Tzedakah: Aspiring to a Higher Ethic

sheer worthiness of the cause should be enough to merit the requested gift. With the wealthy, however, the prevailing assumption is that this will not suffice. The wealthy, according to this logic, will only give if offered sufficient trinkets, trophies, or slices of immortality to attract them. Why, though, it must be asked, should this be the case? Why is it unreasonable to expect that the wealthy will give to the campaign if presented with precisely the same arguments as the less wealthy? Why is there a belief that the wealthy have to be induced to give with tangible items, when we expect gifts from others without such inducements? Is it not implicitly disrespectful to the wealthy to convey that they will only give donations at levels appropriate to their capacity if they are offered-gifts in return, as if to suggest that attempts to persuade them to do that which is ethically right for its own sake will never resonate with them? There is, then, a very real sense in which treating the wealthy in special ways diminishes their chances for altruistic giving, discounts their capacity to do what is proper, and unjustly treats them as if they were inextricably beholden to the heady drug of recognition.

There is yet a fifth reason why putting the wealthy in a distinctive category may have deleterious outcomes. This reason has to do with expectations that are sometimes sparked in the donor that he or she will be able to influence the shape of the project or the direction of the program that has benefited from his or her large gift, according to his/her personal vision. More than occasionally, donors who provide major gifts expect to be consulted on the manner in Which their gift will be used, and seek to shape structures or steer organizational directions according to their own personal ideas. If the Sponsoring institution balks at this desired involvement, there are times when the donor’s indication that the money could be directed elsewhere is enough to provide the donor with the sought-after Participatory role. Indeed, in burgeoning numbers, disinterested in others setting priorities or directions for them,“big givers” simply establish and fund their own foundations or organizations so that they