for them?
I tried on this optimization, the most marginal happiness per dollar, and quickly felt overwhelming complexity and fear enter my mind. Everywhere I turned it felt like the good things in my life had no justification. It’s as if the supporting waters keeping my happy life afloat was a sea of justifications, unfathomably deep, and considering this optimization had pulled the cork out of the drain on the sea floor and water was rushing away. First my frivolous purchases where beached and inaccessible, then my very travel to this place was on dry land and now unjustifiable. I could see most of the rest of my life sinking fast and so I quickly replaced the stopper and let my life and its premises float freely again, albeit at a slightly lower level.
I’ve left that stopper in, using phrases like:
“It’s their life, I can’t be responsible for everyone.”
“It’s impossible to be happy if one considers others’ happiness co-equal.”
“Will my friends call my a hypocrite or worse if I live differently or raise questions?”
“If I can be considered generous by my peers, that is enough.”
“Some of us need to be rich so we can innovate for everyone, poor included.”
I look around and everyone else seems to have many happy things floating on their seas and things are going great. It makes me wonder what possessed me to pull the cork at all. Perhaps it’s something wrong with me. Maybe the inadequacy complex of western society combined with my family’s survivalist, never-quite-okay approach has resulted in me finding a complex external problem with which to justify my internal disconnection. That is certainly a component J. Yet still I feel there is a truth and a logic in these feelings when one takes what we hold dear to a natural conclusion.
I think the difficulty is in finding a middle. Optimizing for self and close connections is natural. Giving self totally to the needs of others has a quiet, logical wholeness to it. However, considering the needs of self, those close and those far is overwhelming. At least with the tools currently at our disposal. But I’ve gone on long enough and can post on new emotional tools next time. What are your thoughts on this stark contrast?