{"id":97695,"date":"2022-11-28T17:24:38","date_gmt":"2022-11-29T00:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=97695"},"modified":"2022-12-01T18:11:00","modified_gmt":"2022-12-02T01:11:00","slug":"its-the-most-generous-time-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/11\/its-the-most-generous-time-of-the-year.html","title":{"rendered":"It’s the most generous time of the year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Christmas<\/a>
The rather austere entryway to my office at Interpreter headquarters.\u00a0 It\u2019s about time \u2014 don\u2019t you agree? \u2014 for the Foundation to start putting up our Christmas decorations!
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

For various reasons \u2014 some probably having to do with the emotions and sentiments of the holiday season and others no doubt connected with American tax policy and the Internal Revenue Service \u2014 a disproportionate percentage of annual charitable donations are made during the final quarter of the year, at least in the United States of America.\u00a0 More specifically, the highest number of such donations arrives between Thanksgiving Day and 31 December.<\/p>\n

As you may have noticed, we\u2019ve now entered into that period for 2022.\u00a0 And tomorrow, 29 November, is \u201cGiving Tuesday.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is<\/em> \u201cGiving Tuesday\u201d?\u00a0 It\u2019s a fairly recent invention that was, as I understand it, conceived in response to the orgy of consumerism and materialism connected with \u201cBlack Friday\u201d and \u201cCyberMonday,\u201d which immediately precede it.<\/p>\n

It may really be needed, by the givers as well as by the recipients.\u00a0 Lately, I\u2019ve been hearing the term thanksgetting<\/em>.\u00a0 It\u2019s evidently been around for a while, but I had never heard it until it occurred in a television commercial that I happen to have seen.\u00a0 I find it slightly amusing, quite revealing, and, really, very repulsive.<\/p>\n

Thanksgetting<\/em> is defined by the Urban Dictionary<\/em><\/a> as \u201cWhat people celebrate\u00a0when they have\u00a0forgotten\u00a0the real meaning of\u00a0thanksgiving,\u201d with the illustrative sample sentence\u00a0 \u201cThe McCains\u00a0just\u00a0sat down\u00a0for Thanksgetting\u00a0dinner.\u201d\u00a0 The Urban Dictionary<\/em> goes on to explain Thanksgetting<\/em> (with a capital t<\/em>) in this way:\u00a0 \u201cThe holiday in which people\u00a0abandon\u00a0their closest friends and family for\u00a0the thrill\u00a0of saving $100 on a slightly larger television set on which to watch\u00a0Keeping Up With The Kardashians<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 And here is the sentence specimen that it offers for that usage:\u00a0 \u201cMom, sweetheart:\u00a0hurry up\u00a0and finish your\u00a0turkey. It\u2019s half an hour until\u00a0noon and I need to start my Thanksgetting day shopping.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lots and lots and lots of worthy causes will be vying for your possible donations.\u00a0 I\u2019m writing to ensure that the Interpreter Foundation is noticed among them.<\/p>\n

I do so with my usual reluctance.\u00a0 I really don\u2019t like asking people for money.\u00a0 Not even in the best of times.\u00a0 Given the problematic state of the economy as I write and the current rate of inflation, though, many people are under real pressure right now.\u00a0 The cost of everyday living is higher than it\u2019s been in years, and people are feeling it in the grocery store and at the gas pump.\u00a0 Even potential major donors have seen the value of their savings and investments plummet, so that a donation of x<\/em> dollars will likely cost them more this year, in a sense, than in other years.<\/p>\n

Such thinking discourages me just a bit.\u00a0 Maybe more<\/em> than just a bit.\u00a0 But the Interpreter Foundation, despite the fact that it is run and mostly staffed by volunteers \u2014 we have no salaried, full-time employees \u2014 and despite the fact that its authors aren\u2019t compensated, needs money to continue its basic operations.\u00a0 (As you can see here<\/a>, our regular expenditures currently run on the order of roughly $120,000 per annum.)\u00a0 And we need additional funds to do special projects.\u00a0 (Most notable and by far the most financially demanding among planned future projects is our Six Days in August<\/em> movie effort<\/a>, on which we hope to begin filming this coming spring or summer.)<\/p>\n

I believe in the cause.\u00a0 I believe in the mission of the Interpreter Foundation.\u00a0 My wife and I have been donors to it from the beginning, and will continue to be.\u00a0 (I hope that it doesn\u2019t need to be pointed out that both of us<\/em> are unpaid volunteers.)\u00a0 We try to use the money that\u2019s given to Interpreter very efficiently and effectively; the leaders of Interpreter don\u2019t dine out lavishly on donated funds.<\/p>\n

So I will be out beating the bushes for contributions between now and the end of 2022.\u00a0 Ho ho ho!\u00a0 And as part of that effort, I will be posting a fundraising page on Facebook, starting tomorrow morning.\u00a0 (You can donate directly in other ways, too.\u00a0 See here.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

To be sure, large donations help us a great deal.\u00a0 But please don\u2019t imagine that small donations aren\u2019t appreciated.\u00a0 They are<\/em> appreciated, and, as they accumulate, they make a considerable difference for us.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I say that I\u2019m reluctant to ask people for their money.\u00a0 I feel no reluctance at all, though, about this next item:<\/p>\n

More and more, for good or for ill, people do their shopping online.\u00a0 Especially in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.\u00a0 And one of the principal places where they do that shopping is Amazon.com. \u00a0(Until his rather expensive divorce a while back, this fact made Jeff Bezos the richest man in modern history.)<\/p>\n

But did you know that you can enlist Amazon to donate to an eligible charitable cause of your choice?<\/p>\n

By purchasing your books or whatever else through AmazonSmile<\/a> rather than the regular Amazon.com \u2014 Amazon sells far, far more than merely books<\/em> \u2014 you can have Amazon donate 0.5% of the purchase price of eligible products to a charitable organization that you have chosen.\u00a0 AmazonSmile, which is operated by Amazon itself, carries the same products and offers the same prices and shopping features as Amazon.com. The only difference is that when you shop on AmazonSmile, the AmazonSmile Foundation will donate half a percent of the price you pay to a designated charity.<\/p>\n

Thus, if you\u2019ve chosen to buy $100.00 of chartreuse-speckled, liver-and-onion-flavored Acme widgets on Amazon.com, you can go instead to AmazonSmile and buy precisely the same number of those oh-so delectable widgets for precisely the same $100.00 and with precisely the same convenience. \u00a0In this case, though, Amazon will donate $0.50 \u2014 that is, fifty cents \u2014 to the charity that you have designated. \u00a0And it will cost you nothing. \u00a0It is painless.<\/em><\/p>\n

(It should also be noted that this won\u2019t count as a charitable donation on your part, because it will be Amazon<\/em> that is giving the money, not you<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

Now, you might object, this is a trivial amount. \u00a0So small! \u00a0Why bother?<\/p>\n

True, it\u2019s small. \u00a0But if enough people do it, it will add up rapidly.<\/p>\n

If, for example, 10,000 people each make $1000 worth of purchases through AmazonSmile in a particular year, which is surely not impossible, they will have caused Amazon to give fully $50,000 that year.<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019m going to suggest \u2014 big surprise! \u2014 that the Interpreter Foundation would be a remarkably good charity for you to designate as a recipient of Amazon\u2019s generosity. \u00a0We are, as a matter of fact, eligible and on their list.\u00a0 I will also suggest that Jeff Bezos is not<\/em> an especially apt recipient for what could be charitable money.\u00a0 Here is a brief video<\/a> that my friend Tom Pittman kindly created a few years ago, showing you how to choose the Interpreter Foundation (or some other recipient) for this purpose.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if any of the details of the process have changed during the intervening years, but the general principles are surely the same.<\/p>\n

Of course, you may be the kind of person who doesn\u2019t want<\/em> to give to the Interpreter Foundation. \u00a0Maybe you\u2019re<\/em> the kind of person who would rather give to the Society for the Promulgation of Spray-Paint Graffiti or to the Friends of the Anopheles Mosquito or to the Serial Killer Defense Fund. \u00a0(Just the sort of folks, of course, who wouldn\u2019t want to support the Interpreter Foundation anyway!) \u00a0Frankly, I rather doubt that those august organizations are on Amazon\u2019s list of eligible charities. \u00a0But the fact is that there is absolutely no reason not to choose some<\/em>\u00a0charity as a recipient of Amazon\u2019s corporate giving.<\/p>\n

Choose somebody<\/em> \u2014 whether the Interpreter Foundation or somebody else \u2014 as your designated AmazonSmile charity. \u00a0You can still make further charitable contributions to that organization or to another one. \u00a0But there is no reason whatever to refuse Amazon\u2019s generous offer.<\/p>\n

Do it soon, before you really get into your Christmas shopping.\u00a0 In fact, why not do it right now<\/em>?\u00a0 As in, before you forget<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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