Giving back

So I attempted my own charity experiment, which I hate to say I wouldn't recommend to others.

First, I held an online auction, largely targeted at gringos in Brazil, but I got a less than enthusiastic response, and in the end, nearly all of the bidders were Brazilian. I decided to accept only Brazil-based bids, and sent the books out by mail. [A huge thanks to Joao, Denise, and Mariel for participating and giving to a good cause!! I hope you enjoy your books!]

Since I had so many books left over, I decided to donate them, and brought them over to the library at the American School of Rio. There, I was met by the incredibly sweet librarian, who thanked me for the books and invited me to chat, asking me how I found out about the school and my life in Brazil. She asked me to sign the book with my story in it, and told me they would put a little sticker in each book saying I had donated it. It was one of the best parts of the whole experience, though I had hoped to have auctioned off more books to increase the monetary proceeds.

Next, I held a vote to see which NGO I should give the proceeds to. The results showed signs of irregularity, so I held a recount, which very few people voted in. After my two attempts at blog democracy failed, I made an authoritarian decision to give the proceeds to Refazer, since I had really liked the look of it after a reader suggested it, and since they help low-income children and teens with chronic illnesses, as well as their families. I also decided it would be nice to give back to an organization in the neighborhood I made my home for two years.

So I took the R$90 in donations and added R$25 of my own. I also put together some stuff from our apartment, since they also accept those types of donations. Eli and I went to the supermarket and bought a grocery cart full of non-perishable food, like rice, beans, cooking oil, canned food, spaghetti, baby formula, amongst other things (the supermarket didn't have a pre-made cesta basica). We loaded everything into our small cart and hauled the rest by hand twelve long blocks. Poor Eli dragged the cart, which was literally too heavy for me to hold up. 

We finally got to the NGO, in a pretty house at the end of a quiet street. We walked in and I poked my head into the first door, asking where we could bring the stuff. The lady was very polite and told us to bring it to reception, next door. There, a man was standing around, and a woman was helping another couple. I asked the guy, who just stared at us, where we should put everything. "You can leave it right here." He took out two cards, and then excused himself. We unloaded some of the stuff. When he came back, Eli asked if they could also use the grocery cart, and he nodded. "Ok, you can have that too then." The guy silently handed us the cards, which were signed by someone from the NGO, and Eli and I wound up awkwardly thanking the guy, rather than vice versa. He didn't ask us about our interest in the NGO, or how we had found the place, or if we'd like to look around or to receive more information about the place. Nothing.

 

It was the least gratifying charity experience ever. It certainly taught me a lesson about the lack of interest in philanthropy.

Comments

[Amanda]

Hey Rachel,
Maybe the guy didn't appreciate what you did - but I'm sure the children and the families of the children appreciate it. It goes back to the old story about the starfish and the guy going around throwing them back into the sea. Making a difference in the lives of one or two people is better than not doing anything at all.

[Ray Adkins]

Troll season officially opened!
Starving Brazilian fake,
Why don't you go back under the rock where you crawled out of and stay in the dark where you belong...

[Ray Adkins]

Rachel,

Your experience sounds like you encountered yet another Brazilian cultural difference.
When we lived in Sao Paulo we got involved with neighbors and donated food during the year and Christmas gifts in December and we use to get a similar reaction from the institutions we visited.
I could speculate and say there was a very subtle felling in Brazil that was almost like it is a bad thing to HAVE money, to be wealthy or even upper middle class, it felt like it was nothing but an obligation to donate.
In Brazil I had the impression that it was wrong to be wealthy ( middle class included ), so maybe, if the feelings and impressions I had were correct, the guy you took your donations to and some of the people I used to see where I donated, probably thought once we were donating we belonged to the "Wealthy" class and we were doing nothing but our obligation to donate.
Poor Brazilians are too proud...
One really could write a book about this subject alone.

[João Marcelo]

And thats why I hated NGOs in Brazil... always avoided most of them like the plague... If I could do some good myself, or thru my work, fine, but I never felt that our time, effort or donations were appreciated by any of the NGOs we helped.

[Flavia]

tell me about it, it's frustrading. When we left the US to come do England, we were basically donating everything, we had so much stuff. I phone various charities in VA and each of them were picking and choosing what I had to donate, seriously, they should be thanking me for donating stuff and not telling me what they wanted or not. In the end we just dropped it all in front of one of these charity shops on the weekend, and if people from the streets wanted to get them, they could. The same thing happened here in England when I tried to donate a few things. It just makes you lose interest in donating anything, because many times you don't even get a "thank you".

Take care!

Flavia

[Just a thought]

I agree in general about the disappointing state of many Brazilian NGOs, but isn't there also something to be said about altruism here? I mean, do we donate in order to be thanked? Isn't true altruism giving and expecting nothing, absolutely nothing, in return?

[Rio Gringa]

Humans are not altruistic by nature, and successful non-profits thrive by exploiting this. Take for example, if you had a friend in need who lost his job. You decide to go to his house and surprise him by giving him a check to hold him over. Now imagine that he opens the door, takes the check, smiles, and closes the door. How would you react to that? It's the same with donating. If someone donates $50 to a charity, they expect some sort of thank you. If someone donates $500,000 to a charity, they do so expecting a lot more than that. That's just how it works. See the Friends episode where Phoebe tries to think of a good deed that doesn't make her feel good, which boils it down to simplistic terms.