Getting Hit Up for the Holidays

500 Words on Thursday | Written by Lee Schneider

It’s that time of year. You’re sending cards, shopping for gifts, holiday music ringing in your ear, along with compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue is what happens when there are so many people hitting you up for something. The emails come fast and furious about tax-deductions you can get, and everyone wants you to “open your heart and open your checkbook.”

Look, I have had a little too much coffee in the past few days, and caffeine can lead to cynicism, so let me rephrase. For one thing, I am one of those people asking you for something. I want you to have a look at my IndieGoGo page for the Shelter movie and consider making a tax-deductible donation to help make the film. But along with a few others, I’m trying to approach this whole charity thing differently. We’re not even thinking of it as charity.

Charity is Being Reframed as Involvement

Things wouldn’t run very well without charity. Governments don’t have the money or the courage to support all their subjects. Corporations can be sociopaths when it comes to serving their stockholders. So in many ways, it’s up to us, ordinary citizens, to turn the karmic wheel.

But this is not about crawling up to people with hat in hand. There’s a new kind of philanthropy that really has me excited – a participatory kind that involves action as well as giving. There’s a storyline to this, and it starts with the (RED) campaign. That campaign was criticized when it started in 2006 because it asked people to be activists by buying things. Was encouraging consumerism a good idea? Well, people were buying things anyway, and if they were motivated to buy Gap clothing or an Apple iPod to fund programs addressing HIV and AIDS, how would that be bad? When a Gap shopper buys a (RED) product, 50% of Gap’s profits go to help eliminate AIDS in Africa. Toms Shoes gives away a pair of shoes for every pair you buy. Charity: Water is bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations and a local business here in LA called Real Food Daily has teamed with Charity:Water to help. You buy a Real Food Daily holiday gift bag, and RFD will donate 100% of the profit to Charity:Water.

Patient Capital

Jacqueline Novogratz as founder of Acumen Fund, has pioneered a concept called patient capital. It means that when you invest a couple hundred thousand or even a couple million in a hospital in India or in technology for cleaner water in Africa, you might not get a monetary return on your investment – you might get a spiritual one. Though it might sound nuts to the bottom-line types, Novogratz has made it clear that there’s a different kind of bottom line to pay attention to – the kind that makes the world a better place.

Then along comes Jumo, the invention of one of the Facebook founders (not the guy in the movie). Jumo is going to help people social network around causes, using Facebook as a platform. Sure there have been some complaints about it because you have to get sucked into Facebook to use it, but the idea is of building social capital online is unbeatable, just like Habitat for Humanity’s idea of building social capital by having neighbors create a community and build their own homes.

A Sense of Collaboration

Money is always appreciated, but it’s good to know you can give more than money. You can participate in a movement. On IndieGoGo, I’m trying to find ways for you to participate in the making of Shelter. (No, you can’t hold the camera.) But you can influence the creative direction of the movie at screenings, serve on our advisory board, or you can even be in the film if you can think of something to say about shelter. (Can you?)

Photo: Lincolnian via Creative Commons License.

Cult of Personality

Written by Lee Schneider, founder of DocuCinema

I went to yoga the other night. The room was filled with so many acolytes their yoga mats were about a micron apart. It was like boarding the subway in NYC during rush hour and getting an intimate view of your neighbor’s armpit. Only in yoga it’s more exciting because the people are half naked and their sweat flies on you when they flail. That class lasted about 45 seconds for me. I had to leave. I don’t do flailing.

After suffering from downward dog withdrawal and getting a $61 parking ticket (“And things were going so well!”) I had plenty of time to reflect on the valuable lessons learned. This is kind of a game we play, trying to extract a valuable life lesson from every event no matter how annoying. (“A bee stung me on the ass. What valuable lesson can be extracted from that?”)

Why was I annoyed enough to bail out of that class? Well, for one thing, I have issues with sweaty strangers violating my personal space. But I also don’t like cults of personality.

Some people actually come to a yoga class for the yoga, but a male teacher can become popular and female students will don the appropriate Lululemon yoga gear and crowd into his classes, never admitting out loud that they have a crush on him. Movie stars get people to buy tickets, usually not directors or scripts. Cults of personality. Charisma is king. suze_orman But Arnold Schwarzenegger’s charisma isn’t enough to run this state, and charismatic people like Tony Robbins or Suze Orman can seem to me to be style over substance.

Let’s face it, though, charisma is a powerful force – maybe even a hit of life force. It can draw people in, pay the bills, get your message across and your cause followed.

I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.
–Groucho Marx

groucho Groucho aside, most people want to be members of something. They like leaders to help them join the tribe. Yoga people are their own tribe, and Vegas gamblers, and Michael Jackson fans. In Seth Godin’s book Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, he describes how connecting with others is a powerful tool for shaping consumer desire and even changing the world. He and others have pointed out that your tribe has nothing to do with geography, your religion or blood type. It can be fellow Facebook users, Syrah lovers, devotees of Nike running shoes or iPods. In a fragmented world we look to tribal leaders. Charismatic leaders, like Steve Jobs of Apple, can really drive a consumer brand into becoming a movement. There’s that word again: charisma. Maybe it’s the mojo in leadership. Maybe, despite myself, I’m going to extract a lesson out of that crowded subway car of a yoga class.

yoga Thing is, there’s more yoga being done because of charismatic teachers. Apple has inspired a generation of designs that matter. Charismatic social entrepreneurs like Jacqueline Novogratz fund the businesses of the poor by first listening and then building supportive communities around local entrepreneurs. Charisma, backed up with a plan, can really change the world. Ok, I get it. Just stay out of my space in yoga class.