Animals Have Feelings Too

In previous classes, we have made it clear that no one human life is more important, or valuable, than another. I find it interesting, however, that we have spoken very little about the wellbeing of lives outside the human race. While inadvertently we’ve discussed the importance of maintaining the environment in order protect wildlife and generations to come, this has never been our primary concern. This then calls to question the role and importance animal life has in the world and in philanthropic efforts. During this week’s reading, author Lester M. Salamon lists the different types of tax-exempt organizations under US law and I was shocked for two reasons. Firstly, the number of organizations far exceeded my expectations because I was familiar with only 501(c)(3)s receiving tax exemption. Secondly, not a single one of the type of tax exempt organizations focused exclusively on animal rights and welfare. Given the broad nature of 501(c)(3) organizations, animal rights and welfare naturally fall into this category, but it is interesting to note that they do not have their own. It must be said, however, that business leagues, farmers’ cooperatives, and veterans’ organizations, among others, possess their own categories in the list of type of tax-exempt organizations.

One fairly popular organization that focuses on animal welfare and treatment is the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which focuses primarily on the mistreatment of animals in the clothing trade, entertainment industry, laboratories and factory farms. While searching for more information regarding PETA and its philanthropic efforts, I stumbled across a question on the FAQ section of their website that asked: does animal experimentation save human lives? To answer the question, PETA quotes  George Bernard Shaw by saying "You do not settle whether an experiment is justified or not by merely showing that it is of some use. The distinction is not between useful and useless experiments, but between barbarous and civilized behavior." It many ways, I guess the same can be said about philanthropy. While some may argue that animal experimentation  is philanthropic because of the knowledge it imparts, others may argue the opposite because it comes at the expense of abused and defenseless animals. Fortunately, there exists PETA, which serves as a voice for animals, a group that is not only silenced but is also incapable of standing up for itself. 

One-time donation or a year's worth of giving?

       When I volunteered at KCSC (Korean Community Service Center) in high school, I spent close to one academic year working with the same group of children. Watching them grow over the year was a rewarding experience and over the span of 10 months, I found myself attached to each child so much that it was hard to leave in the summer. But donating money to UNICEF gives me the same satisfaction too. Although I couldn’t form any attachment and personal connection with children UNICEF are aiding, knowing that my donation would help someone is enough for me. Whether it was a one-time donation or a year’s worth of giving, I felt rewarded and happy because I know I made a difference.

       This class has introduced so many topics and discussions of philanthropy and giving that I would have never thought of. I remembered our vibrant discussion of giving and the debate over Buffett’s results-oriented giving versus Verdad’s giving. I had always believed that giving is giving and there is no distinction or hierarchy of philanthropy. While the results may be different, giving is essentially the same to me; giving time or money makes me feel compassionate. Needless to say, the debate in class was so intense and everyone defended their arguments so well and I can’t help but wonder why people give and what motivates them to give. What is philanthropic giving ? So I did some research and found the article, “Why Do People Give to Charity?” by Sean Stannard-Stockton on the Stanford Social Innovation Review (http://www.ssireview.org/blog/entry/why_do_people_give_to_charity/). The article concludes that people give because they want to make meaningful connections with others. While the article is entertaining to read, I was left with many questions, like if we’re all giving because we want to connect to others and because we’re all striving to make meaning in life, why are there so many forms of giving? Why are there strategies and intelligent giving?

        I can honestly say that giving for me is measured by intuition. Of course I would rather my giving be productive and intelligent, but giving to me is more than just results; giving money or time or energy to someone sends a strong message of empowerment to both the giver and receiver. Maybe to a receiver, knowing that someone cares is more important than knowing how or how much is given. So what you guys think is more important, results-oriented giving or giving for the sake of giving? What kind of giving do you think is meaningful? And why do you give?

Keeping Their Fridges Running

Hey guys, so sorry again that I totally forgot to blog last week!

              Ok, so in class we had a discussion about if we would rather give to a big organization that might not be able to do as much with $10,000 as a smaller nonprofit would, but at least they are advanced enough to provide sufficient data of how they are making a difference. Or, if we would want to give it to a smaller organization that could do more with our money but not have enough evidence of their overall effectiveness as a nonprofit.

              Now I know its not appealing to donate your money to an organization just to pay for its bills, utilities and software systems or to fund its method of delivering its cause, but this IS a need of nonprofits! All nonprofits have to start somewhere and for some of them it’s the bottom, they lack the supplies to effectively run their organization and support their cause. Take Oregon Food Bank for example, your philanthropic values might be attracted to feed the homeless, you want to see a change, you want to make someone happy by giving them a meal, we all do! These nonprofits are founded off the basis of those same values, that’s what they want to accomplish too. But, they need to think strategically to allow their organizations to grow in order to have a continuing positive effect. It is just as important to support a nonprofit’s growth as it is to donate to the hungry. 

              If you donate money to a food bank you may satisfy a family with a meal. But while you want your money to have that direct impact, the nonprofit that wants to make a bigger difference is struggling to finance a better facility to house all the food. Oregon Food Bank accepts donations to buy food for the homeless, but they also need people to donate their vehicles in order for the organization to go out and collect the food. They also need money to “keep their trucks on the road delivering food statewide, their freezers running and their warehouse operating” (http://www.oregonfoodbank.org/Our-Work). We can all imagine how a food bank could have started out, people donating canned goods to a local food pantry to help out the hungry. Well, the Oregon Food Bank is much more than that now, you can help fund their new $10 million distribution center that reaches out to more people or you can even fund their programs that help address the root causes of hunger through advocacy and education. Their advocacy team assists families with low incomes and their Nutrition Program and Learning Garden teach people how to grow their own food and eat healthy. Who knew a food bank can grow to be that successful and on top of that they distributed 43.5 million pounds of food last year!

            Philanthropists can help support smaller nonprofits and fund their necessities that are essential for the organization’s growth, and eventually, as they grow they will be able to provide data of how they are making an impact. People can give to a nonprofit through volunteer work, if they have administrative talent they can offer their advice. They can also financially provide software and data systems to allow the organization to track their statistical growth. By helping in these ways we can strengthen nonprofits “behind the scenes” and enable them to grow into big and effective organizations.

For more information check out this article on how Nonprofits get “Really Big”:

http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/how_nonprofits_get_really_big 

Organic Philanthropy is More (Ful)Filling

In a world where the drive-thrus are killing more people than the drive-bys, can promoting organic, vegetarian-based diets be considered philanthropy? Well, this past week I stumbled upon an eye-opening documentary that claims a resounding “YES!” Even changing your own diet to be more organic can be philanthropic. On to the evidence…

A whole foods plant-based diet can help keep people healthy and prevent or reverse disease. According to the documentary Forks Over Knives, 75% of US healthcare is spent on chronic illnesses such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. One-third of the adult population is obese. In such a wealthy nation with advanced medical technology, why do we struggle with these diseases more than any of the less developed countries? Stated simply, food is the problem and food is the answer. Forks Over Knives provides medical evidence that eating a diet that consists of 5% animal protein as opposed to the typical 20% that Americans indulge on has been proven to actually reverse these diseases in patients that weren’t responding to the typical prescription or surgical treatments.

Processed and artificial foods pose the most severe problem to people who have no other options. Low-income families are poor in more ways than one, from poor food choices to poor nutrition education, and are faced with the choice of buying a lot of fast food or a little healthy food. They can choose to pay for their expensive prescription medication for chronic illness induced by processed foods, or buy healthy food. Be philanthropic and help make healthy foods more affordable to low-income households, so that a bag of carrots can be cheaper than a Big Mac.

Not only does reducing meat consumption help people, but it can reduce your carbon footprint and help preserve the environment. It takes over ten times the amount of energy to produce a calorie of animal-based foods than plant-based foods. Maybe this is why the livestock industry is a much greater contributor to global warming than the entire transportation industry. And one last stat, the world’s cattle grain can feed 8.7 billion people, nearly 2 billion more than the world’s population. Yet, we have over a billion malnourished people in the world. You do the math.

So the choice is yours. Is this evidence convincing? Would you take the “Meatless Monday” challenge to help your own health as well as the health of our environment? At a minimum, take a look at what you’re eating. Do you know what all those ingredients are? Check out the website and app Fooducate.com and see how your meals measure up. Look up Forks Over Knives if you found this intriguing, or Food, Inc., which is another radically educational piece. Help out at a community garden, support your local farmers while boosting the local economy, and bask in the altruism. There’s a garden right on Pine Street in downtown Binghamton according to CommunityGarden.org. And if this really hit home for you, check out the Binghamton Meat Free Movement -- I just heard about them today so I figured I’d give them a shout-out. Is anyone already involved? 

Programming and Education

Hey Guys,
Hope everyone had a nice weekend and for those who attended Parade Day "enjoyed" the parade.  One video which I've been noticing around the internet the last couple of days is this video made by code.org on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKIu9yen5nc.  The video is called "What most schools don't teach," which details how schools throughout the U.S. don't teach students how to code.  Through the usage of several famous programmers such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerburg, Chris Bosh (shocker), and others, the video attempts to encourage a greater prevalence of programming education.  The organization which created the video is a new non-profit called Code.org.  Code.org is a registered 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization which is trying to spread awareness about the lack of computer programmers and building a database of programming schools.

I found this video to be interesting for us to consider due to the overwhelming focus of the value and issue presentations during last class.  It seemed like every group in the class had education either as an issue area or value in relation to having equal access and opportunity.  Programming is an example of education which is dependent on the school and their resources.  The high school I attended was located in an affluent area and town where education was essential.  In our town we had several classes on computer science and programming which allowed students to learn coding.  Many of these students are currently studying computer science at a variety of top colleges and universities throughout the United States.  However, my high school was an outlier compared to to the vast majority of schools.  Most schools do not offer computer science courses and struggle to provide a quality education.  These schools can't even think about offering a computer science class because they can't hire a new teacher or do not have adequate technological resources to do so.  This is an area where top schools and struggling schools differ greatly.  Did your school offer computer science classes and why didn't they?

Code.org is a great first step to increasing access to computer science classes.  A benefit of modern technology is that being in class is not necessary to learning.  There are a variety of online resources to learn coding such as codecademy and Khan Academy which are free and open to all.  However until coding is available at schools then students will not study it.  One idea which I thought of as I write this is to have a Teach for America esque program for computer programmers.  Large tech companies such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc.  would provide funding for recently graduated students to teach programming at poor schools while providing computers for students to practice their programming.  Not only would students benefit from learning programming but the tech companies would benefit as well from an increased number of programmers.  Do any of you know how to program or plan on studying programming?  Do you think that programming is something which our education system should focus on having equal access to?