Charity with Dignity and Hope

By Dr. Elior Kinarthy

Psychologist

Many charities like Jewish Family Services of Vancouver Island provide a valuable service to their communities. What is charity? The Hebrew concept of charity or Tzedakah comes from the word tzadik which means righteousness and justice. A familiar prayer in Judaism declares that in life all one needs to stand for is the Torah, work and the doing of good deeds. According to the Bible, wheat farmers were instructed to leave a portion of their fields for the poor to glean or pick up the leftover grain. It was not cost effective for the farmers to pick up 100% of the wheat and they could afford to leave 10% for the poor. An important concept was that the poor chose to volunteer to glean wheat from the fields and they were not given a free handout. Today, to fulfill the ideals of righteousness and justice, Jewish Family Services of Vancouver Island strives to serve our community with the following:

  1. To never do for others what they have (or could have) the capacity to do for themselves.

  2. To limit one-way giving to temporary situations and seek always to find ways and means for legitimate exchange.

  3. To seek ways to empower the poor through hiring, lending, and investing and use grants sparingly as incentives that reinforce achievements.

  4. To take time to listen and carefully assess both expressed and unspoken needs so that actions will ultimately strengthen rather than weaken those served.

  5. Above all, to the best of our ability, to do no harm.

(Adapted from the Oath for Compassionate Service from Robert Lupton of FCS Urban Ministries)

What is considered a good charity, and what values should that charity have in order to make sure they are actually helping and not creating dependency and other problems? Do some forms of charity actually make things worse? Good charities serve their clients and provide statistics on what they do and how they benefit people. Their goal is self-sufficiency for those they assist. A good charity keeps good records.

Charities to be wary of are those that raise money from TV commercials and other expensive advertising campaigns. Dubious charities bombard you with lots of disturbing images in order to manipulate your feelings. The worst charities use images of children, and as children do not understand the purpose of the donations they cannot participate fully. They are being used to bring in larger donations and the advertisements are manipulating your emotions. Bad charities tend to use famous people as their spokes person and pay them very well-with your donations!

If a charity uses a large percentage of their budget towards TV advertising, administration and their executive director’s salary, one can suspect that they do not have helping people as their priority. Many charities pay their CEO’s huge salaries (more than $350,000 a year is considered too high by watch-dog organizations). Good charities limit their financial support with regular reviews of their clientele-preferably every 6 months but at least once a year. They also focus on temporary assistance that is relatively short term and that also includes a rehabilitation and recovery plan. Well-run charities use approximately 10% of their budget towards administrative costs. Instead of using children or other images to manipulate you-they tend to use testimonials that help to verify the goals of the organization and the impact the charity has had.

On the flip side, giving something for nothing with no expectations creates low self-esteem and tends to make people “feel” poor. It creates an atmosphere of helplessness that encourages the attitude of “having bad luck,” and within a short time the person receiving handouts feels like a loser. These feelings of helplessness are not conducive to success or getting out of poverty. Helplessness creates negative feelings about yourself, that you don’t measure up to your own expectations and that life is very hard. Giving away money or food does not tend to increase feelings of hopelessness-these emotions are indications of depression and mental illness.

According to psychology, when you establish continuous reinforcement by giving away free food or other goods, without any conditions, expectations rise. It is harmful to give away food, goods or money because it can create entitlement. Continuous reinforcement creates high expectations and when you cross the red line of too much generosity, the person receiving charity believes that they are now entitled. The personality changes and they may become demanding and complaining when they do not receive what they have been conditioned to expect. They may not appreciate what the volunteers are providing for them and may rarely say thank-you. Base emotions are usually hidden, but charity without requiring work or payment of some kind can bring out negative personality traits. For instance, in a line for free goods, you may have observed people making unfavourable comparisons as to the amount or quality of the items being given away. When people perceive that they have been rewarded unevenly it creates bickering and pettiness. The deterioration to adverse behaviour is incremental and the longer a person takes advantage of the continuous reinforcement of free goods it increases the potential for aggression, arguing, accusations of favouritism and may even lead to physical fighting. These negative behaviours and traits are not conducive to getting work or advancing skills to get out of poverty and can perpetuate the need for the charity. Free handouts help to create:

  • continuous reinforcement of poverty

  • laziness and frustration

  • comparisons that are not mentally healthy

  • aggression

  • dependence on the charity

People can also become professional charity seekers, in other words instead of training for a new job or for a new career, they become experts on manipulating charities and that becomes their new job. I estimate that 10% to 20% of recipients are manipulating the charity to continue to get services.

Jewish Family Services of Vancouver Island is looking forward to creating an uplifting, positive atmosphere at the new Saanich Green Market opening June 12, 2022 at the Jewish Community Centre of Victoria. This market will be offering fresh produce at close to wholesale prices-targeting those with low incomes. It is a boost, a hand up with dignity and hope to counteract the increasing cost of food and the current high rates of inflation. JFSVI can also create hope by “waking up the inner child” with fun games and activities at the Saanich Green Market while taking lots of pictures and videos and asking people for their feedback. Asking people’s opinions acknowledges that they matter and are listened to and is great for increasing their feelings of importance. A charity should strive to give its clientele hope for the future and every human being should experience that, so that they can work to overcome their difficulties and succeed.

Leah Kinarthy