Brad Frost

Deliberate Giving

Like a lot of people, I've increasingly felt the urge to put my money where my mouth is and give to causes that I care about. Aside from a few monthly donations I've had set up for a while, I often find myself donating to causes when someone shares something on Facebook or Twitter that says something like "THIS IS A REALLY IMPORTANT CAUSE; PLEASE HELP." These causes that flick across my feed are no doubt worthwhile, but I can't help but feeling that donating in this way is pretty arbitrary. My giving to worthwhile causes shouldn't hinge solely on somebody's tweet. I want to be more deliberate in these decisions, so I finally sat down to try to give some structure to how I give. Parameters for giving There are a ton of of things to think about when it comes to making donations: which organizations have the most impact? Which ones are reputable? How much do I give? One-time or monthly donation? Local or global? Where does my money go? I ended up establishing a few parameters to help me make heads or tails of things. They are:

With these parameters in mind, I got to work researching and choosing organizations to give to. Where I'm Giving Maslow's hierarchy of needs categorizes human needs in the following way: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Pyramid: Physiological needs is the base of the pyramid, followed by Safety needs, followed by Social needs, followed by Esteem needs, followed by Self-actualization needs I clustered the organizations I'm giving to using Maslow's categories: Physiological Food, water, warmth, rest (and existential issues).

Safety Security, health, and well being.

Social, Esteem, and Self-actualization I'm clumping psychological and self-fulfillment needs together, so organizations that help foster friendships, provide people prestige & accomplishment, and help people achieve their full potential are rounded up here.

All these organizations plotted out on the pyramid looks like this: Organizations I'm giving to plotted out according to Maslow's pyramid The x-axis of the graph spans from local/acute/immediate on the left to global/chronic/long-term on the right. So organizations that operate in a defined geographic area skew towards the left, while organizations that are more global in scope skew to the right. Organizations that address an acute and/or immediate need skew towards the left, while organizations that address more chronic and/or long-term problems skew towards the right. The graph is far from scientific, but I again wanted some structure in how to think about the organizations I give to. Looking at the results, I think it makes sense that the bulk of the organizations are addressing many fundamental human needs. After all, it's tough to achieve your full potential if you're lacking basic food and shelter. But I also think plotting this out helps show some holes in where I'm giving, and I'm hoping to remedy that. Moving Forward A few things worth noting:

I realize that donating money isn't a panacea, and I desperately want to do more tangible things to help the causes I care about. My biggest foe is time. I have a tendency to work all the time, which eats into time I could be giving to other things, including helping worthwhile organizations. I have ideas on other ways I can help people, and I'm hoping to explore those in the coming months. Until then, I'm going to give where I can. *[DETAILS]: Device, Environment, Time, Activity, Individual, Location, Social *[RESS]: Responsive Design with Server-Side Components *[CMS]: Content Management System *[GUI]: Graphical User Interface