Being charitable is one of the three things I think are most important in how we conduct our lives. If you are healthy, you should help someone who is not, if you have eaten, you should help someone who has not in short we should all help people in need. In the final analysis charity is selfish because it makes us feel so good when we help.
Social Media gives us an unprecedented opportunity to reach out to vast audiences and find people who care about the same things we do. As a result the use of social media for charitable causes is of great interest to lots of people. Some of them you know – Rocky Turner, whose Mothers Fighting for Others is one of my favorite charities, Drew Olanoff whose personal fight with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma spawned the courageous and quirky BlameDrewsCancer, Danny Brown who started the 12 for 12K movement, and of course, Twestival, the social media based charity. Today I got an email on facebook from Danny which said in part;
I just wanted to send this out to you, n case anyone asked about it and you didn’t know what the question was referring to.
Tonight, I was alerted to a very disparaging blog post about the 12for12k project. Not only is it misinformed, to me it also takes away from the immense support you guys offer every month.
Therefore, I have written an official response to the post, which can be found here:
https://dannybrown.me/2009/09/22/response-to-barabra-talismans-misinformed-12for12k-post/
The original one can be found at the following link:
https://talismantol.wordpress.com/2009/09/21/12for12k/
I decided to publish my response since Barbara Talisman has comment moderation on her post, so there’s no guarantee any response from me will be published.
I’ll let you read both Barbara’s post and Danny’s response, since that’s the easiest way for you to understand both of their positions, but I was left with a bad taste in my mouth from the very debate. I’ve had some interaction with Danny, and to the best of my knowledge, though he may receive some recognition for his efforts, he doesn’t receive any money from the funds raised for the various charities. Though I don’t know Barbara at all, and writing this post about Danny has probably done a lot for her visibility in the world of social media, she seems to make a living by charging charities to raise money for them. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it does make her attack on Danny and the use of social media to raise money somewhat self-serving and disingenuous. Perhaps its not. Maybe she just really feels strongly that Danny deserves to be lambasted for raising money for charity without charging them, and that he has the selfish goal f building his online visibility through his charitable efforts.
Me? I don’t get it. No matter whose numbers are right, there are charities that have received money at no expense to them because of Danny’s efforts and the efforts of the others in the 12 for 12K program. I’ve always said that “there is no such thing as a bad profit” – I think that applies here too “There is no such thing as a bad charitable donation”. So no matter whose numbers are right, the effort was a success – peraps larger, perhaps smaller, but a success nonetheless.
The 12th century philosopher Maimonides said that there were different levels of charity – from the lowest to the highest they are:
8. When donations are given grudgingly.
7. When one gives less than he should, but does so cheerfully.
6. When one gives directly to the poor upon being asked.
5. When one gives directly to the poor without being asked.
4. When the recipient is aware of the donor’s identity, but the donor does not know the identity of the recipient.
3. When the donor is aware of the recipient’s identity, but the recipient is unaware of the source.
2. When the donor and recipient are unknown to each other.
1. The highest form of charity is to help sustain a person before they become impoverished by offering a substantial gift in a dignified manner, or by extending a suitable loan, or by helping them find employment or establish themselves in business so as to make it unnecessary for them to seek charity.
Even by these scholarly standards, the form of charity being practiced by our social media friends ranks pretty high -And if their efforts builds recognition for Danny (or Rocky, or Drew) so what? Don’t we want to know who the good people are around us? Isn’t that knowledge good for us and for them? Doesn’t that extend to us the ability to help and feel better about doing something to make a difference? Isn’t some recognition of their efforts and their leadership only appropriate (even though its not what any of them seem to seek)?
What do you think?
