This week I heard a piece on NPR about Giving Anonymously, a nonprofit organization that allows anyone to make an anonymous gift to someone you know who is in need but may be too proud to accept your gift in person.
You provide GA the recipient’s mailing address and your credit card number. They contact the person and then send them a check; and ask them to call a toll-free number to leave a voicemail message to verify receipt. They then send you an mp3 of the call so you know your gift is complete. You can hear the NPR piece on the Giving Anonymously website, including some of the messages from people who bought food, medicine for their children, the stuff of daily life.
GA was started by a Washington couple whose neighbor helped them pay their rent one month. They wanted to facilitate individual giving — to family, friends, neighbors — without the sometimes relationship-straining awkwardness that can happen face-to-face, when personal pride and cultural notions collide with need and the very real human desire to help.
I don’t know what it’s like for you, but I grew up with the notion that we solved our own problems and didn’t ask for help. Admitting need was admitting vulnerability; and we were vulnerable enough without admitting it. I still have trouble asking for help sometimes, and even more trouble accepting it gracefully: I often feel the need to rebalance the scales. Nicola points out to me often that people give because they want to: not to feel superior to me, but to feel connected with me, and to feel as though they’ve made my life a little easier. I understand that: when I help, that’s exactly why I do it. So why is it so much harder to receive than it is to give?
I’m fine: I have wonderful family and friends and neighbors who will help me when I need it, whether it’s a home repair or a hot meal or a gift of money. But if you know someone in need who doesn’t have that support, or doesn’t know how to accept it, then here’s a way you can give that demands no tipping of the scales between you. They’ll never know who loved them enough to help them: they’ll just know that someone does.
You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving.
— Robert Louis Stevenson
And it’s not just about being able to write a check. It’s being able to touch somebody’s life.
— Oprah Winfrey