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.

Strengthening Your "Corps"

Every year thousands of 20-something Americans embark on a mission to change the world. Or at the very least, their world. I was one of them.

Through programs like Americorps, TFA, Peace Corps, AIF, and in my case, Indicorps, we enter the development workforce to expand our worldview and serve communities that we've come to know as underprivileged. We want to connect the news we read, the anger we feel, the textbook definitions, the blessings we're given, the ideas in our minds -- with the real world. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it really, really doesn't.

There are a lot of critics along the way. Inexperienced teachers in the Bronx are reprimanded for learning on the job, with 4-year-old minds at stake. Middle and upper class Americans are warned of pushing our own idea of success and social progress on a very different community abroad.We're criticized for cultural insensitivity if we wear our own clothes, or for cultural mimicry if we adopt local customs. And for good reason -- it's a difficult, blurry line to navigate, and there are many mistakes along the way that can truly hurt people in a vulnerable state.

But I don't think the solution here is to eliminate service-based programs and replace fellowships with experienced field social workers or researchers. The impact of these programs does need to be measured and improved, but for the most part, I have to believe that young people go with open hearts, minds and a sense of adventure that can refresh NGOs, schools or offices at every level. The thing is, we have to be hyper-aware, realistic and sensitive about our role. And we have to work our butts off to make sure that role produces more than what we will, inevitable, consume.

There are a few guiding principles that I learned before and during my fellowship year that I found, and continue to find, extremely useful.

The first is an essay by Ivan Illich called "To Hell With Good Intentions". Illich, who is a great mind of dissent in many ways, addressed a group of young Americans working in Mexico and warned them of the hypocrisy, superficiality and danger, of their work. He emphasized that an "us" versus "them" mentality (rich vs. poor, haves vs. have-nots) creates an unfair dichotomy that breeds subtle colonialism rather than empowerment. No, having the girls in your community trade in their kurta-pyjama for jeans is not progress, and teaching English, the seemingly innocuous service activity, should be relevant and thorough.

One major take away from the essay, and a line that stuck with me throughout my year, in India, was: "If you insist on working with the poor, if this is your vocation, then at least work with the poor who can tell you to go to hell." 

I try to approach things with a little more sweetness, but I completely agree that people should be wary of working in places while practicing a language and culture they only partially understand. Human connection is stronger than just a common language, and people learn fast, but I find it demeaning to impose your inability on a community with usually very urgent needs. My Hindi was, and is, far from perfect, but I understood every word the families I worked with said to me. And after hearing plenty of things that hurt deeply, I'm glad I did.

Another idea with which I approached my fellowship year was one of Indicorps' favorite quotes, attributed to an aboriginal activist group in Queensland: "If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." 

For me, the idea to start a journey like this focused on the "them" that Illich talks about. I saw the begging hands on trips to India, I watched the heartbreaking infomercials for charity organizations, I felt very strongly about sharing my wealth. Then I got to India.

Suddenly, the trip was about me. It was about my health, and why my hair was falling out. Whether I could go from being a novelty to a member of the community. It was about blogs I wrote, bus rides I took at midnight, and being fearless And could I help anyone? Or would I return to the U.S. with new insight and all the benefits of street cred, but without leaving behind anything sustainable?

It wasn't until mid-year that it became about us. The impact of my life choices, like buying clothes, on a person I didn't know. The ability of one of my students to focus on college so that she could pave the way for others and even out the playing field. I began to understand that our success at the community center relied on each person recognizing their own power, and simultaneously, their part in the bigger puzzle. Nobody in my community needed me, specifically. They just needed, as I did, to bridge a gap of access and knowledge.

My last mantra during my fellowship year was that there is no end point, no final goal. A year (or two) is too short a time to know or do very much, and if any of us base our life's service on less than twelve months, I don't think we would ever sleep at night. But that shouldn't stop you from setting goals, meeting them, and setting more. 

To that end, my year with Indicorps has become a point of reference -- not to tell stories about living in a slum or feel guilty every time I buy cheap Made In India clothing -- but as a standard for the meaning and depth I'm struggling to translate into articles and relationships for the rest of my life. Sometimes I do stay awake at night thinking of the mistakes I made, the misunderstandings, the mornings I should have woken up earlier, the gifts I shouldn't have taken.

With that awareness to check us every step of the way, I don't think there's any better reason for unleashing determined 22-year-olds into the world with high hopes. We might stumble a lot that first year. But if we fall responsibly, the scope for change in the long run is beyond imagination for everybody involved.