Thinking Critically About Giving

Are you looking for the perfect charitable activity? For a way to select a good charity, or a way to help that maximizes your donation and/or volunteer activity? There are many ways that people select their cause, ways that they donate, and reasons for volunteering. However, these choices can be poorly thought out, self-serving, and may require that charities expend an unreasonable amount of effort to receive relatively little to advance their mission.

This is the first in a series of articles, leading up to World Humanist Day, that will help you to think critically about the ways you give. We hope that they will inspire you to make thoughtful contributions on World Humanist Day and in the months and years that follow.

This series of articles will explore:

• The cost of social giving
• The fallacy of the administration cost metric
• The high cost of donating canned goods and other small items

You may have your own pet peeve about giving. Are there situations in which people give emotionally, rather than rationally? Do you have a method for how you give? If so, we’d love to hear about it.

However you give, we know that Canada’s safety net is well subsidized by donors and volunteers and that your contributions are integral to keeping that safety net afloat. We hope that you will choose to volunteer and give, alone or in a group. Don’t forget to tell us about it and invite others to join in by registering your World Humanist Day activity.