Supercharity

   

Summary:  Many people who give time and money don’t really think of how they can do the most good. Supercharity is a simple concept to help people choose charities that make profound impacts on people’s lives. (Supercharity is closely related to supergoodness.)

 

People donate their time and money for many reasons, but not all of them are good reasons. Some people give to charity because a friend asks, and they don’t want to look bad. Some people give because the charity offers some benefit in return. Sometime people give out of guilt, to avoid self-reproach. Some people give because a charity has spent money to create a good image through impressive PR—whether or not the charity is effective.

To increase the good that people do through charity, I created a new term: “supercharity.” I define your supercharity as the organization or group of organizations that best address the problems that you would most not want to personally suffer. For instance, if someone thought that political torture was the worst kind, then giving to organizations that effectively minimized political torture would be supercharity for them. But if another person thought that sexual molestation was the worst thing that they could imagine, then giving to organizations that minimized that problem would be supercharity for them. Your supercharity (or supercharities) depends on you and your values.

People don’t have to limit their supercharity to one issue or problem. There’s no need to try to figure out what the all-time worst of many awful forms of suffering is. By defining this new term, supercharity, I’m encouraging people to donate more money and time to their supercharities, and less to other, less critical charities. When most people do this, you can expect the amount of suffering in the world to decrease.

Along with donating to your supercharities, you shouldn’t forget to support behind- the-scenes organizations that attack some of the problems behind the problems. For instance, no one dies directly from illiteracy. But certain kinds of educational programs empower people to avoid problems and situations that cause suffering and death. The same is true for certain strategic environmental, political and public health programs.  

Status: We created three tools to help people optimize their giving. They can be found at HelpersHelper.Org.

 

         Wise Giving of Time and Money

         Choices Regarding the Empowerment of Others  

         The Helping Inventory

 

Plans and Needs: To create a video promoting the idea of supercharity, and related “wise giving” tools.

 

Potential Impact: If the idea of supercharity catches on, people make a commitment to give a large percentage to their supercharities. Then it’s likely that suffering in the world will diminish more quickly.