This year we will give around 10% of our turnover or $30,000 per employee or the same as 1/3 of my or Gina’s estimated income back to our community.

Lately, the corporatization of charitable services and the “effective giving” movement have carried a double-edged sword to us at James Buy Sell.

We have become more aware, and we want greater efficiencies to help those in need. We want change and that brings angst.

As donors (clients, referrers and co-workers) we are increasingly getting a barrage of impersonal, spin doctoring, politically correct noise with little meaningful feedback on our specific gifts or the specific recipient’s outcome.

You can track a $20 box of undies across the world but not a $2000 donation within a charity. For some time, this lack of specificity has been leaving us with a sense of vulnerability – in some ways, like those we are trying to help.

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Who cares Mal – it’s not about your feelings?

Wrong – it is about me. And you. And the person you help. And the conduits that facilitate that help. For if that interrelationship is not robust and satisfactory to all, then it will operate with a lessening intensity, till eventually it snuffs out, causing:

• the donor to second guess their giving (moving to something safer like spending their cash on a boat or a T-shirt or simply keeping it in a bank),
  
  
• the onlooker to think giving can cause angst (and therefore safer not to give),
  
  
• the end-user recipient to not receive the help they need (in Africa if a child is not helped by you, it is likely they will remain unhelped forever),
  
  
• some facilitators or charity workers to question the deep meaning of their work,
  
  
• possibly a less caring society as charities lose diversity in their giver base. This is in no way to say that the main focus should be anything other than helping those in need – but long term the givers’ grassroots education and good experiences (or lack of) is an important part of our society’s rebalancing and future directions process.

More donors now feel you should give to the cause(s) you see fit, ones that align to your values and when you do, you have a right to expect accountability. In fact, if you really care about helping those in genuine need you will demand verification (and you pay say 10% for the reporting cost). More donors consider it rubbish that full accountability is not reasonable or possible from professional charities. If it is not possible, how does the donor or the charity know the program works or the specific recipient has been helped!

If you put your credit card on a vending machine for a $3 bottle of Coke you get a receipt, you expect a bottle of Coke as described and to get it in a timely manner, no excuses. Charitable giving, pandemic or not, is in many ways no different. If your Coke doesn’t come, you don’t go back to that machine and eventually you stop drinking Coke if it happens enough times.

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There is a place for government in charitable causes, even the lead role however, with governments “taking over some charities” via their funding domination it could be ultimately hurting those in need, despite good intentions. A $10,000 let alone a $20 donor becomes small Coke or an unimportant small cog in that charity vending machine. This increasingly (evidenced by our Australian’s % giving) feels like it is not working in Australian’s philanthropic interests as well as it could be.

With privacy laws, terrorism laws, charity and child safety laws, all no doubt from good intentions, it is getting to a point that many of us feel uncomfortable to help directly in case we do something “wrong”. I mean do you feel comfortable enough to talk to a child in the street who appears lost, a homeless person in a boarding house or to simply say g’day to a First Nations or Sudanese Aussie. That relationship building can be far more effective in helping, than a perfectly coiffed donation.

There are many great things happening – but our society is also creating massive infrastructures of righteousness and rules to provide the most basic of assistance “correctly” – OK, however the problems are increasing not decreasing, according to the press releases emailed to us all daily. If homelessness was a business what would the analysts say about its unit costs to output?

If you don’t have the ideas, are you prepared to try somebody else’s new ones, rather than put $50 or $500 in the shake-shake tin every Christmas and turn the other cheek? Your donation may not be important to the bigger charities, but it could make a huge difference at your local community level and there is no right or wrong helping: if it feels good for you, those in need and your community. There are homeless and those in need in your suburb, yes even Brighton and Toorak.

Red tape had got so much that we at James Buy Sell moved to a sponsorship model (still accountable to the Australian Tax Office) as we felt continuing towards a charity set up was too regulatorily onerous and inflexible for those in need we wanted to help.

As well, we no longer focus on getting all available tax deductions – a donation of $100 that is deductible but achieves little versus a gift of $50 and no deduction but achieves a lot, is for us a no brainer – look at the GoFundMe’s that work. Yes, I know immediately you think but what of the rip-offs – Ok – but what of the successes also? Get involved and assess?

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On the flip side, if you are a business reliant on your community, then are you giving a few bucks with your only thoughts about the monument for your generosity? Are you taking as much care with the money you give, as you do with your customers, your co-workers and your family? Are you just flicking yours or somebody else’s money to some “charity” so it can all be done, and you can get on with something really important like Christmas party planning! I know at times I have made this mistake – less now, I hope.

Or are you frozen in a sea of confusion and doubt about wanting to help, but not knowing where to begin and therefore doing nothing? Can we suggest you just start and like your business; make a plan, build in a review process, expect some false starts and mistakes – but like a good business actually start.

If you don’t start, if you don’t see it through, then your community care could and should be questioned.

Yes, also like a business, not everything works – what’s wrong with taking risks in charity for big pay-offs – back the young up and comers, if the establishment no longer floats your boat.

It’s ok to get it wrong, just not all the time. We have “wasted” money – but we have also had (to use a stock market term) some charity ten baggers that have more than compensated for our mistakes.

Here is one. In 2006 we used to buy homes (for no charge) for wealthy people to house the homeless. We felt this was inefficient and so we set up a fund within Launch to give cash grants for private rental subsidies to prevent those on the brink of becoming homeless – that was radical – direct cash grants. It is now a mainstream policy. Not about claiming ownership, we are sure other “radicals” had similar ideas. But that idea came from outside, not within the charity.

Good ideas, some seed money and seeing things through can create major change. By the way it’s come full circle and Melbourne really does need richer people buying or leasing smaller homes to provide cheaper accommodation for near homeless families in Melbourne in 2022. Building large apartment blocks just for the homeless is a regressive idea that destroyed lives for decades before being abandoned late 70’s, early 80’s.

Wow – why should I give Mal; it all sounds too hard?

Can we suggest you do it for selfish reasons?

Giving 5% to 10% and not .000001 of your resources will give you more balance and meaning and ultimately could even give you more income to your business, your co-workers and you! We are living proof of that, although it wasn’t our initial intention.

It’s not that hard to give well (ok it’s a little hard) and you go through cycles in charitable relationships just as you do with technology, with people, with your own mind. When those cycles are working cheer them on and support them even more. When they are not, we suggest you demand change (please don’t just give up).

We are currently going through that sort of change with a long-term charity and it’s hard, but we feel their work is so important, the people genuine and the goal right. We will hang in there supporting, agitating and hopefully influencing for a while yet. However, there is an endpoint, our giving is not about shutting up for the gold watch.

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I am really hoping this article encourages you to think about your gifting over the holiday period, to ask the (soft and not so soft) questions of others and mostly yourself and then perhaps ramp it up in a caring, more clinical manner. Perhaps don’t expect or demand perfection (it may frustrate you and those you are choosing to help no end) – but don’t think you are best helping by accepting second rate or by just giving the $ and that’s the end of it.

If you put the effort in, stacks come back to you. For instance, what I am seeing in an African project right now is so fundamentally wonderful that I have experienced few highs like this in my life (and I’ve done a lot of deals). However, it wasn’t a walk in the park to get to this point and a few people including us at times, were pissed off along the way (just like business).

After 45 years of what I consider serious giving with some successes and some mistakes, here are my top half dozen or so tips for those starting out or looking for a charity reset this Christmas.

1. Give to make a difference to a specific recipient or project, not just add to a general pool – and give consistently. Better for you, the recipients and even the charities who have time to plan and then spend well.
   
   
2. Define what that difference is and what you (yes you) think is the best way to achieve it. The best way may be to listen to an expert, but you can question, even argue with experts if it doesn’t feel right. They are humans but not the font of all humanity. Yes, they probably know more, so if you feel they’re genuine then listen. But make good gut decisions – trust your gut. Monitor and review.

3. Find the best facilitator (rarely you). Shop around the charities, and do you really need to be wined and dined or do you need to see the shop floor. I earn in one hour what an African nurse earns in one month – it makes no $ sense for me to volunteer as an African nurse. I work slightly harder to fund from my real estate, those who do a better job than I could in charity, to help achieve efficiently what I/we want to achieve.
   
   Find the best bang for buck is a good dictum but not everything is about saving. In poorer countries don’t be worried about paying people – just because you are volunteering doesn’t mean the best facilitators can’t be paid. For the poor who ask for more money to do something – that’s ok if it makes sense – you are not doing your profession for free and life’s a negotiation. And overheads – geez – do you want to pay 5% overhead and no result or 20% overhead with a great result. Be smart when looking at cost v outcome. And by the way, are you giving a nuisance amount or is your donation size demanding of a serious response. Group with others?
   
   
4. Make sure the recipient wants your gift – wow haven’t we, as a society, made some blunders when we have given what was not wanted.
   
   
5. Ask and pay and even demand if you must, verification of goal, journey and the result review. It helps you to give more and more helps more. For me, feedback is a name with a before and after picture on WhatsApp – nothing that takes hours to prepare like an audited number or stat. But each to his or her own.
   
   
6. Repeat if it feels good and move on to another if it doesn’t – because you need to feel good to keep giving and there are so many people out there who need you to give. Keep going, please don’t give up when once of twice it doesn’t work. Of course, do not feel guilty about putting your hand up and saying not good enough if it continues.
   
   
7. Consider longevity of purpose – not too long as to not see it through. Actually, perhaps look to your own personality and perhaps have a mixture of some short, medium and longer term relationships, goals, result feedback.

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Genuine giving to others is a true purpose in life, a true meaning of life.

It’s the main piece of wisdom common to all mainstream religions.

Genuine giving to another may well improve your mental health dramatically – it does mine. The only rider is when your charity begins close to you, then sometimes you will not receive the thanks you think is warranted. If you are genuinely giving, then the ultimate aim in many cases is independence of the recipient from your ongoing gift. If you have done your job well, then you will know and that may have to be enough.

Having said the above, when your children see you genuinely and regularly give to others, they learn a sense of balance in themselves via osmosis and you become closer.

Giving unconditionally (except verification) really does improve your well-being – it breaks you away from your iPhone sense of me me me – if it is genuine and smart giving.

Do it and reap the benefits.

Kathy, Gina, Phoebe, Maddie, Sim and I sincerely thank our co-workers, our clients, our referrers, our collaborating and opposing agents, the charities we support and those we can’t, for an unusual and still in many ways wonderful 2021 and we wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and a brilliant 2022.