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Charidee

Wednesday, 13th February 2008

Daniel Finkelstein is bang on in his column today. It's all about the norm:

At a conference organised by the Centre for Policy Studies, Greg [Clark] asked the audience how much they thought it appropriate to leave as a tip in a restaurant. Everyone had a view - answers ranged from 10 to 15 per cent. Leaving a tip in an eaterie to which we may never return is an odd thing to do really, but we all acknowledge the social norm and almost all abide by it, even when no one else is looking.
Then Greg asked this - what proportion of your salary should you give to charity? There was a confused silence. Nobody knew. There isn't a social norm.
Now estimates of how much we do give to charity vary. One survey suggests it is as low as 0.5 per cent on average. But the most widely accepted figure is that provided by the Charities Aid Foundation - 0.73 per cent. Greg provided the audience with the result of a simple calculation. If the average could be raised to 1 per cent it would bring £4 billion a year into the coffers of charities.
That would be far more useful to charities than anything that could be achieved through politics or changing the law.
So the idea, the wheeze, is this - to create a new social norm, in which people feel they should give at least 1 per cent of their income to charity. Even if it only partly succeeds, it could raise £1 billion a year at least.

Take Jews. I was brought up to believe that you should always give a proportion of your imcome to charity (and not just Jewish charities); so was every Jew I know. It's as much of part of a Jewish upbringing as beigels and chicken soup.The last report of which I am aware (published in 2003) found that:

80 per cent of those in the lowest income bracket had given to some non-Jewish charity, while for those with incomes over £75,000 the figure was around 90 per cent.

It's absolutely about what is viewed as the norm. When, as Jew, you hear of someone who hasn't given money to charity then you think they are, at the very least, weird - and they are frowned upon.

Change the norm. That's the anwer.

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MagicAldo

February 13th, 2008 9:09am

Giving to charity should rightly be encouraged, but I think it's only fair to point out that most families in the UK are saddled with large mortgage debt. Any monies they give are usually funds that have in fact borrowed. I'm not always sure whether it's ethical to give away someone else's money.

Ian C

February 13th, 2008 10:41am

If we could give to charity rather than to the taxman, as opposed to as a tax deduction, then we would have a far better funded 'welfare state' and one that was run properly. It would very quickly become the norm.

Jennie

February 13th, 2008 11:38am

People might give more to charities if less of what they gave were absorbed by the charity's 'costs'. I once worked for a well-known charity where all the senior management had company cars. Even though few of these had much significant travelling to do and, when they did, usually they travelled by train.

David Preiser

February 14th, 2008 4:21am

Mr. Pollard, If you want to know how to quietly adjust public thought patterns on a particular issue, look no further than the BBC. Although, I don't think they'll be too excited about your idea as a substantial increase in personal contributions to charity would probably mean they wouldn't need to do all those appeals, hobnob with their favorite celebrities, and pat themselves on the back for a job well done.