Ah yes, the age old question: “Why do we give”? This post covers some of the reasons the rich give to charities.
Robert Frank, from the WSJ who blogs on The Wealth Report, a look at the lives and culture of the wealthy, wrote a telling article today on just this topic.
Here are some of the more interesting points…
“Ask a wealthy donor why they give to charity, and they’ll give one of two answers: making the world a better place or giving back to the community.”
But there’s another reason the rich give back to charity: It makes them feel better about themselves.
A philanthropy study done by the Center on Philanthropy and Bank of America found 46% of respondents said their charitable donations have a “greater impact on their own personal fulfillment†than on those who receive their gifts. The survey polled those with an income of $200,000 or more or a net worth of $1 million or more.
Less than 20% of the respondents believe their donations make a major impact on the organizations they support, and only 6% believe they’re making significant contributions to the improvement of society.
In other words, they know their donations won’t change the world, but it makes them feel better anyway.
My guess is that the wealthy practice a kind of suspension of disbelief when it comes to charity. They know that changing the world through charity can often be an illusion, since the problems they’re trying to solve are so vast and complex that no single donor (except maybe Mr. Gates and Mr. Buffett) can have a discernable impact.
But they also know that they feel better for trying, and that charity makes them better people.
This was best expressed by Greg Carr, the voice-mail tycoon who’s now devoting his life and a large chunk of his fortune to saving the Gorongosa national park in Mozambique. In an interview with 60 Minutes recently, Mr. Carr, said:
“I wanted to give back. But you know this project has done a lot more for me than I’ll ever do for it. Coming to Africa and spending time here, learning from their culture which is rich and beautiful, is a blessing.â€
It seems the rich and the not so rich have similar logic when giving… we give not only to improve the world but also, and maybe even more importantly, we give to improve our own lives!
Yoav