I noticed an article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy the other day that may indicate a change in a 10-year trend of measuring nonprofit performance. The “effective philanthropy” movement took a hit when the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation announced recently it was closing down its eight-year, $12-million funding of projects to “get donors to rely as much on their heads as their hearts.”
Their funding for Charity Navigator, GiveWell and Guidestar will be ending after this year.
As you probably know, these organizations are three of the most visible and successful tools for public information about financial performance and social impact of nonprofit organizations.
Ironically, the decision to drop the funding was the result of the foundation’s own research through Hope Consulting. The “Money for Good” study showed that few people actually investigate the performance of nonprofits as part of their decision to give. The research indicates that despite the increasing number of ratings and research on nonprofit performance, donors still give most of their money to charities they know well, such as their alma mater or groups that have helped them or their friends. While 85 percent said that a charity’s performance is very important, only 35 percent conducted research on giving, and just 2 percent gave based on a group’s relative performance.
“It’s not like we could make them all super rational,” said Jacob Harold, chief executive of GuideStar and a former Hewlett program officer.
Reading this article about “rational givers” who lean strongly toward making decisions by logic and analysis instead of emotion reminded me of something else I read recently in the Wall Street Journal about the “left brain/right brain” dichotomy – and that surprisingly, this distinction is no longer considered true.
The WSJ reported on a new two-year study published in the journal Plos One about the research of University of Utah neuroscientists. They scanned the brains of more than 1,000 people to measure their functional lateralization – the specific mental processes taking place on each side of the brain. The neuroscientists found no evidence that the study participants had a stronger left- or right-sided brain network.
As it turns out, we are all left- and right-brain people, and our brains work best as a unified system. There is no way to categorize people – or the way they give – into one side or the other. We are fully integrated by design and should not describe someone as being motivated by reason or emotion.
In other words, we really can’t be divided into “head or heart” people.
I like the Hebrew word, “leb.” It does not mean simply emotion, compassion and feelings but also is used to describe the seat of our intellect, will, reason and thinking. Everything about us is captured in this word.
I hesitate to tell you that “leb” is translated in English as “heart” because we have corrupted the word (think Valentine’s Day) and have completely lost its full meaning. We have separated emotion from reason, when in fact, they are joined and completely melded with each other. You cannot love without reason or reason without love.
Remember that our best is not when we try to balance “head and heart” but when we see our giving as coming from the full use of everything that “leb” describes. It is all from one place. It is everything we have.