Being Charitable in the Time of Politicized Charities

Who do you give to when the people who control giving hate you?

Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash

“I was in pain to consider the miserable condition of the old man; and now my alms, giving him some relief, doth also ease me also” - Thomas Hobbes

IIt's Christmas, which means you can hardly leave your house without a smiling chugger shoving a collection box in your face; but the decision of whether to give and to whom has become a fraught one in the last couple of years. The combination of elite overproduction, the collapse of traditional religious institutions and the outsourcing of social and cultural policy-making to activists means that Charities have become partisan political actors in a way they weren’t in the past. If charity was ever as simple as giving money to an unfortunate person to make their lot better, it isn’t anymore. By popping a coin in the slot am I funding an organisation whose ultimate goal is to act against my political interests?