Why do you focus your inquiry on “givers of moderate means?” What do you mean by “moderate means?”
“For some of us, the problem of finding time to work as a volunteer is harder to discover than money to give. Why concentrate only on money?
Our friends have reminded us that gifts of money represent only one dimension of giving. We do not doubt the truth behind that time-worn slogan – “Time, Talent and Treasure.” Sometimes the best – or, indeed, occasionally our only – gift can be one expressed in the form of “time” and “talent.” These two measures can represent more of a challenge than just another contribution from a “check book activist.” So we often hear these days that “time is far harder to give than money.”
But the enlargement of the inquiry can also be a convenient way of avoiding a profoundly discomforting truth. In contemporary American society, money has become a potent symbol of security or insecurity about many of our greatest collective anxieties. It is often used to define status in a society that has no other clear means of assigning social location to people. It offers the means of daily living and the chance to participate in the rituals of a consumer culture. Unfortunately or not, money does really matter.
For the time being, therefore, we will focus this conversation on the giving of money.
The study of history is okay. But is it practical? Doesn't it distract our attention from the problems of dealing with the “here” and “now?”
“What is missing,” Christopher Lasch wrote in the 1980s, “is the possibility of a conversational relationship with the past, one that seeks neither to deny the past nor to achieve an imaginative restoration of the past but to enter into a dialogue with the traditions that still shape our view of the world, often in ways in which we are not even aware. Instead of merely addressing the historical record, we need to grasp the ways in which it addresses us.”
We don't know if this effort at establishing “a conversational relationship with the past” will help you deal with the “here” and “now.” Nor is this “dialogue with the traditions” all that contemporary Americans are “missing” in our common efforts to arrive at a deeper understanding of giving.
But this approach does represent an angle of vision that has been largely neglected in recent years. The presentness of the past becomes all the more potent when it remains unrecognized and uncriticized.
You will be the judge of whether this “conversational relationship with the past” makes any difference in your understanding of the mysteries of giving.
Why do you focus your inquiry on “givers of moderate means”? Why narrow the scope of inquiry?
Much of the literature on American philanthropy centers upon the super-rich. There are abundant resources offering insight into the giving of the Rockefellers, Andrew Carnegie, the large foundations, etc.
We are more interested in givers in the broad reach of the American middle class. For the most part, the source of their giving comes out of income from salaries. There are statistical studies that describe in aggregate form how much people at varying income levels give. Such reports are helpful but they do not readily yield insight into the ways people of “moderate means” think and feel about giving. Robert Wuthnow of Princeton University has made the most notable contribution to our understanding of the contemporary American middle class and its perspectives upon giving.
Our intent in this website is to encourage those of us with more moderate means to reflect on our giving and to be in conversation with others.
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