Hello Frugal Pinoy readers. Sorry for not updating this blog this week – I’ve been busy with a lot of work, including helping my best friend raise funds for her newborn nephew, 1-month old Hero Chip.

He was born on June 19, 2011. He shares the same birthday as the national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal (hence the name). He’s barely a month old, but hopefully, someday, he’ll grow up to live up to his name.

A very promising start, but he has a congenital heart condition. He has ventricular septal defect, or VSD. He has, literally, a hole in his heart.

If left untreated, his VSD can cause permanent damage to his lungs, or make his heart fail all of a sudden. Hero’s heart needs to be mended as soon as possible to prevent any further damage. But the cost of a heart surgery — PhP500,000++ or more than half a million not counting the hospitalization and medicine expenses — is way too high for his young, twenty-something parents to shoulder.

If you want to know more about Hero Chip’s condition and how you can help – even if you can’t donate – please click here to visit his website. Even sharing the link on Facebook and “Liking” their Facebook page, raises awareness to the cause.

For those who prefer to see all the details, click here to find the webpage for scanned documents regarding Chip’s condition. It includes the medical abstract from the doctor, the statements of account, and the estimates for the procedure.

Hero “Chip” needs your help. Be Hero’s hero, and chip in for his heart surgery.

Even the smallest bit of help counts for a lot.

]]> http://www.frugalpinoy.com/giving/help-1-month-old-hero-chip-get-the-heart-operation-he-needs/feed/ 2 http://www.frugalpinoy.com/giving/how-rich-are-you/ http://www.frugalpinoy.com/giving/how-rich-are-you/#comments Sat, 08 Nov 2008 03:14:43 +0000 FrugalPinoy http://frugalpinoy.com/misc/how-rich-are-you/

I recently landed on The Global Rich List website.  It’s a fascinating site, because you input your annual income and the site tells you how rich you are compared to the rest of the world.

Apparently, I’m in the top13.17% richest in the world:

If the idea of wealth comparison and materialism makes you sick, don’t worry.  The Global Rich List is not about boasting about your wealth.  In fact, the point of the site is to show you how lucky you are compared to the rest of the world.  It makes you feel rich enough to realize that you can give to others.  If you want to try it, just click here to visit the Global Rich List site.

Now, you don’t have to give to the  charity that the Global Rich List supports (Care International UK).  You don’t even have to give your money, you can volunteer your time to a cause or organization your believe in.  A few months ago, I wrote a blog post on giving to charities and causes.  Go ahead and read that post in case you haven’t done so yet.  Frugal Pinoy also has a lengthy page that lists several local charities and NGOs.  You can refer to that list if you’re looking for local organizations to support.

Why am I talking about giving again?  Well, first of all, just because we’re experiencing an economic downturn, it doesn’t mean we should stop supporting the causes we believe in.  In fact, these causes need your support now more than ever.

Also, ‘di ba mag-pa-Pasko na? Don’t forget to add these kinds of donations to your Christmas budget.

What charities and causes do you support?  How has the financial crisis affected your ability to donate?

From time to time, whether in online forums or dinners with friends, some people share their opinion that poverty is a choice.  You might be familiar with the following statements:

“The attitude of the poor is that they want the best things in life for free, because they are poor.”

“Kapag mahirap ka, tamad ka.”

“Hindi mo kasalanan ipanganak ng mahirap, ang kasalanan mo ay kung mamatay kang mahirap”

But is poverty really a choice?

Personally, I believe that being broke is a choice. But poverty is not.

What’s the difference?

Being broke means finding yourself incapable to support your lifestyle, despite the fact that you have the education, resources, and know-how to pull yourself out of that situation.

Poverty, on the other hand, is the inability to provide yourself and/or your family of your basic needs because you are deprived of access to the education, resources, and opportunities that will allow you to rise above it.  Even them, the system works against you in such a way that it will take so much work and even more luck to get out of poverty.

Being broke is a personal problem.  Poverty is a societal problem. Some examples:

Broke:  The woman who finished college, gets paid P30,000 yet for some reason can’t pay her bills on time and doesn’t have enough savings for emergencies.

Poor:  The farmer who has worked for decades but still earns only P25 per day.  He can’t demand more money or benefits because the last time he did that, he was threatened by the landowner’s private army.  He can’t afford to leave because he only makes enough to feed his family once a day.

Broke:  The young couple who can’t afford to rent their own home because they spent too much money on their wedding, the reception, and their honeymoon.

Poor:  The child who is roaming the streets as a beggar because her parents don’t believe that it’s worth it to put girls through school.

In other words, poverty involves outside factors that most people have no or very little control of.  Even if they do have some way to control or circumvent these factors, they aren’t empowered enough to know about it.

And who can blame them about their lack of empowerment?  Society at large and the government treats poor people as if cash subsidies and dole outs are the only way out. Because of their desperation, they prefer to eat now rather than look at long term solutions – and because of the lack of education and resources available to them, how will they know about these long term solutions?

Politicians themselves shy away from long term solutions because they take more work and the effects will only be seen years after they have left their position in government. Eh di mamigay na lang ng 500 pesos sa mga tao ngayon, kasi mas maaalala ka nila, at mas iboboto ka nila. Never mind that the 500 is fleeting and unsustainable.

The poverty problem itself is almost cyclical.  Fundamental human needs such as food and water must first be met before you can expect someone to be self-actualized. In other words, what use is education if the people are hungry? What’s the use of opportunity?  Then again, how do you fill your stomach if you don’t have employment opportunities that will allow you to do so?

To get rid of poverty, widespread changes in policy and society need to take place.  To get rid of being broke, one just has to maximize all the available opportunities at hand.

How about you? Do you think poverty is a choice?  Is it a state that could easily be avoided?

Recently, a friend and I had a conversation about “giving back” and donations.  We both felt like we weren’t giving enough.  Personally, I donate to an animal shelter as payment of utang na loob for the people who built it – they were good to me in hard times.  But apart from that, I do nothing, even if I really wanted to.  I don’t know if it was the busy-ness of work, but I haven’t thought about volunteering or making additional donations in months.

I also realized that in Frugal Pinoy I often talk about saving and earning money, and never about giving it away.

It’s about time that I did.  Starting next month, I’ll be donating to some causes I believe in (I’ve already included it in the budget), and actively search for volunteering opportunities as well.  However, I won’t be disclosing how much or to what causes I donate to, but I imagine I’ll be able to talk about the volunteering.

Also, if you have your own stories about volunteering or donating, please share them with us.

Why giving back is important to you

People often talk about how giving away donations is good for others, but that’s self-explanatory.  What’s often left out of the discussion is what good  you will get out of giving.

It gives you a feeling of abundance.  I first mentioned this in the post “Do you have what it takes to be a millionaire?”.  From that post:

Some people may have multi-millions, but if they don’t give away a single peso to anyone, for a cause larger than themselves, they probably feel cheap inside. From David Bach’s research, most multi-millionaires have one thing in common: they were giving part of their income for charitable causes, even when they weren’t wealthy yet. It’s all about the mindset rather than just the measurement of how much money you have stashed away in the bank.

It makes you happy.  Scientists found evidence that giving away money gives you more happiness compared to spending it on yourself – even if you believe otherwise.  For me, this is reason enough.  Here’s a quote from that study:

Statistical analyses revealed personal spending had no link with a person’s happiness, while spending on others and charity was significantly related to a boost in happiness.

“Regardless of how much income each person made,” Dunn said, “those who spent money on others reported greater happiness, while those who spent more on themselves did not.”

Now that we’ve looked at the benefits of giving away, it’s time to look at how to go about it…

The process of donating

What issues are important to you?  Before you take out that checkbook, you need to figure out what issues and causes matter to you the most.  Here are some examples: children’s rights, women’s rights, disaster relief in your hometown, education, the environment, health, and poverty.  What do you care about?  Who would you like to help? Make a shortlist of3 to 5 causes that you care about, and find a couple of corresponding organizations or charities for each.  (Click here for a list of charitable institutions that I compiled.)

Is the organization run well? Do a bit of research to see if the organizations you plan to donate to are run well, don’t have anomalous spending, and are trustworthy.  You can do this by interviewing previous or current volunteers/employees of that organization, or by reading old news items about the group.

Aim for the long term. For me, I think I prefer giving to a charity with programs, goals, and projects that have long term effects.  Simply giving away a few coins to a disadvantaged person handing out envelopes in the jeep tends to be short term and trivializes their poverty (similar to the government taking the temporary and easy way by giving cash subsidies to the poor).  However, this doesn’t mean that short term gifts are not appreciated or that they are unhelpful.  But finding a good balance between long term donations and short term donations can give a man a fish and teach him to fish as well, so to speak.

Don’t fall into the trap of “this cause is better than that cause”.  Many people feel guilty that they are not  giving to the “right” cause.   Friends might even say to you “Why are you donating to an environmentalist org when many people are hungry?” or “Why are you donating your books when medicines are needed more?”  After all, starvation is more important than the environment, and medicine is more important than education… or is it?

For me, each cause is important in its own way.  Don’t judge the cause selected by others and don’t be insecure about the causes you choose, as long as you believe in them.

Don’t limit yourself to charity organizations.  You can help individual people in the long term.  For example, by paying for the college education of a tricycle driver’s daughter, giving a free livelihood workshop in an impoverished area, or by donating books the local public school.

If you really don’t have money to donate, lend your time and presence instead.   If you really just earn enough for your living expenses, volunteering is a good alternative.  It’s also a welcome addition, if you’re already donating money.  One of my personal goals is to spend some time physically helping out in a cause, not just writing checks. Not only are you helping others, but you are also enriching your own experiences.

Do you donate your time or money to charitable institutions or those in need?  How do you do it?