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.

Why I Shouldn't Have Gone To Grad School

Disclaimer: This comes from a privileged background.

Every autumn, around October, my inbox starts to fill up with a particular type of e-mail. They usually look something like this: "Hey designated writer friend, would you mind checking out my Harvard/Princeton/Yale/ essays for B-School/LawSchool/MedSchool?

I really like editing personal essays. My friends are a diverse group of brilliant people, and I learn amazing things about each of them as I strike out passive tense and push for an anecdote. Looking at their personal statements gives me insight into what experiences have moved them, at least the ones that are PC enough to send to the Ivy Leagues.

But I recognize the dissonance I feel when I think about graduate school -- a dissonance I chose, cowardly, to ignore two years ago and almost never lie about when probed.

My decision to go to Columbia stemmed from the wrong elements. Fear, for one. I was scared that not having the prestigious diploma, despite the crumbling of publishing houses and general pessimism of the journalism field, would be the reason I wouldn't make it as a writer. I remember hastily dashing off essays at a coffee shop in India so quickly that somebody would think I didn't even want to get into the school. I'm not sure that I did.

The other reason, of course, was external pressure. So many of the writers I admired had their MFAs (and when you're applying to school you forget that just as many don't), and my friends and family continuously asked me about grad school. Some women in my family sacrificed their shot at a Master's degree or PhD for family, children or financial reasons, and my own academic standing was an opportunity dealt at a time in my life when I had very little responsibility to anyone.

I remember the exact moment I got my acceptance letter. I was standing outside of a host family's door in Bapu Dham with my sister on the phone, wondering if I could pretend that the words Congratulations said something else.

When I think about the most powerful moments of learning in my life, they have never, once, been attached to a classroom. I have had some incredible professors, discussions and editors at school (mostly at University of Florida on full scholarship), but they can't make up for real life. International Relations was best learned in India and Brazil, and Reporting and Writing when I started to connect faces in front of me with print on my document.

Columbia, though flawed, wasn't to blame. It had most of what it advertised -- prestigious faculty, networking events, hands-on learning, access to New York City. And it was an ideal place for students who had never experimented with their local newspapers or agonized over a lead, or left their small, homogenous community to talk to someone completely different than themselves. But for students like me, it delayed the inevitable. And at the end of the year, as I watched my friends struggle just to land unpaid internships as we had after undergrad, I couldn't help but feel a little bitter.

During the election season, candidates talk a lot about access to education. I think graduate school should be a choice, but I didn't feel like it was. It is certainly an opportunity, and sometimes, a good one. Grad school is necessary for fields like medicine, pharmacy and law. It's a safe haven for students who haven't always had access to great institutional education. I think everyone should experience the camaraderie and structure of college at some point in their lives, and sometimes that can't happen until a 34-year-old laborer saves up for the dream degree that he wrote on a dollar bill when he left his parents house as a teenager.

For subjects like journalism, business, politics and religion, I think a healthy dose of library time, a group of people to workshop with, an apprenticeship, and an irreverent mentor can take you a great deal further and save you thousands in debt. I wish I had, Andy-Cooper-360 style, taken the Columbia money and spent more time in transit, pushing my boundaries in a way that didn't involve Brad's Cafe and an editing suite.

When I finally wore the blue robes and cap and filed into a bleacher overlooking the Columbia campus, the only thing that made me feel at peace was my parents' support and pride. My degree was a gift I gave them, and I'm not ashamed that I overrode my personal choice for family, even if they will dispute that statement to this moment.

Now I have a job that I really like with ample room for growth and writing and learning and solvency. I live in a city that I adore, one that serves as a microcosm for so many different societal forces. And without the structure of school, my curiosity has returned full force and I visit MLK Library as if it were going to be taken away from me in the sequestration.

With the freedom and independence that comes from graduating, I'm taking music classes and working on personal projects and attempting not to faceplant on the ultimate frisbee field. But I can't bring myself to credit graduate school for any small success I have now, or may have in the future. Maybe that will change. 

Paise

I'm not that good with money. I save it, try not to use it, but end up spending everything I have on travel, art supplies, food and pens. I run out of cash constantly and end up eating khichri every day until the next months stipend rolls in. Maybe this is why I'm studying business and economics next year.

Trying to live simply this year tested my idea and use of money. Being surrounded by poverty, which may or may not mean lack of money, has made me hypersensitive to the value of the rupee.I think ten times before buying a Maaza bottle, and have walked home many times to save 10 bucks. And this is still cushioned by the fact that I do have access to money if I actually need or want it.

As with most grassroots organizations, the past twelve months has also meant working with very little money in the community center. Everything from pencils and erasers to scrap paper can be scarce, and resourcefulness has taken on a whole new meaning.

Not having enough money can make you feel deflated, as if all ideas are grounded until you raise funds. My stomach drops when I postpone the monthly library birthday party for lack of funds, and I want to punch something when volunteers ask why we don't have enough supplies for everyone. I still have times when I meet IS officers or socialites and become harshly aware of the tears in my salwar pants.

In the community, I've seen the glazed look in my students when they find out that a music class costs 600 rupees a month ($15) or that our next field trip will cost 50 rupees.Simultaneously I see thousands of rupees wasted on smoking, drinking, cyber cafes and flashy clothes or technology -- things that seem to cover up the gaping holes in opportunity and quality of life that actually do exist.

Once a student asked me how I wanted to help poor people in our community. I told him that I wanted to help them realize that they already have much of what they need.This was said just a few hours after we had given away some donated clothes, a process that always turns into a hair-pulling cat fight with people fighting over some used sweater. And I still agree (with myself) -- so much of this poverty is a mental state that could be easily mitigated by the right information, budgeting and family education.

I think that poverty of the mind exists for the haves just as much as the have-nots. We give money a power -- we think it gives us choice and freedom. And then we somehow end up surrendering to it by settling for a job we don't like or spending so much on investing to make more money that we don't have enough for right now.Inadvertently we keep disadvantaged people in the status quo because we're too scared to lose our third savings account.

In the end I want to find a balance where I only have enough money for it to not interfere with my life. Like our body gauges when its full or hungry, I want a gauge for my bank account, and an internal cue that I have enough to keep me living and thriving.

Karyakarta

In an effort to get some clear headspace I've started taking 5:15 a.m. morning walks to nearby Sukhna Lake. In the morning the air is still cool, and the rush nearby the industrial area has only just started to buzz.

On the way to the lake there is a golf course -- something that to me still belongs in Florida, but has somehow become popular here in Chandigarh. It seems to me that the stereotypical golf demographic in the U.S. has transferred here along with the ridiculous-to-maintain soft grass. Even in Chandigarh it is the rich, elite who come to the greens in the morning.

As I passed the course one day I took notice of the caddies -- scrawny, browned men, obviously still half asleep, carrying the bags of the portly gentlemen. I think of caddies that I have seen back in the States, usually teenagers who want some extra pocket money. Again I am reminded of this part of the Indian system that I have a hard time digesting: manual labor.

In the past year I've come to appreciate the strength of my body since it has much more of a role in my daily activities. From washing clothes by hands to carrying water from the nearby temple, I feel like I am healing from the years where desk-computer-gym has been the usual cycle.

But here, more so than at home, I feel that physical labor has come to connote a certain socio-economic class. When I tell my students I once worked at a clothing store, they get confused because no "rich girl" should do that. At home it's not strange to work as a waitress or bartender or salesgirl, but here these posts seemed to be societally reserved for the lower class.

It is obvious that our machine-supported life in America makes it much easier to clean and work independently, without maids or cooks. But even so, and this may sound about as colonizing as I get, there is a level of respect given to most (not all) people in service related positions in the U.S. that I don't always see here in India.

One of the values that Indicorps has instilled in me is to always do the work that my host family or community does, no matter how foreign and hard it may seem. This simultaneously strengthens my own endurance and demonstrates equality in the simple act of sweeping the library floor or carrying huge pots of boiling water for bathing in the winter.

Do Raaste

Bus 1: I catch the local, sarkari (government) bus from Chandigarh to Delhi. It's 160 rupees and relatively empty. I brush some peanut shells off my part of the four-foot seat and sit alone, strategically, in the middle. It's 30 degrees outside so I force the rusted window shut and start eating a pack of Hide-and-Seek biscuits. My backpack is stuffed under my legs. A thin, dark man in the adjacent seat is wrapped in a tan colored woolen shawl. He adjusts a bundle of boxes, bigger than him, and turns just to stare.

Bus 2: I wait in a line for a 350 Rs. ticket onto the semi-deluxe Volvo bus from Chandigarh to Delhi. The girl next to me tucks and re-tucks her blow-dried, highlighted hair behind her ear and asks me if there is a women's line. There isn't, but we make one anyway.In the queue there are college students, businessmen and a handful of skinny-jean clad 20-something women. We get a ticket with a number -- there are two cushioned seats on each side. A man stands behind the bus, loading the luggage into a trunk.

Bus 1: The window is not staying shut. A biting wind makes me tremble so hard that my muscles get sore. We stop every half an hour. Stop is misleading -- the bus coasts as men jump on and off with heavy bags. The previously empty seats fill up with five in each bench, and a column of passengers stand in the aisle, eating roasted peanuts. The bus is loud, from the cursing driver to the whistling ticket conductor to the men who are comparing notes about their shops, their goods, their next stop. My leg is pressed against my neighbor's, but I'm too cold to move.

Bus 2: The bus is like an airplane with the sealed off windows and the personal AC vents. When the college kids start to laugh, they get an angry stare from the businessman in front.. Laptops are out, iPod earphones are in, and various McDonald bags have started to appear. The girl next to me reads Cosmo (India) and snacks on french fries. I eat more Hide-and-Seek biscuits (yes, an addiction) and drift off to sleep.

Bus 1: The fog and pollution is thick, and a ten foot visibility is reason for screeching, constant honking. The journey is stretching past the promised 5-hour mark and I'm starting to get nervous about being in Delhi alone later than I thought. When my friend calls to find out where I am I can hardly hear her voice amid the chaos. As I ask her what stop to get off at, the man next to me listens in. "No, beta, get off at Kashmiri Gate," he tells me, saying it's a shorter route. A few surrounding passengers chime in with their opinions, promising to show me the quickest way home.

Bus 2: It's getting late, but we're making good time. The bus pulls into a Haveli, a faux-Punjabi-village scene that serves as a ritzy rest stop. There is a long line of food stalls, from hot jalebis to veggie burgers to a chocolate shop. I get a sandwich and hot almond milk in a clay cup. Tourists shop for graphis t-shirts with pictures of the Indian lorries (trucks) and dholkis. My neighbor and I walk together, and she asks me what part of Delhi I'm from. Proud to be mistaken for a local, I grin and say Florida.

Bus 1: We stop at a roadside Dhaba. There is a tea stall where hundreds of cups of garam chai in steel cups. A man with a cart sells chole bature, steaming with butter and fragrant from 20 feet away. I buy some chai and a packet of puffed moong daal and climb back on the bus to stay away from the cold, and the men.

Bus 2: We pull into Chandigarh right on time, and climb of the bus in a sleepy, quiet row. There are drivers waiting at the door to take passengers' bags and lead them to a row of Hyundari Santros and Honda Citys. I cross the road to hail an auto and am lucky to get one within minutes. I climb up the stairs to the apartment, where everyone around me is asleep. I put my bags down, change my clothes, and rest.

Bus 1: There are six people now concerned with my travel plans. They know I'm not a local and they know I'm scared, but assured me it will be fine. They give me bus routes, auto rickshaw rates and even their own mobile numbers to make sure I make it home. The metro is closed by now, but my friend is come to pick me up. When my stop comes, the conductor whistles and the bus makes a complete, actual stop for me. It's warmer on the ground without the wind, and I sprint across the road to go home.