the beggar

Currently listening to the soundtrack of the movie The Devil's Rejects

In most ways, I've never considered myself to be a generous person. My siblings and I rarely shared anything, and when we did, the relationship was more like that of a banker and a borrower than it was brother-to-brother or brother-to-sister. In some ways, this was a bad thing (particularly if you were the borrower), but in other ways, it was good because we all learned and knew the value of money and of respecting property rights. In any case, growing up with this mentality meant that outside of paying my tithing, I wasn't the most generous person in the world, right or wrong.

As a new missionary, I decided to be more generous and charitable as I thought a missionary should be. Like most missionaries, I never had much money, but I decided one morning that I would give a HK$5 coin (about $.65) to the old homeless woman I saw sitting on the ground across from Victoria Park in Causeway Bay on most days. I felt really good about what I had done, and it seemed like a great way to start the day. I don't remember if it was that day or the next, but I later saw this same woman counting up all her money on the ground. I looked at the stacks of money and realized she was taking in a lot more money begging than I was getting a month for my allowance. Disgusted, I vowed to never give money to a homeless person again. To this day, I still haven't.

Because of this experience and because of things I've read in the news about charities wasting donations on high salaries and extravagances, I've become extremely suspicious of anyone who wants a handout. The idea of my money being wasted is so repulsive that I'd rather not give than think about where that money might be going.

I find my company's annual United Way donation campaign particularly annoying. When I first joined the company, there was a lot of pressure from executives for everyone to donate. That pressure has decreased considerably over the last few years, but the campaigns have gotten worse in another way: length. Each year, a donation goal is set (it's currently between $4 and $5 million, if I remember correctly), and each year, the amount of money pledged by employees is far short of the goal the company has set. In order to "encourage" more giving, the campaigns get extended each year. When I joined the company, the campaign was one week long. Now, the campaigns seem like they're one month long. It's impossible to avoid the myriad signs, bake sales and tables selling "casual day" stickers. The United Way has previously been the subject of the kind of scandals I mentioned above, and between this and the ever-present pressure to donate, there is no way I could do so and feel good about it, so I never have.

I started donating to a charity last year, the Nature Conservancy, but it took me several years to find this charity. I knew that I was interested in environmental causes, but then I was concerned about political agendas and how exactly my money would be used. The Nature Conservancy appeals to me because it works with governments and businesses to come up with mutually beneficial solutions to environmental problems, rather than fighting these institutions/organizations and getting too involved in politics and promoting their political agendas, like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club do. I also like the fact that I get periodic updates from the Nature Conservancy on their efforts around the world, including every state in the United States.

My stinginess didn't begin with that beggar in Causeway Bay, but she certainly helped it along.