Many years ago I went to Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls. I was standing–waiting to run– on a spot that happened to be a part of the road that got cleared by police just before the race began to allow more room for runners further back. I was very disappointed, until I realized that not being able to run might have saved my life. It was one of the rare times I appreciated being on the sidelines. But today, during this crisis, it’s not a time to be on the sidelines.
At the Democratic Convention, Stacey Abrams described John Lewis as someone who “encouraged people to be better than they thought they could be.” In a similar vein, the Crisis Charitable Commitment is trying to encourage donors to give more than they thought they could give.
Some are. Most aren’t. Some are in the game. Some are sitting on the sidelines: DAFs sitting on $100 billion; private foundations sitting on $1 trillion (ten times as much); and the 0.1% of individuals sitting on $10 trillion (yet another 10x)!
How do we explain the reluctance of the charitable community to dig a little deeper in these unprecedented times? Three excuses are at least subliminally part of the justification: “things are not as bad as it looks;” “this, too, shall pass;” and “somebody else is taking care of the problem for me.” It’s like sitting on the beach and seeing someone flailing in the ocean: “they’re not drowning, they’re just playing;” “it’s not my child;” and “I’m sure the lifeguard will take care of it.” Reality: We’re drowning, it is our child, and there is no lifeguard.
Unlike the excuses above, there are more legitimate obstacles to increased giving, such as the concern that dipping into one’s endowment or one’s assets will create financial burdens down the road. It is certainly true that giving more now has a future cost, but context is important: a) wealthy foundations and individuals have been blessed with extraordinary stock market gains over the last ten years, so they actually have excess wealth; b) some of that wealth has been hoarded to prepare for the rainy day–guess what, this is the rainy day; c) money spent now is more effective than money spent later–the outcome of this election being a good example, preserving the nonprofit sector is another; d) a one-, two,- or even three-year commitment to give more will have only a minimal impact on future wealth (for now, take my word on this, but I’ll have a lot more to say about this in future newsletters).
A second obstacle is that giving money away quickly and at higher rates can be difficult (I can sense the nonprofit community rolling their collective eyes). Every donor wants to know that the money will be advancing his or her cause as effectively as possible. This takes some combination of research and faith, both of which may be influenced by validators.
For example, we know that America has a serious cheating problem, and I’m not talking about deflating footballs or stealing signals. Election cheating is rampant, whether it is Russian interference, voter purging, closing polling sites, or reducing the post office’s ability to handle mail-in ballots. Preventing citizens from voting is cheating; making sure everyone can vote is not. That’s where philanthropists and validators, respected aggregators of pooled funds, can play a significant role.
The U.S. will likely top 200,000 deaths within the next month. A third of the nonprofit sector is at risk of folding in the next 12-18 months. We’re facing the worst economy since the great Depression with possibly 50 million Americans becoming food insecure (inability to afford healthy food), according to Feeding America, while 30 million Americans are collecting unemployment benefits. The Western U.S. is on fire. In this election our democracy will meet its greatest test since who knows when. The federal government and philanthropic sector are simply not providing the necessary resources to adequately address these challenges.
I identified above eleven trillion one hundred billion dollars ($11,100,000,000,000) of charitable dollars. The total amount of money nonprofits receive annually (excluding fees) is $200 billion, or about 2% of those trillions. Imagine what the world could look like if it were 4%. That’s what doubling down looks like. Whatever cause one finds most worthy, we philanthropists must get off the sidelines–get off of our assets–and get into the game by making the Crisis Charitable Commitment. The nonprofit community needs us now more than ever.