The Give & Take of Charity : Amid Affluence, Americans should be donating more, because there are more causes and more money is needed. But they are falling short. : The Forgotten Question

An “errand of mercy”--that is what historians call the network of charitable associations invented by American and British believers two centuries ago. My favorite was called something like “The New York Chapter of the London Society for Providing Trusses for the Ruptured Poor.” Alexis de Tocqueville thought these volunteer agencies made life here more humane.

Today, the future of that charitable spirit is in doubt. We Americans are positioned to be generous. Low unemployment rates, bullish stock markets and crowded mall shelves demonstrate that. But seldom have so many demands so suddenly been made on giving communities. They were supposed to fill the financial void that government welfare cuts left behind. They cannot do so fully, of course. But will their donors even try?

Similarly, corporations were supposed to step up as government agencies for supporting arts and humanities were forced, for political reasons, to live on starvation diets or under death sentences. Mammoth arts causes survive--if they enhance corporate names. Thus, McDonald’s and Disney get a good public-relations yield at the Field Museum of Natural History by helping raise $8.4 million to bring glamorous “Sue,” the largest tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, to Chicago. Such support is still strong for many major orchestras, opera companies and museums. But fund-raisers ask: Who will come forth to encourage small agencies and artists on the rise?

Some who already give will indeed donate more. Others will do nothing, while complaining about the money of others being misdirected, even as it supports dancing feet, muralists and struggling music companies. “We don’t need arts while people are hungry.” Wrong. Funds for both causes can be balanced. Starved and barren spirits, consumers who wallow only in the material, are not the best stock among whom to stimulate charitable imaginations.

Charles Peguy famously said, “Everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics.” He did not mean just monastic mysticism or ballot-box politics. “Mysticism” here includes all that helps us transcend the humdrum, the ordinary, all that quickens creative passion. “Politics” here means whatever affects the polis, the human city. To name only some Christian samples (all religions have them): Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jr., Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu, all drew lifelong on the beauty that feeds the spirit and carries it into the realm of human need. The errand of mercy does not have to be in competition with the call of the arts, as the ungenerous suggest.

Millions of Americans still give billions of dollars and volunteer billions of hours, an amount that outpaces most of the rest of the world. Compared with the American past, this is more a time for ringing alarm bells than pushing panic buttons. But many signs are worrisome. Aged givers are not being sufficiently replaced by new generations, especially the baby boomers.

Charity and arts associations ask: How can we involve boomers and their juniors, now that so many have financial means they have not even realized? They have to be asked, I relearned while being coached to join a fund-raising leadership team to help a favorite cause, a college in Minnesota. An instructive manual concludes: “Above all, remember that the primary reason a person gives a gift is because he or she is asked.” That theologically and philosophically limited line is psychologically and practically sound.

Credible and trusted askers are calling on boomers to join their wearying but still well-off seniors. It is not an easy sell. Lives, schedules, commitments and distractions of mid-career people grow ever more complex. But one group well worth asking is women. They do have the best reasons to pull back, as they add ever more work outside the home to the calls of duty and delight at home. Yet, a recent issue of the Chronicle of Philanthropy reveals many women have the means to do far more than they have done, and doing more would work to the advantage of women, including the givers themselves.

Will the moderately wealthy catch on when they are asked? Or will the challenges of the well-publicized, huge philanthropies of billionaires George Soros and Ted Turner lead them to think that smaller gifts don’t count? They have to notice that about half the charitable dollars are given through religious agencies, many by people with lower income but higher motivation, and that these gifts add up. The majority of donated hours by the half of America that volunteers is also religiously inspired, even in the secular spheres. The errand of mercy has no boundaries.

Next month, many religious institutions, with an eye on tax deductions, their own budgets and, one hopes, the awakened and impassioned heart, will celebrate “Stewardship Month.” It’s a time for pledging gifts and hours in a season that includes Thanksgiving Day, followed by a month of “giving” holidays.

Religious leaders will urge their fellows to be stewards, to regard their hours and dollars as being “on loan” from the One to whom they give thanks. Religiously motivated givers, especially on a communal level, will be drawn to human needs, mindful of texts in the prophetic traditions or of the gospel that makes giving to others the sign of the integrity of faith. They will be told they have a long way to go. They have to be asked again, and then get hooked into giving habits.

A familiar lapel button says of those who give a (biblical ) tithe, a 10th, “I’ve never met an ex-tither.” But the religious world in which such buttons are worn is seeing people drift from congregations, often into individualist spirituality and thus away from practices of giving. Start worrying.

The nonreligious do best when they, too, are connected with communal groups--we go on errands together. Yet, community is hard to find and loyalties are difficult to sustain. Citizens, nonreligious and religious alike, who would like to chip in on the purchase of the next dinosaur skeleton, feed the homeless or support a local arts group, may not yet know that they would like to do this or that. They have to be asked.

The survival of much of what we cherish will depend on whether such communities of commitment and enjoyment will work for tomorrow. If not, more will go hungry and unhoused, and blight will replace beauty. The resources are there for the errand of mercy and the call to beauty to prosper--if citizens hear and heed the call.