A more caring society

There is a campaign in Australia to make people more caring. In practical terms, to double the amount given to charity by 2030. Philanthropy Australia has a blueprint to achieve that, as does the recently elected Federal Labor Government.

Philanthropy Australia may have the most success getting policy changes like expanding the number of charities that have DGR status, to encourage more tax deductible giving, which is included in their blueprint. Their goal, however, of a nationally co-funded campaign to encourage a stronger giving culture in Australia may not be that successful.

We would first have to accept we are not giving enough and could give more. That is going to be hard for some people to admit. Yet, people often spend more on a coffee in one day than charity giving.

In 2018-2019, we hit a 40-year low in tax deductible giving. Where on average, people gave less than $2.60 a day. And there's no evidence that giving, without claiming deductions, is any better.

In order to give more, we would also have to care more about complete strangers. When saving for a deposit for our house, help fund other people's housing through charity giving. To think not only of our own retirement savings, but those of others. And thus contribute more to charities that help older people. It means accepting less money for ourselves, and giving more money to strangers. Not something that we tend to be geared towards.

It means we would have to change our belief system and accept that good charities do get your donations to those in need.

The other belief that would have to change, thinking taxes are our charity giving. A compulsory tax that most people would stop if they could is not a substitute for giving targeted donations to good charities. Expecting the government to do all of the work to help those in need is also not a good excuse.

And we would have to stop believing the other misconceptions. Anything one does to help is a drop in the bucket, so why give anything? If you think a drop in the bucket is unhelpful, giving nothing at all is worse.

And there is no social pressure to make people give. Talking publicly about one's giving can be seen as inappropriate. Even the Bible speaks out against a particular type of giving just for show. This, however, means that there are less examples or conversations in the public space that would encourage people to give more.

There is also a need for charitable organizations themselves to give more. The Public Ancillary Funds {PAFs} that hold money for charitable purposes, only need to give a minimum of 4% of the value of their funds each year. And they don't always rush to give out that small amount. Some organizations may only distribute once a year, while people suffer daily

Philanthropy Australia's goal to lift giving, might also be hampered by something that was an issue over 100 years ago. It is just not in our nature to be overly charitable to strangers.

The philanthropist Andrew Carneige wrote in the Gospel of Wealth in 1889, about people that wanted to change the world,

…even if we admit for a moment that it might be better for the race to discard its present foundation, Individualism, - that it is a nobler ideal that man should labor, not for himself alone, but in and for a brotherhood of his fellows, and share with them all in common…This is not evolution, but revolution. It necessitates the changing of human nature itself a work of eons, even if it were good to change it, which we cannot know.

It is not practicable in our day or in our age…Our duty is with what is practicable now; with the next step possible in our day and generation. It is criminal to waste our energies in endeavoring to uproot, when all we can profitably or possibly accomplish is to bend the universal tree of humanity a little in the direction most favorable to the production of good fruit under existing circumstances.

In other words, good luck with getting us to be much more charitable than we are. Getting us to overcome self-interest, caring about complete strangers much more, and letting go of misconceptions that are well and truly ingrained in us. And letting go of our money, when even getting people to give more than a few dollars a day is difficult.

A campaign to spend more on travel will be more successful. We spent around 60 billion in 2018-2019 on travel, far more than we donated to charity.

Commonwealth Bank research tells us that people are planning to save, and spend over $5000 on holidays in 2022. This is more than five times the amount we currently donate on average. Yet, until sending a donation becomes just as important, and interesting, as sending ourselves to another city or country, things won't change much.