Doing Good to be Doing Good “Doing well ($) by Doing Good”; what a novel concept!

Charity is increasingly derided as an inferior way for us to help one another. I just did a search on the phrase “charity doesn’t work” and got 1040 hits (1080 hits if you use Internet Explorer). I then did a search for the phrase “charity does work” and got 7 hits. This evidence barely begins to touch on the increasingly negative sentiment towards charity. In the world of philanthropy - the world in which I work, this sentiment is becoming pervasive.

So what is charity? American Heritage defines charity as follows:

char·i·ty
1. Provision of help or relief to the poor; almsgiving.

2. Something given to help the needy; alms.

3. An institution, organization, or fund established to help the needy.

4. Benevolence or generosity toward others or toward humanity.

5. Indulgence or forbearance in judging others. See Synonyms at mercy.

6. often Charity Christianity The theological virtue defined as love directed first toward God but also toward oneself and one’s neighbors as objects of God’s love.

These are all nice definitions, but none of them capture the true meaning of charity as defined almost 2 millenium ago (reference). A smal portion of the true meaning is as follows:

“And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.“

The term “charity” as used today, often has no resemblance of true charity whatsoever. We could give everything we have to the poor, even give our lives to the poor and still not have a clue what charity is.

As with most philanthropy, the discussion about philanthropic excellence should not be about a specific product or service; but about whether or not products and services share an instill true charity. It’s not about what we do, it is about why we do what we do; it’s about how much care and concern (charity) we invest. If we achieve true charity, our actions will never, ever fail. The world will say: “but the person you tried to help has died, or the person you served is still suffering” and will try to convince you that you have failed. If you are pained and torn up inside because you were unable to help the person you hoped to help to the degree you had desired, and still feel a yearning to help others while being unphased by the world’s attempts to discourage you - then there is a good chance you have charity. If this is the case - you are a success!

If there is any absolute truth it is this: that charity never fails. Never. This has been, is, and always will be true and constant for all time and space.

Just to be clear, true charity does not preclude acting with the utmost intelligence, leverage and efficiency - in fact it embraces all improvement and truth and always strives for ways to augment its ability to build more charitable people. More than anything, charity embraces the other most significant absolute truth: that we all choose our response to whatever stimulus we experience. In other words we are always free to choose our response. Always.

True excellence in charity is building upstanding people not just building programs and models with key model components, incentive structures and institutions, etc. True charity looks to build from the inside out, while expert and professional philanthropy run by the “ungodly bright” often looks to solve problems from the outside in. The first approach invests in people and never fails, while the second approach invests in programs, government, etc and will fail, and fail very, very often. Philanthropy which provides others with nutrition, health care, clothing and shelter should only be a means to an end - the end is always to share and instill true charity.