Death by donation

Lately, I’ve been receiving a ton of physical mail asking for donations. Begging, pleading, and practically spelling out the doom of the world if I don’t spare a measly ten dollars from my paycheck to contribute towards ensuring that the world doesn’t completely go to shit. And it’s effective. They’re all really well put together stories about fighting climate change or the ACLU trying to protect civil liberties or an organization providing refugees with the means to better integrate into society. And I’m all for all of those things. But more and more, it feels like I’m actively being asked to solve problems that my taxpayer money should be solving in the first place, and that’s absolutely infuriating.

Every time a natural disaster occurs, or a mass shooting happens, or a autocratic clown gets elected into office, the immediate question on the minds of sane, empathetic people is the same — “What can I do to help?” or “How can I ensure something like this doesn’t happen again?” and the answer is always the same: donate to the organizations that are providing relief services and make monthly contributions to the people fighting for your rights. Yes. Okay. I get it. I’ve done it many times. But I can’t help but feel that this whole thing is starting to feel like a systemic scam that’s being exploited by our current administration.

Taxpayer money is supposed to go towards public services: transportation, social services, healthcare, welfare of the commons, and so on. But the Trump administration has an entirely different idea: funnel it all towards the billionaire CEOs of top corporations, oil lobbyists, the NRA, and whatever conglomeration of Russian oligarchs they’re tied up with. It’s so messed up that I can’t even begin to comprehend how massive of a global corruption scandal this really is. So because the American taxypayer money is disappearing into the pockets of the one percent, there’s no-one putting dollars towards solving the actual issues in the country.

Every week now, I get countless letters in the mail from the Environmental Defense Fund, the Climate Action Fund, Children International, the ACLU, the National Wildlife Foundation, and so many more non-profits that I could spend fifteen minutes listing out. They’ve all got great missions and they’ve all got a very passionate staff of people who care very deeply for these issues. And these are the people my taxes should be going to. I need my dollars at work solving the most precious issues of our generation, not tied up in some shell corporation for a massive Fortune 500 company to avoid paying corporate taxes.

I have already donated tons of money to these organizations, which only means one thing: they’re going to ask for more donations. They know that the people who can afford to donate once are the most likely to donate again, so the more you donate, the deeper you entrench yourself into this cycle of them asking for repeated donations. And I’d love to keep giving, really. But I’m also becoming hyper-aware of the fact that if I keep doing this, no-one’s going to bother solving the core issues at the systemic level of the government’s complete apathy and indifference to these very causes.

The administration has absolutely no incentive to fund these non-profits or even care about the causes they care about, because they realize that these non-profits can get the money they need through donations. So why on Earth would the federal government try to save endangered animals when they know U.S. citizens will willingly shell out money to non-profits already dedicated to these things? They’d rather just keep funneling the taxpayer money to the upper elite like they’ve always been. And this is maddening. There’s no breaking out of this cycle because the government won’t do anything about it.

More and more, the letters have started to guilt trip me into donating. If I already sponsor a child in Ecuador, I get another mail with a picture of a child in Guatemala that I should sponsor. If I donated once to a polar bear rescue fund in Greenland, I get more pictures of arctic biomes in danger of disappearing, asking me to save those too. And I feel horrible for not immediately contributing. I feel disgusted at my so-called “leaders” for being whipped by oil conglomerates and gun lobbies to the point that they fail to realize the massive generational failure we’re on the verge of as a species. It’s really disheartening and leaves you with very little hope for the future of the planet.

So what are my options? Keep donating to organizations I care about until I’m broke? Or just do a minimal amount and deal with the onslaught of guilt trips telling me that the entire planet is going to implode if I don’t do something about it now? Beyond regularly voting in every election, I clearly can’t do much to sway the opinions and motivations of our leaders, so I’m at a loss. It’s a strange contradiction to care so much about these issues, have the disposable income to contribute to it, and yet not be able to do so due to the underlying systemic issues at play.

I do cave in every now and then and put in a hefty donation amount that I normally would’ve spent on a video game or a fancy meal out in that month. I know the money’s going to make a much bigger difference to the organization than the temporary enjoyment I get out of it, and sometimes that brief opportunity cost analysis is just enough to make me feel like I’m doing my part to ensure the survival of our planet. But other times, it truly feels like death by donation, and I don’t have a great solution in mind nor do I have high hopes for the future. It’s just another grim reality our generation has to deal with and live through for now.