When our church received a windfall, we tried an experiment.
charitable giving
The psalmist doesn't tell us to be thankful, but rather to offer thanks. Offer thanks. Bless God's name—even if you don't feel like it.
The Paradox of Generosity, by Christian Smith and Hilary Davidson
Christian Smith and Hilary Davidson's book is a tale of two ways of life: with generosity and without.
ProPublica has been doing a series of reports about the Red Cross’s misleading rhetoric about how it uses donations:
The American Red Cross regularly touts how responsible it is with donors' money. "We're very proud of the fact that 91 cents of every dollar that's donated goes to our services," Red Cross CEO Gail McGovern said in a speech in Baltimore last year. "That's world class, obviously."
If you’ve been here long, you won’t be shocked to hear that I’m not impressed by a lot of what American conservatives have to say about domestic poverty. (Though I do appreciate the basic political courage it takes for an elected official to even use the word.) But there is at least one idea from the right that I’m more or less on board with: we should be very careful about cutting the tax deduction for charitable contributions.
It's not what the headlines are highlighting, but Mitt Romney's 2010 tax return includes one impressive fact: his charitable contributions amounted to $7 million. I know, this hardly put him at risk of losing one of his houses and ending up out on the street till his driver could pick him up and take him to one of his other houses. Still, giving away almost a third of your income is nothing to sneeze at.