Can we make effective giving a cultural norm?

by Ana Diaz

What we can learn from the COVID pandemic?

COVID-19 changed the popular understanding of our shared responsibility to strangers. The media increased the use of the word “hero” to describe all those “essential workers'' in the U.S. who had to expose themselves to the virus through their jobs, implying with that word that individuals were going above and beyond the call of duty by doing what they ordinarily do. But the call of duty went above and beyond what it ordinarily is: suddenly everyone had a responsibility to mask in order to protect strangers all over the world. For many, masking became as ordinary as turning off the lights when leaving a room. It is my sense that the pandemic has given us, as global citizens, the opportunity to develop new norms about our interconnectedness and how to break charity down into small acts which are expected of ordinary people around the world, not just extraordinary heroes or exceptionally wealthy philanthropists.

Can charitable giving become as ordinary and culturally instilled a practice as wearing a face mask if one feels sick? Are there small, daily actions that scale to make it possible for people to “do good better”? Not singular acts of heroism, but routine acts of responsibility. Effective Altruism may hold the tools for how to figure out what those little acts are, and Christian EAs have a unique contribution to make in this change, too, by having perspective on when to act or pause, and remain open to wisdom. 

Here is an example from a cause area for giving which Christians For Impact (CFI) recommends, Easily Preventable or Treatable Diseases: “Schistosomiasis affects over 240 million people each year. Schistosomiasis and other parasitic diseases can be cured with a pill that costs under $1 a year.” If one out of every three people who live in the developed world (EU, US, Canada, Australia, et. al) contributes less than $1 in a year toward this cause, each person affected by schistosomiasis annually would receive help.  

As the pandemic showed, our choices have a direct impact on the potential health-spans and life-spans of those around us. Much like how masks and vaccines make it possible for people to protect each other on a large scale without interfering too much with small-scale life, EA shows how all of us, by giving just a couple percent of our income to effective charities like GiveWell and GiveDirectly, could wipe out global poverty.

Christians are no strangers to this interconnectedness, and are called to altruism: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”  (Philippians 2:3-4 ESV) Christ takes it a step further, saying that the most vulnerable are to remind one of Him: “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ [...] ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.”  (Matthew 25:43 ESV)

So, how do we make charity more ordinary? We need individuals to lead by example and speak publicly about their routine giving and how easy it is. Then, commitment and consistency are needed. Again, Christians are uniquely positioned to contribute; to be a Christian means to understand having a relationship with truth and other people which is messy, difficult, and often unrewarding — but in the interest of ultimate, final reward. Christians have habits that protect them from being overwhelmed or disillusioned by causes, and this is something valuable to bring to the pursuit of EA cause areas, and invaluable in making the changes needed to have more people adopt EA-inspired habits. What’s more, Christians are called to communities that expose them to people from vastly different walks of life, and listen to those people. Charities like GiveDirectly illustrate how important it is to listen to others for what they most need, and not impose one’s expectations or knowledge beforehand. 

The pandemic did not just show us how connected we are, but also how quickly our experts can fail us, and trust can be shaken. Christianity also has a resilient habit to teach here, in its call to model the life of Jesus. Often Jesus prays when there is a call to action. When Jesus learns that Lazarus is dying, he does not rush to him, for example: “[W]hen he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” (John 11:6-8, ESV) Sometimes it is necessary to pause when the sense of urgency is greatest. Consider, as well, the story of Mary and Martha; while it is important to tend to others, Jesus reminds Martha that it is not necessary to be anxious about outcomes. “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary.” (Luke 10:41-42, ESV)

Where EA gives the tools to find charities that scale and interventions that are effective, thereby showing where small amounts of money can scale to solve problems for large amounts of people, Christianity, too, holds tools for more effective giving. Its teachings illustrate ways to guard against needless anxiety, ineffective use of energy, and bias. The call to care for neighbors protects us from growing too insular in our understanding of problems and solutions. Christians can lead by example, with faith in the Holy Spirit to provide the courage to listen and notice when reality might point in a counter-intuitive direction. We live in the gap between where we are as a society and where we know we could be if more people contributed to impactful causes and kept them in mind on a regular basis. But that is only part of the story and half of the truth: there is a greater need for Christian wisdom in the search to improve charity, and that can only come from a radical openness mto strangers, expressed in daily attentiveness to the world around us, which means prayer, yes, but also means daring to become involved, accepting that we will be wrong, and remaining committed to correcting as we go. That is the cultural shift the pandemic nudged us towards, and it is our shared responsibility to act on it.