Charity Crunch

Americans have gotten caught up in the emotional swell of what one charity’s director called a “bidding war” to see who can promise the most aid to tsunami victims. The charity official was talking about governments, but private donations have gone the same way. Doctors Without Borders courageously spoke the truth when it announced two weeks ago that it had all the tsunami-relief money it needed and would accept only unrestricted donations.

President Bush also has expressed concern that giving to tsunami relief might mean less for other charities. He’s right. Bush himself hasn’t helped matters by extending the 2004 tax deduction for donations to tsunami relief while regular charities go by the usual rules. Nor does encouraging private charity end the president’s obligations; the international relief agency Oxfam was concerned enough last week to demand that governments guarantee not to fund tsunami relief by shorting other aid programs.

The tsunami disaster had the magic combination: It was immediate, dramatic, with daily media lists offering a choice of where and how to give. Because it’s a natural disaster, the survivors are seen as innocent victims. Because the needs are so clear and immediate, donors feel they’re solving a problem instead of pasting Band-Aids on never-healing wounds.

People react differently to the struggle against AIDS in Africa, which kills more than 12 times as many people in a year as died in the tsunami. With the disease’s connections to sexual behavior, people see AIDS patients as partly to blame. The problem seems complex and unsolvable. Yet, is an African woman who doesn’t know her husband has AIDS -- or who has no legal rights to protect herself -- any more to blame than a Sri Lankan villager sitting by the Indian Ocean? Nor would it be fair to ignore the media’s role; “how to give” lists run next to tsunami stories, but not stories about the suffering from AIDS or genocide in Darfur.

Most of us like the idea of helping others but are constrained by factors that we don’t even recognize. People cry out against a car tax that would help fund schools but count themselves generous in writing a check to the PTA. Nonprofits themselves sometimes create charity fatigue. Respond to a mail solicitation and your name gets sold to other charities as a soft touch, and 50 more appeals spring up.

The way the state budget is shaping up, Californians are sure to hear ever more cries for help from public schools, free clinics and organizations that help the poor, disabled and elderly. How does anyone weigh the torment of tsunami victims against the value of saving wildlife, or retaining public television? Or do we give up another dinner out and donate to both, knowing that in the balance, our need is the least?