When I was a kid charity was for chumps.
Despite the fact that my family, and most of our neighbors, got all types of government and public charity, we saw how carelessly and unevenly it was spread to the deserving and not so deserving. After church, where everyone put a buck or two in the basket, charity was sporadic and sometimes exploited.
Every Labor Day weekend the neighborhood kids went door to door collecting money for the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon. But MDA never saw a dime. They kids kept it saying they were Jerry’s Kids and needed it more.
The neighbors I grew up with in Brockton, Massachusetts were giving but not charitable. We looked out for each other. We helped each other. Even if we didn’t like each other.
Old lady Burgess across the street rarely spoke to my mother. She might have had good reason. My father sometimes slept off a hard night on our picnic table in full view of her window. But when my twin brother and I were born and my mother was overburdened with newborns, five other kids and dad, she crossed the street and washed our clothes and hung them out to dry.
I don’t remember her crossing the street again, or my mother reciprocating the kindness. But I knew my parents would have if the need or request had come.
Charity started at home. But no one called it charity. There was a visible web of caring in my neighborhood that made that word seem artificial and distant.
Most of the charity that happens these days still feels this way. It can be cause marketing or any other kind of giving. When giving is disconnected from caring and context, it’s just charity, in the worst sense of the word.
Maybe that’s how Steve Jobs - whose public giving was questioned last week - feels and has chosen instead to drive all his caring into building a first class company that showers its employees and customers with rewards and opportunity.
Jobs’ giving is at home.
Jessica Gottlieb lectured us in “Your Cause Marketing Makes Me Hate Poor People” that
Charity matters. Giving of ones self is something that makes us better people. Biblically and traditionally the most cherished gifts, the ones seen as being the most pious are anonymous. When you donate two cents on every hundred dollars and then take out seventy three ads to tell me that you’re fighting breast cancer I don’t call that giving. I call that taking.
I call it give and take.
That’s what I saw in my neighborhood. Maybe that’s what Steve Jobs sees in his.
The sway between give and take played out this past weekend when the first Labor Day in decades came and went without Jerry Lewis as the frontman of the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s telethon. He gave a lot to people with muscular dystrophy. His caring brought an obscure disease to the public’s attention and raised billions to fight it.
But Lewis feasted on the fame, especially when Telethon was the only act he had left. And it’s hard not to conclude that his curtain calls have kept MDA from evolving and modernizing leaving its post-Lewis future in doubt.
Give and take. Good and bad. That’s what real charity is all about.
Sorry, Joe, but I couldn't disagree more.
We don't live in a village any longer. The world arrives on our doorstep daily, and we can no longer say, "I didn't know." We know. And we have an obligation, something that goes way beyond doing someone's wash, once.
For all we know, Steve has given billions, anonymously. None of our business. What is our business, I think, is to remind ourselves and others that we have a moral obligation to pick the drowning kid out of the puddle, regardless of where the puddle is.
If you were being ironic and I missed it, I apologize. My hope is that you were.
Yertle the Turtle argument, that.
Ignoring your straw man of 'kid out of a puddle' analogy, you have to take care of your village – which I'd argue exist more now than ever – before you take on the world.
Maybe your 'we' was sarcastic, because if you're telling us what anyone other yourself is obligated to do, it would signify a communication impasse. But, beyond the basic tenets of an individual's personal responsibility, each person must decide for themselves the parameters of their obligations; this is a prima facia truism.
Full Disclosure: while I have worked with Joe in the past, typically I'm the one disagreeing or at least having a different take on his takes…
Of course everyone has to decide for themselves. But moral leadership is about setting community standards. Why have a blog if you're not hoping that others will hear (and act on) your ideas? I'd like to think we don't need more people arguing for selfishness, short-term tribalism and only helping those you can see from out your front window.
And by the way, I don't think the kid is a straw man. She's real.
That's okay, we have different perspectives I guess – I've never read a blog to attain moral leadership in setting community standards. Ideas, yes; moral leadership, no.
And, to be characterized as arguing for selfishness is teeing up your debate rather nicely; obviously, I, nor this post, argues for selfishness (I actually read much of the post to show sincere selflessness). But that's just debate-play; by placing my take and this post as arguing FOR selfishness, you've given a reader no choice but to choose 1. Selfishness, or, 2. Your take. That is not compelling.
All that said, I don't mean this as an attack, but rather a request that you read the post from a different perspective – I know I'd never change your mind, but maybe you'll change your own if you look at it through the eyes of the characters in the post.
Seth.I think it was Bill Bernbach (DDB) who said, "The magic is in the product" (referring to how great ads become great ads.) I thought that was sort of Joe's main point. He said, "When giving is disconnected from caring and context, it’s just charity, in the worst sense of the word." In other words, "no magic is in the product" — or rather the cause in this instance. The best cause marketing programs, like ads, are rooted with big ideas that the intended audience finds to be relevant, believable and meaningful. They're also clearly and elegantly communicated with the appropriate language and design.
Paying your employees living wages and proper benefits is an act of charity? That's one of the most obscene things I've ever read, let alone the worst argument against charitable giving EVER.
Another “outrageous title first”, good writing last blog. Poor reasoning, but the title probably gets a lot of hits.
Joe, I love this post. Steve Jobs' approach reminds me of another great American industrialist – Henry Ford. He also argued that the most important thing he could do was to pay his employees well enough that they could afford to purchase the products they built. Cars were something that could easily have been only for the wealthy. Cars were empowering. They enabled a broadening of the world and a simplifying of life. Henry wanted cars to be available to everyone and anyone. Good for Ford, good for the economy, good for the consumer. This was his way of caring and giving and getting – one I happen to believe is powerful and empowering.
I also agree that giving is two ways – always. Could I suggest slightly different language? Give and get.
While get and take are in the same family there is an important difference. Get is something received. Take is well taken. Anyone who engages in philanthropy gets – whether it's a good feel, a sense of having done the right thing or getting publicity or profits there is reciprocity. Even Jessica Gottlieb sees this – she spent more time in her response talking about giving making us better people than she did about its power of helping less fortunate people. Anonymous or public, people give and they get.
Give and get. I like that, Jocelyne! You always have such a nice way of saying things.
A choice of words is truly a choice of worlds.
This is what I think. You have to find the root before you find the leaves. Doing it within. Starting out with yourself, then family, then neighbor, then community, then country, then the world, then the universe, and beyond. First and foremost, fix your mistakes, be a good citizen, make contributions (paying taxes to help your country build roads, bridges, schools,etc). Do you can a lot of charity at home such as cooking, cleaning the house, washing dishes & clothes, take out garbage. Start from there before you do anything else. It's like you must start with kindergarten. One step at a time.
This is how I do it now.
1. Be a vegetarian (show love to all creatures, because you don't want to get eating)
2. Helping out at home (why would you go out and help at church/temple if your house is a mess and need your help first?)
3. Helping out at work (reliable, honest, helpful)
4. Donate clothes (your old clothes can help somebody out there)
5. Help your community (don't drink and drive, follow the law, try not to get into an accident because you are causing traffic jams, don't litter your cigarette butt on hi-way – I see this all the time – very distracting)
6. So many things to list.
These kinds of things would earn you a lot of credits for this life and the next life wherever you will be.
Well I guess he is discovering how his “hate” for charity is working for him now. I myself would have taken the Buffet approach and asked Gates to handle my giving for me, and maybe he did so but it would be totally out of character considering the abuse his contract employees endured under his watch. I honor his Vision but not his character or leadership capability. Any consumer product is never worth the abuse of another man, women and certainly not a child. When will we all understand it is not our money it is God’s anyway. Wow- so tragic on so many levels.
Steve Jobs walked 7 miles to Hare Krishna temple for his meals. Those meals were a result of charity. I truly hope that he anonymously gave to charity out of gratitude.
While I will always admire the man for his vision, I am disappointed that he stopped all of Apple's corporate charity programs and didn't start it back up when Apple became huge. Apparently he started an organization that was dissolved eventually…..but given the monetary strength of Apple….he could have started it up again.
He didn't join the Giving Pledge, which is fine I guess. He may have wanted to do things privately but I wish he had backed Apple's corporate charity programs.
yeah steve job is an ass!!!
http://iepov.blogspot.com/2011/10/steve-job-is-joke.html#.TpbfJ95afls
:l
What you really mean, is you hate charity, because it so happens steve jobs does, and you happen to worship apple. It's not really hard to figure out. So don't try and make this more complex than it really is… This page would never be here if you were not an apple worshiper.
I hope Tim Cook and Apple have some kind of heart because they are going to be hearing from me very soon !
"Give and take. Good and bad. That's what real charity is all about." I have no idea what any of that means, and the point of this article is lost on me. My long comment here is meant, by the way, to speak for charity and selfless giving.
Mr. Waters, do you really pattern your thoughts on charity after Steve Jobs? He built a great company that makes exceptional products, but he was an extremely flawed person. He alienated and mistreated people constantly, drove away family and friends, and valued his company much more than his personal relationships, even family relationships. His dislike for charity was nothing more than selfishness. His company adds great value to the world; it's created jobs (super awesome pun not intended), shaped industries, bolstered healthy competition that leads to innovation…. but all of this doesn't cover up an extremely selfish, bullish man who generally cared little for anyone but himself.
I'm not saying Steve Jobs was a horrible person, but his philosophy on charity and giving wasn't well thought out — it was just selfishness in action. It's obviously tough to know how to best help others around us, and there are all kinds of farcical charities out there, but simply refusing to give based on selfishness is sad. Steve had a one-track mind. I think that if he would've lived into his old age, he would have eventually realized that there was more to life than Apple. Much like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates (who were mentioned in an earlier comment), he would have shifted his focus toward how he could help humanity with the power and wealth he had amassed. That's speculative at best, but it's easy to imagine because old age often brings perspective.
One more point. You, Mr. Waters, could have been born into extremely impoverished circumstances, or with mental or physical handicaps that would make you unable to accomplish what you have in life. The way I see it, those of us who are able to help people in need should help them. We can't help everyone or solve every problem, but it's a pleasure to give our time, talents, and resources to help others who are, for whatever reason, unable to help themselves. Of course, everyone needs to decide for themselves how to live their own lives, but selfishness only leads to emptiness, and real richness in life is achieved only by those willing to give of themselves.
Excellent stuff, Jeff. Give me hell!