Do the Word

My stomach hurts.

In a post on the Freakonomics blog entitled Freakonomics Quorum: The Economics of Street Charity, Stephen J. Dubner poses the following question to personages as varied as Arthur Brooks (author of Who Really Cares?), Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, and Barbara Ehrenreich (author of Nickled and Dimed):

You are walking down the street in New York City with $10 of disposable income in your pocket. You come to a corner with a hot dog vendor on one side and a beggar on the other. The beggar looks like he’s been drinking; the hot dog vendor looks like an upstanding citizen. How, if at all, do you distribute the $10 in your pocket, and why?

Here’s what’s curdled my stomach cheese:

Not a single respondent–from either the “celebrity” panel or the nine pages of comments to the blog–mentions the possibility of getting involved with the homeless man beyond the hot dog or the handout.

Responses fall into one of three general categories, vociferously argued:

1. Give money to the homeless man
2. Give a hot dog to the homeless man
3. Give nothing to the homeless man

From a Christian perspective, Barbara Ehrenreich, a self-identified atheist, offers the most interesting response:

Although I’m atheist, I defer to Jesus on beggar-related matters. He said, if a man asks for your coat, give him your cloak too. (Actually, he said if a man “sue thee at the law” for the coat, but most beggars skip the legal process.) Jesus did not say: First, administer a breathalyzer test to the supplicant, or, first, sit him down for a pep talk on “focus” and “goal-setting.” He said: Give him the damn coat.

As a matter of religious observance, if a beggar importunes me directly, I must fork over some money. How do I know whether he’s been drinking or suffers from a neurological disorder anyway? Unless I’m his parole officer, what do I care? And before anyone virtuously offers him a hot dog, they should reflect on the possibility that the beggar is a vegetarian or only eats kosher or Hallal meat.

So if the beggar approaches me and puts out his hand, and if I only have a $10 bill, I have to give it to him. It’s none of my business whether he plans to spend it on infant formula for his starving baby or a pint of Thunderbird.

It would be unfair to hold Ehrenreich to the standard of a full and proper exposition of Christian doctrine, but a few thoughts do bear mentioning here:

• Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan portrays a much more transformational approach to human tragedy than hot dog/tenspot/bupkus. The Samaritan does not simply give money. He becomes personally involved, with head, heart, and hand attached to his check.
• Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats shows that it does matter what we give to the homeless man. If you give the homeless man directions to a homeless shelter, you have given Jesus directions to a homeless shelter. If you give the homeless man a hot dog, you have given Jesus a hot dog. Do you want to stand before the great white throne of judgment and have Jesus say, “Hey, thanks for the hot dog and the directions to the homeless shelter. You really put yourself out there for me, man.”
• One might protest that I seem to be advocating for an impractical level of involvement here. Perhaps. But perhaps God is advocating an impractical level of involvement for us with the homeless. After working with the homeless for a goodly number of years and serving as president of the largest rescue mission in the US, I certainly don’t harbor romantic notions about homeless people and how easy it is to be regularly committed to involvement with them. But I do know this: they are neither a separate species nor objects of pity in God’s view, and He seems to spend a lot of time thinking about how to be involved with them, too.
• I realize that Ehrenreich’s vegetarian comment is intended to be a bit snarky, but all snarkiness aside, is it just an oversight that she writes, “before anyone virtuously offers him a hot dog, they should reflect on the possibility that the beggar is a vegetarian”  rather than writing, “before anyone virtuously offers him a hot dog, they should ask the homeless person whether he is a vegetarian”? Transactional giving thinking turns people into objects of pity or scorn, not subjects of their own lives.
• It does matter what the man does with the money. God holds us accountable not simply for our generosity but for what results from it. Again, transactional giving separates head, heart, and hands from checks. Transformational Giving bundles them together and considers them inseparable.

I feel much better now. I think I’ll go get a hot dog.

We think wrongly if we define a Transformational Gift in terms of the emotion it evokes in us, the sacrifice which we undertake in giving it, or the worthwhile nature of the cause for which our gift is intended.

Transactional gifts can prompt tears to run down our cheeks (in response to a touching speech or testimony or DVD, for example). They can radically change our lifestyle as we cut out other expenses so that we can afford to give. They can cure diseases, save lives, teach people to read, or lift a family out of poverty.

In other words, it’s simply not true to say that Transformational Gifts are good and transactional gifts are bad.

What differentiates Transformational Gifts from transactional gifts is that transactional gifts are incomplete.

Transactional gifts are, by definition, financial transactions. What changes hands can fit on a receipt.

Transformational Gifts, by contrast, are more than financial transactions. In a Transformational Gift, the head, heart, and hand come attached to the check, meaning:

• The gift is a reflection of a maturing thought process about the cause, ourselves, the person we’re giving to help, etc., and
• The gift is a reflection of a deepening of heart commitment in relation to the cause, and
• The gift involves more than just our money; that is, there is an action component in which we are directly interacting with the cause in tangible ways in which we, not just the organization through which we gave, are the subject.

Two notes on this last point:

• Many Christian nonprofit organizations will immediately respond, “Oh, yes–we definitely want people not only to give but to pray.” To which I respond, “Pray for…?” The answer typically is some combination of the organization, the project, the people the organization will help. To which I respond, “That’s a transactional gift with Christian goofer dust sprinkled on the top.” In Transformational Giving, prayer is intended to draw us into the cause as subjects, not supporters, and it’s designed to directly connect us to the cause, not simply through mediation by the organization.
• Christian organizations patronize their supporters by saying, “You really made a difference! You fed the hungry! You saved a life! You changed the world!” when all the supporter really did was write a check so that the organization could do those things. (It’s interesting that in Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats He does not say, “[W]henever you gave to an organization that helped the least of these brothers of mine, you did unto me”. Instead, he says, “[W]hatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did unto me.” The emphasis remains on direct action. Don’t rob your champions of that. Besides, if Jesus were homeless, would you really help him simply by sending a check to the homeless shelter? Come on, people.)

Rule of thumb: When financial giving becomes a substitute for acting, it’s transactional. When financial giving becomes one aspect of comprehensive involvement in the cause, it’s likely Transformational.

Great quote here from Ken Gergen, author of the one of the best fundraising books of the year that has precisely nothing to do with fundraising, Relational Being: Beyond Self and Community:

*If a policeman says “Stop where you are.”… you become a suspect.

*If a salesperson says, “Can I help you?” …you become a customer.

*If your wife says, “Can you give me a hand, honey?” … you become a husband.

*If your child says, “Mommy come quick.” …you become a mother.

Others call us into being as a suspect, a customer, a husband, a mother, and so on. Would we be any of these without such callings?

So where do donors come from?

From nonprofits who call out to people, “We need money to do our work. Do you have any money to give us?”

We nonprofits could issue out any number of types of calls to members of the public. In the process we could call into being volunteers, champions, apprentices, learners, amateurs (in the best sense of the word), budding experts, students, cause-centered communities, and disciples.

But the fact that we value people primarily for their ability to give us their money means that we seldom call into being anything other than donors.