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We Give and Give
by
Dr.
Darrel Edwards
A few years ago I had the option to give my personal
profits to two groups: (1) the Government or (2) the Elizabeth Glaser
Pediatric AIDS Foundation. I chose the Institute for Juvenile Hepatitis.
Although my family and I did get something in return: we attended
the opening performance of Chapter 1 of the six part Jedi story. We would
have still had about $10,000 left if I had chosen the government. I
chose the fun. Many of Hollywood’s leading luminaries gave far less.
In 2001 my associates and I tried a grand experiment. We offered to
send one dollar to the favorite charity of anyone who returned our
completed questionnaire. When we offered the respondent the dollar, the
return rate was about 40%. When we offered to help others, the return
rate fell to about 25%. We actually had to go out with a second wave
of questionnaires to
give us adequate sample for our study.
Receiving one dollar for completing a survey will buy
you a candy bar. When added together, donations to charity can add up to
a charity receiving thousands of dollars. While we finished the project
with about $68,000 to major national charities, the differences were
significant. Why the difference?
I visited a casino last week and observed players at
slot machines. Overall, you lose about everything you intended to invest
and all your winnings. I watched one woman lose a bucket of quarters –
it had to be several hundred dollars (or maybe a thousand), but we can’t
get those same type of people to give $1.00 to charity. Why the
difference?
It has been noted that billions are given to charity
each year, but that is usually by pockets of givers. What stands in
the
way of each of us making small offerings that would add up to a great deal. If
everyone in the study donated their dollar, charity would have about $90,000.
Today, I don’t have answers, but I know that hundreds
of thousands of people will give billions to casinos. If we had the
answers, the whole nation would prosper.
Perhaps it’s the cynicism associated with
administrative costs versus what actually gets to those who need help. I
wish I knew. The conclusion: what can we do to break through? The
respondents keep the dollar. It is an insignificant amount, but if each
dollar was donated, collectively we could do significantly good work. |
