What It Takes To Open Your Wallet

From the days when I carried around a UNICEF box during Halloween as a kid, to buying a Street Sense from the same homeless guy each week, the act of donating money, and collecting donations, has always proved confounding. There are so many things to care about, but no way to reach them all. And there's always the added confusion of accountability and impact.

But a recent 'fundraiser' made me realize what it takes to have someone actually donate their hard-earned cash, and do it with joy. The lessons I took away from the experience also fit perfectly with what I learned from Switch: How To Change Things When Change Is Hard, which I'm kind of obsessed with this year.

A college friend of mine sent out a private Facebook invite to a group of maybe 50 people, asking us to give a monetary gift for another friend's birthday so that he could travel to a sacred spot that was significant in both his personal life and ongoing study of religion.

The response was immediate: people were posting that they had donated, and urging their friends to join in. It was personal, sweet, and a kind of instant community built around our mutual respect for him and this trip. I'm not close friends with this guy, but I donated a small amount of money with no hesitation.

Within a few days the goal was not only reached, but surpassed, and the friend who had organized the whole thing put up a glorious video of the birthday boy's reaction to the posts, messages and money for the trip. It was warm and fuzzy to the nth degree.

Having seen the beauty and efficiency of this process, I started to identify what made this different than all the Save the Children campaigns we pass by every day, at the grocery story, or the Facebook posts about friends running for cancer. 

1) The goal was clearly defined. We knew exactly where our money was going, and who would be using it. Trying to put a dollar amount on top of a huge initiative like women's empowerment doesn't exactly give you a picture, or too much confidence, that your small contribution could make a difference. In this case you knew exactly how much you could impact the situation.

2) The outreach was targeted, limited and relevant. You know spectator's syndrome? Where everyone in a crowd sees someone get hurt by doesn't do anything about it because they diffuse responsibility? I feel like that's how it is with some campaigns. My friend was smart enough to make a closed group that included only people he knew had some sort of attachment or emotion connected to the 'cause'. When there are a limited number of people, they know they have to rise up to the occasion.

3) Emotional connection. Senator Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican, attracted lots of attention when he decided to suddenly support gay marriage after his son, Will, came out. A lot of times it takes that moment of humanization -- that friend with cancer, the sweet rescue dog, to feel the weight of a cause. In this case, it was a friend that makes it so easy to love and respect him because of his quietly passionate way of living. The connection was immediate, so the reaction was too.

4) End game. Seeing our friends face light up was more than enough pay back for the donation. But even if you give selflessly, without needing a return on your investment, that moment is so fulfilling and necessary to come full circle. Some organizations have tried to do that by providing pictures of the child you are supporting, but it needs to be stronger, and more consistent. It can't be a one way street.

So, anyhow, this is my recipe for how to make people give you money. In a world with such stark differences in resources, maybe this will help someone.

Love Lessons

Today my dance teacher gave us these instructions at the beginning of our warm-up: "Fall in love with yourself in the next hour." I tried to reconcile this with the hideous pink striped workout pants I was wearing, which was hard. Anyway, the cheesy exercised helped out later when I walked home down Columbus , warmed by the couples in restaurant windows and people walking down the street with flowers and wine.

But that kind of love is only one iteration of what Valentines Day celebrates. Love comes with so much other stuff, some of which I learned today. Warning: This isn't Cosmo:

1. No More Social Climbers
Marriage in America has changed from an emphasis on religion and background to -- yes, you guessed it -- money. So before, it was more important for a Jewish guy to find a Jewish girl, now it's more important that bank accounts match. Rich people are more likely to marry rich people, poor people more likely to marry poor. Of course there are confounding factors, but economic mobility via marriage, for better or for worse, is no longer what it was.

2. Damn
Conversation Hearts all taste the same.

3. And they thought we were prudes.
My friend Ashley sent me this Reuters article about the kiss. Apparently, the first documentation of a kiss was from the ancient Indian text, the Mahabaratha in 1000 BCE: "She set her mouth to my mouth and made a noise that produced pleasure in me," the poem said. Then, when Alexander the Great showed up in the motherland he picked up the custom and took it back via horse/elephant to Europe. Before that people just sniffed each other. This is especially funny to me, because it took so long for actors to kiss in Bollywood movies, and it still continues to be awkward. But come on, there are 1 billion people in the country, of course we invented the kiss.

4. Yes, that is a picture of Gandhi and Kasturba up there.
In terms of unconditional love, we're not scientifically sure if it exists, at least in the form of altruism. I personally have no doubts that it does, but here is more justification for expanding your idea for love: it makes you give of yourself, and that, in turn, makes you freakishly happy. Dr. Anthony Youn on CNN, after a long diatribe about how he hates V-day, mentions "Helpers High", a buzz you get from spreading the love.

5. Something in the way Pattie Boyd moved
We have this book at my parents house about George Harrison, and it mentions that "Something" is described as the perfect love song. A bunch of people seem to agree, and it certainly has had a permanent place on my play list for years. Harrison wrote the song for Pattie Boyd, who also later finagled the song "Layla" out of Eric Clapton. I guess she's like the Helen of Troy for classic rock even though neither guy ended up with her.

I leave you with this, the Greatest Love of All.