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Philanthropy: Humankind and Loving It · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
0:04
Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey, buddy, if you don't mind if
0:12
Speaker 1: I plug my November page real quick, please do. I
0:14
Speaker 1: am growing a mustache this month for November for uh
0:19
Speaker 1: for cancer research, specifically male prostate cancer research. That's right.
0:26
Speaker 1: And you can donate to my team, which would be
0:29
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0:41
Speaker 1: charitable organization engage in really important scientific research. That's right.
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Speaker 1: And you can go to mobro dot c O slash
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Speaker 1: Charles Bryant and that's my page, or just go to
0:52
Speaker 1: the November site. Type in Charles Bryan in the search
0:55
Speaker 1: bar and look for the picture of me. There's only
0:57
Speaker 1: a couple of ups out there. Check's wearing a red shirt.
1:00
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, um, so what is that again? That's
1:03
Speaker 1: mo bro dot CEO slash Charles Bryant. Yes, thank you
1:07
Speaker 1: in advance. Yeah, that's nice chucking All right, let's get
1:09
Speaker 1: to it, hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
1:14
Speaker 1: With me is always Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Oh, hold
1:17
Speaker 1: on a second, buddy, Yeah, I think you've got something
1:19
Speaker 1: you need to say. Oh yeah, um, let's go ahead
1:21
Speaker 1: and plug our buddies over at Science Channel, our other home. Yeah. Uh.
1:26
Speaker 1: Then they're airing punkin Chunking, the annual awesome fest of
1:30
Speaker 1: shooting pumpkins through the air as far as you can
1:35
Speaker 1: and then making them explode on contact. It's pretty great. Yeah,
1:39
Speaker 1: it's a it's a real thing. Uh. And then Science
1:42
Speaker 1: Shane ghosts every year and films it and they air
1:44
Speaker 1: it as what's become a Thanksgiving tradition. So they're gonna
1:47
Speaker 1: air it this Thanksgiving November twenty two and a pm. Right,
1:51
Speaker 1: that's right. And we are still waiting to get invited
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Speaker 1: to go chunk punkins ourselves. We got invited last year,
1:56
Speaker 1: did we? I think so? Oh yeah, but it was
1:58
Speaker 1: like you guys can come if you want, if you
2:00
Speaker 1: happen to be in the Northeast. Yeah, but it wasn't like, uh,
2:04
Speaker 1: I wanted a formal invitation to participate. Okay, I got you. Um,
2:08
Speaker 1: and uh, if you are in the punkin Chunking, Uh,
2:11
Speaker 1: then you might want to go online to check out
2:14
Speaker 1: the road to punk and Chunking. That's already up. There's
2:17
Speaker 1: some great video to search punkin p U n k
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Speaker 1: I N chunking c h U n k I n
2:23
Speaker 1: and science in your favorite search engine and it'll bring
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Speaker 1: that right up. Uh, and don't forget November twenty two,
2:29
Speaker 1: this Thanksgiving at a p m. On Science Channel, punkin
2:32
Speaker 1: Chunking the tradition. Yes, all right, you ready now, I'm ready, okay.
2:38
Speaker 1: Back today is our good friend and longtime producer Jerry. Yeah,
2:44
Speaker 1: I alins we had the class machine. Yeah. Well, people
2:47
Speaker 1: are slow clapping all across the world right now, right,
2:51
Speaker 1: very sar Jerry, We're so like you're back so much.
2:56
Speaker 1: Just let know a slow clap is meaningful, yeah, but
3:00
Speaker 1: can very easily be turned sarcastic. Just kind of cut
3:03
Speaker 1: your head, decide. And I wonder what the first slow
3:07
Speaker 1: clap was in a movie? You know, such a trope
3:09
Speaker 1: at this point, but I wonder who invented it. A
3:11
Speaker 1: bet of that information is out there. I want to know,
3:14
Speaker 1: don't you want to know? I'm sure some movie website
3:17
Speaker 1: is probably tracked this down. First slow clap. Let's find it, everybody.
3:21
Speaker 1: Well wait, oh wait, uh, we should probably just go
3:25
Speaker 1: ahead and do let's do it, Um Chuck. Yes, have
3:29
Speaker 1: you ever given money to somebody who did nothing for
3:34
Speaker 1: you in return? Maybe didn't sell you a good or service.
3:38
Speaker 1: I just gave him the money. What do you mean
3:40
Speaker 1: just like uh someone panhandler, charitable organization? That's philanthropy. You're
3:47
Speaker 1: a philanthropist. Did you know that? Like that's all it takes.
3:51
Speaker 1: And even better, this is the bright shiny episode. In
3:56
Speaker 1: my opinion, I'm proud of this one. Um, have answer,
4:00
Speaker 1: p works. You don't even need money, donate your time.
4:05
Speaker 1: Your time is very valuable, Chuck. Yeah, And I think, well,
4:09
Speaker 1: I can't say this because I'm just speculating, but it
4:12
Speaker 1: seems to me that people are either like you know,
4:14
Speaker 1: my my time is too valuable, but like I can
4:17
Speaker 1: write someone to check yeah, or like I'm a little
4:20
Speaker 1: light but I can't give my time. Or you can
4:23
Speaker 1: put it like, well, the government doesn't let me deduct
4:26
Speaker 1: time that i've donated, but they will let me deduct
4:29
Speaker 1: the hundreds of thousands of dollars i've donated this year.
4:31
Speaker 1: They should let you deduct time because they've actually figured
4:34
Speaker 1: out I have like averages, like an hourly wage, volunteerism. Yeah, nice,
4:39
Speaker 1: that would be awesome. Let's get that in the tax code.
4:41
Speaker 1: That's a great idea. UM. You can, however, like if
4:44
Speaker 1: you were, say, um, donating your time by going down
4:47
Speaker 1: to like Louisiana to help clean up after a hurricane,
4:50
Speaker 1: or Kansas or Missouri to help clean up after a tornado,
4:56
Speaker 1: and you like bought a bus ticket or you drove,
4:58
Speaker 1: you can deduct transportation and costs. But once you get there,
5:03
Speaker 1: the government doesn't care about you. But you candiduc money
5:10
Speaker 1: as far as transportation. Oh and just regular contributions, right.
5:14
Speaker 1: It depending on on who you give to. And we
5:16
Speaker 1: have a very thrilling segment in this episode about the
5:19
Speaker 1: tax code, um, the ins and outs of it. Chuck
5:21
Speaker 1: is not very excited about it. I think this is
5:23
Speaker 1: kind of neat um. But we're talking about philanthropy and
5:27
Speaker 1: it's kind of become I don't want to say vogue.
5:31
Speaker 1: Maybe it has for the ultra rich, some of the
5:35
Speaker 1: richest people in the world, at least the richest people
5:37
Speaker 1: in America, like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett yea to sign
5:42
Speaker 1: a pledge that Bill Gates created, the Bill and Melinda
5:46
Speaker 1: Gates Foundation created this thing. Saying, hey, we're going to
5:50
Speaker 1: donate at least half of our vast wealth, and they're
5:53
Speaker 1: trying to sign billionaires up to agree to this and
5:55
Speaker 1: then we'll just be super super super wealthy. Well, the
6:00
Speaker 1: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is this like superstar foundation
6:03
Speaker 1: that was like in the assets that controls is like
6:06
Speaker 1: the GDP of several nations. That's pretty amazing. It's like
6:08
Speaker 1: thirty seven billion dollars in assets right now. You can
6:11
Speaker 1: do a lot of good with that. And one of
6:13
Speaker 1: the people they signed on was Warren Buffett, and he's
6:17
Speaker 1: worth forty nine billion dollars right now. He's pledged of
6:21
Speaker 1: his fortune to the Gates Foundation afterward after he's dead,
6:24
Speaker 1: which I mean he's getting up there. So they may
6:27
Speaker 1: have about eighty billion dollars in assets in their control,
6:33
Speaker 1: which is a well, I was gonna say that's almost
6:37
Speaker 1: as much. It's about three quarters of the assets are
6:39
Speaker 1: the value the capital value of the most valuable corporation
6:43
Speaker 1: in the world, Apple, which ironically had a founder who
6:48
Speaker 1: may have never given a cent to charity. Oh really,
6:52
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs died without officially having given any money to
6:55
Speaker 1: charity at all. Any He was notoriously stingy, and after
7:02
Speaker 1: his death there is a lot of talk like, Okay,
7:04
Speaker 1: did he did he really amass an eight billion dollar
7:07
Speaker 1: fortune and not donate any of it, And a lot
7:10
Speaker 1: of people were like, you know what, even if he didn't,
7:13
Speaker 1: you know, to heck with you, he gave this technology
7:17
Speaker 1: to the world and people are using it to better humanity. Well,
7:20
Speaker 1: he doesn't need to give money. And other people are like, yeah,
7:22
Speaker 1: if you have eight billion dollars in personal wealth, you
7:25
Speaker 1: need to give some of that for other things like
7:27
Speaker 1: water and stuff that you can't use an iPhone app for, right, Sure,
7:32
Speaker 1: I guess it depends on how you feel about it all.
7:34
Speaker 1: And then there was another camp that was saying, hey,
7:36
Speaker 1: it's totally possible that he was just not a jerk
7:39
Speaker 1: and he donated a lot of money, But he did anonymously.
7:42
Speaker 1: He didn't want a bunch of glory or he didn't
7:44
Speaker 1: want a bunch of charities knocking down his door like, hey, hey,
7:48
Speaker 1: give us some too, for whatever reason. But you're saying
7:50
Speaker 1: that did not happen. He didn't give anonymously. No one knows.
7:52
Speaker 1: It's a mystery. Oh, I thought you said for sure
7:54
Speaker 1: he didn't give any money ever, because he was so
7:56
Speaker 1: cheap on paper. Oh there is no no record of
8:00
Speaker 1: him ever giving a cent to charity, but it's pretty
8:04
Speaker 1: pretty interesting, Like I can't imagine having a billion dollars
8:07
Speaker 1: and not giving any of it away. But he Bill
8:10
Speaker 1: Gates approached him and he's like, nah, I'm not signing
8:12
Speaker 1: that pledge, and will you pick up the check? Right?
8:15
Speaker 1: Exactly right? Yeah, it's like I don't validate parking you again.
8:19
Speaker 1: I remember um Ted Turner kind of was one of
8:24
Speaker 1: the original guys to give a ton of money. When
8:25
Speaker 1: he gave the billion to the un I remember that
8:27
Speaker 1: was a really big deal at the time. Yeah, I
8:29
Speaker 1: don't know that he gave it to the u N
8:31
Speaker 1: What do they do with it? I don't know, because
8:35
Speaker 1: just they went in the general fun I guess so.
8:37
Speaker 1: But it was a big deal of the time. This
8:39
Speaker 1: was a long time ago, but like in the seventies
8:41
Speaker 1: or eighties, no nineties. I don't have to look, but
8:44
Speaker 1: it was long enough to go. I go such that
8:48
Speaker 1: it was a really big deal that someone gave a billion,
8:49
Speaker 1: A personal individual gave a billion dollars. I think at
8:52
Speaker 1: the time it might have been the largest individual donation.
8:54
Speaker 1: That's crazy. That's neat. I like that though, cool guy. Yeah. Um.
9:01
Speaker 1: But this whole thing, this trend that's going on among
9:04
Speaker 1: the uber wealthy um is kind of this throwback to
9:09
Speaker 1: the beginning of the last century when like the Rockefellers,
9:13
Speaker 1: um and the Carnegies were setting up foundations that are
9:16
Speaker 1: still around today. Yeah, the Ford Foundation, the UM what
9:23
Speaker 1: the Rockefeller they created like a bunch of different trusts
9:27
Speaker 1: Dirty Rock. Yeah, University of Chicago. That was another thing
9:31
Speaker 1: that was invokes setting up huge universities, Cornell, Sanford, all
9:36
Speaker 1: those were rich people endowing universities. It was like there
9:39
Speaker 1: wasn't a university. Therefore, now there is. What's the one
9:42
Speaker 1: you always here on NPR, the Ford Foundation, the Joseph
9:48
Speaker 1: and Catherine. Man, it's so in my consciousness, I can't believe.
9:54
Speaker 1: I can't just split it up. You know, one of
9:58
Speaker 1: us will shout it in about forty five Yeah, exactly, okay,
10:01
Speaker 1: But anyway, so um, Yeah, you usually associate philanthropy with
10:04
Speaker 1: the uber wealthy, but it doesn't have to be. You
10:06
Speaker 1: can be poor and as a matter of fact, the
10:08
Speaker 1: poorest Americans contribute the highest percentage of their income of
10:13
Speaker 1: any income bracket in the country. Did you know that? Yeah?
10:17
Speaker 1: I did. And in fact, if the richest people contributed
10:20
Speaker 1: that same percentage, then um, there would be fewer problems
10:25
Speaker 1: in the world. I would say, So, you know, but
10:28
Speaker 1: the rich people give the most because they have the most. Yeah,
10:30
Speaker 1: I've got stats, but we'll get to those later. Well,
10:32
Speaker 1: let's talk about a couple of stats. How many charities
10:35
Speaker 1: are there in the country. Well, this says six hundred
10:38
Speaker 1: thousand in the article. I think it's a little out
10:40
Speaker 1: of date, is it? Because I found um, in two
10:43
Speaker 1: thousand eleven there are approximately one million, eighty thousand, one
10:48
Speaker 1: thirty charitable organizations. Um. This says that was a decrease
10:52
Speaker 1: from so maybe this counts. Maybe this only counted, although
10:57
Speaker 1: this is it counts foundations. Yeah, I think there was
10:59
Speaker 1: an enormal increase. Yeah, because I have the feeling that
11:03
Speaker 1: this article is written about two thousand three. Okay, well
11:06
Speaker 1: that that would be a real big increase in a
11:09
Speaker 1: million a million plus. So, um, three hundred and fifty
11:13
Speaker 1: five of which are religious congregations, which we'll get into
11:17
Speaker 1: that three thousand, um, and then uh, in the United
11:22
Speaker 1: States and two thousand eleven charitable giving total two hundred
11:27
Speaker 1: ninety eight billion dollars. Yeah. Um, and that was an
11:31
Speaker 1: increase from two dozen ten, which saw two six billion dollars. Yeah,
11:35
Speaker 1: two hundred and seventeen from individuals, which is pretty amazing
11:38
Speaker 1: that se of all charitable gifts are from people. And
11:43
Speaker 1: if you factor in bequests like people's leaving stuff in
11:46
Speaker 1: their wills, which is also individuals and family foundations, it
11:51
Speaker 1: rises to eighty eight percent and more than that, I think.
11:54
Speaker 1: And then I saw percent on philanthropy dot com, the
11:59
Speaker 1: Chronical of Philanthropy. Uh well, I have foundations at fourteen percent,
12:02
Speaker 1: bequest at eight percent, and in last place corporate donations
12:06
Speaker 1: at five mm. Apparently they get the least. And you
12:11
Speaker 1: know what I just heard the other day. I don't
12:12
Speaker 1: know if this is true. Maybe we can get confirmation.
12:15
Speaker 1: You know, when you go to the grocery store and
12:18
Speaker 1: they ask you to would you like to donate to
12:21
Speaker 1: marchup dimes or whatever like on your thing? Yeah, where
12:25
Speaker 1: is this coming? A listener about this was that? Yeah?
12:28
Speaker 1: I think maybe that was it. Someone said that they
12:31
Speaker 1: call those donations under their companies, under their corporation, and
12:36
Speaker 1: like like you know, the grocery store donated that money
12:41
Speaker 1: and gets the tllions of dollars and gets a text deduction.
12:44
Speaker 1: And so I'm not saying you shouldn't do that, but
12:46
Speaker 1: it's just something to consider for sure. Let's say let's
12:48
Speaker 1: say you're like, no, I'm not giving a cent to
12:51
Speaker 1: March of Dimes. Premature babies can all like um, And
12:55
Speaker 1: then but you really really care about muscular distrophe. So
12:58
Speaker 1: the time when they hit you up for that sham rock,
13:00
Speaker 1: be like, of course, not only will I give one dollar,
13:02
Speaker 1: will give five dollars? Well t s for you because
13:05
Speaker 1: you have no say whatsoever and where that money is going.
13:08
Speaker 1: Because they pull it all together in a plot that
13:10
Speaker 1: they shell out quarterly or annually, and then they take
13:13
Speaker 1: the tax reexplot. Whoever wrote that in um, like, I've
13:17
Speaker 1: stopped all together giving it a grocery store now, like
13:20
Speaker 1: I don't even consider I don't even feel bad saying no, Now,
13:23
Speaker 1: yeah I have. I have kind of stopped doing that too,
13:25
Speaker 1: just because if you're gonna give money, that will explain
13:29
Speaker 1: you should take the time to research and do it
13:32
Speaker 1: in a way that you feel good about and it's
13:33
Speaker 1: responsible and that you know where the money is going
13:35
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. Let's talk about that buddy. Um. Well,
13:40
Speaker 1: one thing they point out early in the in the
13:42
Speaker 1: article though, that we should say is that these days
13:44
Speaker 1: more and more nonprofits are seeking funds in different ways
13:48
Speaker 1: because um, a lot of government funding is declining and
13:53
Speaker 1: uh going away all together. So they need money more
13:57
Speaker 1: than ever. Uh and costs are going obviously. So that
14:01
Speaker 1: is why you will see websites and billboards and door
14:05
Speaker 1: to door and flyers and everything to get in touch
14:09
Speaker 1: with the potential. Uh. Don't donate or don't or don't
14:15
Speaker 1: or right, that's a good thing. They wrote. A word
14:17
Speaker 1: means that. Uh. But like you said, philanthropy doesn't have
14:22
Speaker 1: to be just about money. No it doesn't. But the
14:24
Speaker 1: word philanthropy means that you love humans. Phil means loving
14:29
Speaker 1: anthrope or anthropo or anthropy is humankind. So you love
14:34
Speaker 1: human kind by giving money to it. That's how you're
14:37
Speaker 1: demonstrating your love of humankind. Um. Checking out charity. So
14:43
Speaker 1: this is a big one. It's a big deal. I
14:46
Speaker 1: don't know how many people do this. I think, I
14:50
Speaker 1: don't know. I want to say I don't you know,
14:54
Speaker 1: but I mean, like normally the charitable giving I do
14:57
Speaker 1: is like, you know, whoever's bringing the Bell at that
15:00
Speaker 1: moment or something like that, or it was UM or
15:05
Speaker 1: it's on an individual basis, like it's not necessarily through charity, right,
15:09
Speaker 1: I hear you. UM. They say there are a few
15:12
Speaker 1: guidelines you can look for if you're checking out a
15:14
Speaker 1: charity to judge whether or not you think they're you know,
15:18
Speaker 1: spending money wisely, UM generally fifty of every dollar should
15:23
Speaker 1: go to the actual work the charity work, right, and
15:27
Speaker 1: then the other remaining for operational marketing administrative costs. So
15:32
Speaker 1: I I from what I saw, that's a very generous
15:36
Speaker 1: towards the charities. Percentage I saw of your costs for
15:44
Speaker 1: UM administration and fundraising should go to programs. But that's
15:49
Speaker 1: charity choices dot com that says that that's probably the ideal. Yeah,
15:53
Speaker 1: I'm sure. I think that the sixty cents is like
15:56
Speaker 1: anything less than this and you should really like examine.
15:59
Speaker 1: It means there's people at the top taking a big
16:01
Speaker 1: paycheck or they're not doing a very good job of
16:03
Speaker 1: managing their money. But it could also mean that if
16:07
Speaker 1: you look at the age of the charity or the
16:09
Speaker 1: size of the charity, like there's an economy of scale
16:12
Speaker 1: in raising money. So if you, if you are established,
16:16
Speaker 1: you have an established name, or you've been doing this
16:19
Speaker 1: a while, your your phone raising costs are going to
16:22
Speaker 1: be lower than say a new charity or a radical
16:25
Speaker 1: charity that that does controversial work, because they're gonna have
16:29
Speaker 1: a harder time generating money. So just because their fundraising
16:32
Speaker 1: costs are high, it doesn't mean that they're all like
16:35
Speaker 1: just enjoying lavish tuxedo based parties. And that's where all
16:38
Speaker 1: the money is based, rather than business casual based, rather
16:45
Speaker 1: than turtlenecks and jackets based. If you want to find
16:49
Speaker 1: out about a charity job in it, you can write
16:53
Speaker 1: a letter to the local charity registration office, usually within
16:57
Speaker 1: the state Attorney General's office, and six eight weeks later
17:01
Speaker 1: you might get a letter back. These days, you can
17:04
Speaker 1: go online and uh, I went online actually today and
17:07
Speaker 1: registered with guide Star and there's a charity. No has
17:11
Speaker 1: the money started coming in? Um No. Guide Star is
17:15
Speaker 1: one of the places you can go to check out
17:17
Speaker 1: other charities, and you have to register to log in.
17:20
Speaker 1: And because I wanted to check out, you know, like
17:23
Speaker 1: our friends at Cooperative for Education. Yes, like all the
17:26
Speaker 1: records are there for what you're looking for. I looked
17:30
Speaker 1: at it text form, and you know what my first
17:32
Speaker 1: thought was, Man, I feel so bad that Joe and
17:35
Speaker 1: those guys have to fill this thing out every year. Dude,
17:39
Speaker 1: it was so long, and but they don't have to
17:41
Speaker 1: file taxes. So yeah, true whatever, it's all awash, right,
17:46
Speaker 1: but you'll be glad to know they're you know, obviously
17:47
Speaker 1: doing great work. They're on the up and up. We
17:49
Speaker 1: knew that, Yeah, we definitely didn't know that. We saw
17:51
Speaker 1: it firsthand the the we checked those guys out personally,
17:55
Speaker 1: I stand behind Cohen. Uh. The Center for Better Better
17:58
Speaker 1: Business Bureau, it's another place. The Foundation Center is another place,
18:03
Speaker 1: and you can get basically have access to the numbers
18:06
Speaker 1: if you really want to check it out thoroughly. Right,
18:09
Speaker 1: So the form is gonna have like a general description
18:12
Speaker 1: of the work they do, the programs they do, who's
18:15
Speaker 1: running the thing, where their money is going? Uh? And
18:19
Speaker 1: I think it gets a little more specific than just
18:21
Speaker 1: like programs fundraising an administrative costs. Right, doesn't it break
18:26
Speaker 1: it down a little more like there's had all the
18:30
Speaker 1: different you know drives that they did, and it broke
18:33
Speaker 1: it down specifically to you know, if you were into
18:36
Speaker 1: looking all that stuff up. It's there, right, and I
18:38
Speaker 1: mean like if you really want to know, I mean
18:40
Speaker 1: if you give to like a mega charity like the
18:43
Speaker 1: Salvation Army in the United Way or something like that.
18:46
Speaker 1: Like they have more than than just one program, so
18:49
Speaker 1: they may be doing work that you don't necessarily agree with.
18:52
Speaker 1: So there's another reason to go look at for um
18:55
Speaker 1: because you'll see what what programs they're carrying out, like
18:59
Speaker 1: all of them. Yeah, well that's what the Common Foundation
19:02
Speaker 1: got in hot water, remember with the whole plan parent
19:03
Speaker 1: a thing last year or was that early this year?
19:06
Speaker 1: It was so at some point in the recent past. Yeah,
19:09
Speaker 1: So that's you know, there's when you get that big.
19:11
Speaker 1: There are other associations you might want to know about. Yeah,
19:14
Speaker 1: depending on your your affiliation, you're socio political affiliation, that's right. Uh.
19:19
Speaker 1: There's about three ways that they're going to be spending
19:22
Speaker 1: their money though program services, and these are what you
19:27
Speaker 1: want your money to be going to most. If you
19:29
Speaker 1: want to just feel better about yourself at night, you
19:32
Speaker 1: don't want to think paid the water bill there at
19:34
Speaker 1: the building. You want to think I've put a sandwich
19:37
Speaker 1: in a needy kid's hand a good one too. Uh.
19:41
Speaker 1: Management operational costs is next. Like I said, it's a
19:44
Speaker 1: little less exciting to think about that, but they need
19:46
Speaker 1: to pay their rent and bills, definitely they need. And
19:50
Speaker 1: then you've got fundraising, yeah, which can really rack it up.
19:54
Speaker 1: I mean it's everything from like direct mailer's too lavish parties, um,
19:58
Speaker 1: if you're courting celebrities and they like that kind of thing. Um.
20:02
Speaker 1: And a well run, well managed charity can take you know,
20:08
Speaker 1: X number of dollars whatever they're they're fundraising costs are
20:11
Speaker 1: and grow it exponentially, use it correctly. But there's also
20:15
Speaker 1: charities out there that don't know what they're doing and
20:17
Speaker 1: shouldn't get the same funding. If you've got over a million,
20:21
Speaker 1: there's bound to be a handful that aren't quite right,
20:24
Speaker 1: you know, and some that are outright scams. Yeah, unfortunately,
20:28
Speaker 1: and I think we have one of those, don't. Well.
20:30
Speaker 1: There was a guy, um in this article, there's a
20:33
Speaker 1: guy in Texas who after a tornado I think hit Austin,
20:38
Speaker 1: he set up a charity that asked people the mail
20:40
Speaker 1: one dollar donations checks made out to cash and mail
20:44
Speaker 1: him too this po box and people did. He kept
20:46
Speaker 1: the money. Unsurprisingly, there's just there's a bad place for
20:51
Speaker 1: those people in their next life. Drifters. It's about the
20:55
Speaker 1: worst thing you can do. No one likes you when
20:58
Speaker 1: you're a grifter. Other grifters don't like you. Sure they'll
21:01
Speaker 1: make movies about you, but I mean, like that's about it, Josh.
21:07
Speaker 1: How would you go about so listening money if you
21:09
Speaker 1: were a charity, if you're a nonprofit, well not for profit, Well,
21:13
Speaker 1: one of the things I would do is probably take
21:15
Speaker 1: some of my initial UM money, my initial capital, and um,
21:21
Speaker 1: I would buy some mailing lists of other donors from
21:25
Speaker 1: other charities, which is extremely common practice these days. Yeah,
21:28
Speaker 1: I wonder what kind of money to make doing that. Well,
21:31
Speaker 1: that's that's one reason they do it. They they like
21:33
Speaker 1: a charity, will will compile a mailing list and they'll
21:36
Speaker 1: sell it to other charities for income. Um. Yes, and
21:40
Speaker 1: again it's kind of practice. Uh. They also, um will
21:44
Speaker 1: sell them not necessarily just for the money. They may
21:46
Speaker 1: swap them with other charities. Because if you've donated to
21:49
Speaker 1: a charity, you've separated yourself I imagined from a lot
21:53
Speaker 1: of other people. UM. And you're somebody who may be
21:58
Speaker 1: willing to give money to a different charity. You two. Um.
22:02
Speaker 1: So that's one way I would do a direct mailing.
22:05
Speaker 1: I would hire a bunch of clean cut teenagers who
22:08
Speaker 1: are enthusiastic about the charity that they represented, and send
22:11
Speaker 1: him to the door clearly labeled through uniforms and possibly
22:16
Speaker 1: matching khaki pants uh as representatives of the charity, complete
22:21
Speaker 1: with identification, and lots of pamphlets about the programs that
22:26
Speaker 1: we have. Wow, you're like, you have the starter kit
22:29
Speaker 1: ready to go. It's I'm ready. I just need some
22:33
Speaker 1: an injection of funding. I don't know the programs yet,
22:36
Speaker 1: but everything else I've got lined up. Um. As this
22:39
Speaker 1: article points out, if you are getting more solicitation than
22:41
Speaker 1: you like, you can right the letter to the organization
22:47
Speaker 1: requesting your name be removed. Um. It may or may
22:50
Speaker 1: not work, and keep a copy of that letter, or
22:54
Speaker 1: you can just go to their website and unsubscribe. Well
22:56
Speaker 1: that was I think one of the things that gave
22:58
Speaker 1: this away was like, um, the it's saying like more
23:01
Speaker 1: and more charities are starting to go to the web
23:03
Speaker 1: now exactly, And I think the web was capitalized and
23:06
Speaker 1: maybe in quotation marks and then in parentheses afterwards it
23:11
Speaker 1: said the Worldwide Web. Um. Um, if you want to donate,
23:18
Speaker 1: you can give cash. If you're walking by a Salvation
23:22
Speaker 1: Army Santa Claus, you can't. I mean, it's a way
23:25
Speaker 1: to go. You can throw your change in the bucket
23:26
Speaker 1: if you've done the work. Though you're looking at Form
23:29
Speaker 1: nine nineties and stuff like that, that's probably supplemental to
23:32
Speaker 1: the actual charitable giving you're doing. So if you are
23:35
Speaker 1: like really seriously philanthropic, like it's a pastime of yours
23:39
Speaker 1: or a tax strategy as we'll see, Um, you you
23:44
Speaker 1: will probably want to write checks because they're good records
23:48
Speaker 1: that you want to keep. You might want to go
23:50
Speaker 1: down to your bank and get the canceled check after
23:53
Speaker 1: it's been cashed and um keep it in a safe
23:56
Speaker 1: deposit box. Yes, Or because seven you can donate on
24:01
Speaker 1: the internet with your credit card. Yeah, I hear. More
24:04
Speaker 1: and more charities are going to the web and they're
24:06
Speaker 1: just as many records as if you wrote that check,
24:09
Speaker 1: and it's all very legit these days. UM, probably don't
24:13
Speaker 1: need to worry about it unless, I mean, if you
24:15
Speaker 1: can't tell the difference between a reputable website at this point,
24:18
Speaker 1: then you know you're one of those people that falls
24:21
Speaker 1: for the Nigerian scam, I guess, but I feel bad
24:23
Speaker 1: for these people if it's all like making fun, But well,
24:26
Speaker 1: go listen to the con Artists episode. That will be helpful.
24:29
Speaker 1: Maybe that's a companion this one. Sadly, UM. You can
24:32
Speaker 1: also if you are loaded, or if you really don't
24:36
Speaker 1: like your family, you can leave UM money, land, goods,
24:41
Speaker 1: your oldsmobile, all those things to charities still take them.
24:45
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll will the my squatted land with that too.
24:52
Speaker 1: That would be very nice. Maybe like thanks for this
24:55
Speaker 1: thing that we can do nothing we have to mow
24:57
Speaker 1: this and Josh the final way, is UM really popular
25:01
Speaker 1: these days donating UM old things that you don't use anymore? UM.
25:07
Speaker 1: And you know, we've been doing this forever in terms
25:09
Speaker 1: of like furniture and clothing and stuff like that, but
25:12
Speaker 1: nowadays things like computers, as we mentioned in a recent
25:15
Speaker 1: listener mail or an upcoming listener mail which you're still
25:18
Speaker 1: trying to get yeah about UM donating old computers to
25:22
Speaker 1: this group in Athens, Georgia. But there are lots of
25:24
Speaker 1: organizations that do that now. You can donate your car
25:28
Speaker 1: right that off. UM office supplies, building materials, emergency supplies.
25:33
Speaker 1: Those are huge obviously when catastrophe hits. Yeah, when the
25:37
Speaker 1: poop hits the fan, that's right. And you can write
25:40
Speaker 1: most of this stuff off as well. You can't, um,
25:43
Speaker 1: you can write off the fair market value of it.
25:45
Speaker 1: And if you go to an auction and you pay
25:48
Speaker 1: way more than some something's worth, you can write off
25:54
Speaker 1: whatever you paid over and above the fair market value
25:56
Speaker 1: of that thing. The sucker fee, I the philanthropic fee. Well,
26:02
Speaker 1: that's nice that they give it back, like, well, you
26:04
Speaker 1: were sorted an idiot for paying that much money, But
26:07
Speaker 1: go give it away and we'll at least let you
26:08
Speaker 1: write it off. Okay, you want to talk about tex
26:11
Speaker 1: stuff now? No, Well we're about to. So, uh there
26:16
Speaker 1: are two kinds of UM. Well, there's there's three kinds
26:20
Speaker 1: according to the UM I R S the tax Code,
26:24
Speaker 1: the U S tax Code. There's three designations and then
26:27
Speaker 1: a few subdis designations which we'll get into to the letter.
26:30
Speaker 1: It's the sexiest publication on the planet, UM the tax
26:34
Speaker 1: code for a charitable organization, right, fifty shades of green,
26:37
Speaker 1: that is what they should call it the most Have
26:40
Speaker 1: you read that? Now? Emily didn't? What did she say?
26:44
Speaker 1: She likes sweating all the time. Yeah, I mean it was.
26:46
Speaker 1: It was pretty racy. That's crazy. She blew through the
26:48
Speaker 1: series and you know, a couple of weeks that person
26:51
Speaker 1: was earning like a million dollars a day or something
26:53
Speaker 1: some crazy amount from that for weeks for writing smut.
26:57
Speaker 1: I guess good for her. It was a lady, right, Yeah,
27:01
Speaker 1: but she's got a man's name, Frank, no initials. That's
27:07
Speaker 1: very mask in my opinion. J. K. Rowling sounds like
27:13
Speaker 1: a dude. You think. I never really thought about it.
27:17
Speaker 1: And isn't it like P. D. James? It almost sounds
27:20
Speaker 1: like pet anyway. UM. The three tax codes, yes, So
27:25
Speaker 1: the one that everybody's heard of, it, it's most familiar
27:27
Speaker 1: with is the five oh one C three. You know
27:30
Speaker 1: you've heard of a five oh one C three corporation.
27:33
Speaker 1: Don't pretend like you haven't, Like you're too cool to
27:35
Speaker 1: know about. There's the three, four, and five. Your favorite,
27:38
Speaker 1: I guess is the three. So the five one three,
27:40
Speaker 1: that's the Yeah, that's the that's the money organization. That's
27:44
Speaker 1: the one that's like, UM, it covers that. Let's see
27:46
Speaker 1: prevention of cruelty to children or animals, those kind of organizations,
27:51
Speaker 1: UM educational UM, charities straight up charity charities that helped
27:57
Speaker 1: like the poor and the needy, religious charities, scientific organizations
28:03
Speaker 1: yea yeah, um favorite ones that support national or international
28:08
Speaker 1: amateur sports, which is pretty sweet. Yeah, you can give
28:11
Speaker 1: like to the USK team, right if Don King's involved, though,
28:15
Speaker 1: do not you don't look for a text deduction at
28:17
Speaker 1: the organization. Um. And then uh testing related to public safety,
28:23
Speaker 1: which I was trying to figure out what that would be. Yeah,
28:27
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe an organization that goes around sitting
28:31
Speaker 1: off incendiary devices and fallout shelters to see if they
28:35
Speaker 1: hold up. Yeah, I'm not sure. I was gonna say,
28:38
Speaker 1: like auto safety, but it seems like that would be
28:39
Speaker 1: the auto companies privately doing that. There are like the um, yeah,
28:47
Speaker 1: there are, That's what it is. So anyway, um, all
28:50
Speaker 1: of those except for the public safety one you can
28:53
Speaker 1: write off like without thinking twice without prejudice. Yeah yeah right, Um,
28:58
Speaker 1: unless these any that that is a not for profit
29:04
Speaker 1: or nonprofit corporation that's overseas, yes, and it means that
29:09
Speaker 1: they're based overseas, uh not necessarily that they do most
29:13
Speaker 1: of their work overseas, right, that's where they're they're incorporated
29:16
Speaker 1: is overseas. Yeah, because COED for instance, that's why I
29:19
Speaker 1: mentioned it. They are based out of Cincinnati, even though
29:21
Speaker 1: the work they do is usually in Guatemala. Right, that's
29:23
Speaker 1: an excellent point. Yeah. Um, so that's the five oh
29:27
Speaker 1: one C three. You've got public charity, UM, you've got
29:31
Speaker 1: the private foundation. And a private foundation is UM. It
29:34
Speaker 1: gets its income from investments, endowments, and then it's basically
29:38
Speaker 1: a charity for other charities yea. Then grants that to
29:42
Speaker 1: whoever they see fit, right. And that's a good one
29:44
Speaker 1: to invest in UM because they are they usually know
29:48
Speaker 1: exactly what they're doing more than you you know, and
29:51
Speaker 1: they're like their whole their work is charity, so like
29:54
Speaker 1: they're looking for up and coming ones once they're doing
29:56
Speaker 1: really great work, that kind of stuff. What's well Mann
30:00
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Uh. And then you have a
30:02
Speaker 1: private operating foundation, right, Yeah, and they donate to directly
30:07
Speaker 1: to the causes UM instead of granting uh grants to
30:11
Speaker 1: other charities. The private foundation. If you give to one
30:15
Speaker 1: of those, you may not necessarily be able to deduct it,
30:18
Speaker 1: but a public charity or a private operating foundation, most
30:22
Speaker 1: of the time you'll you'll get the full deduction. I
30:25
Speaker 1: think that's up to about fifty of your adjusted gross income.
30:29
Speaker 1: So if you make fifty dollars and you donate five thousand,
30:34
Speaker 1: you can write that off. It'll take that right away.
30:38
Speaker 1: That's that's a pretty good tax strategy. It is incorporations
30:42
Speaker 1: can um are allowed to deduct all contributions up to
30:47
Speaker 1: usually about ten percent of their taxable income, which that's
30:52
Speaker 1: where it ends. But I mean, think about it. What
30:53
Speaker 1: about corporations that like have zero taxable income, like because
30:57
Speaker 1: of their fancy accounting like to they donate at all?
31:01
Speaker 1: I don't know. I have a big question about that.
31:05
Speaker 1: And that was quite cynical there, and I don't like cynicism.
31:07
Speaker 1: I said, that's probably where they stopped donating, is when
31:09
Speaker 1: they reach that threshold. Not necessarily true, but you know,
31:15
Speaker 1: maybe this well, you know, the the text the deductible
31:20
Speaker 1: charitable contributions as it stands now is kind of under
31:24
Speaker 1: threat actually because the Bush tax cuts are going to expire.
31:28
Speaker 1: Possibly if the Bush tax cuts expire, then um for
31:34
Speaker 1: the for those highest income brackets, they'll lose about eight
31:39
Speaker 1: percent of their UM deduction abilities, which I would think
31:44
Speaker 1: would show a pretty steep drop in charitable giving in
31:48
Speaker 1: that tax bracket. Yeah, and even though it's only five
31:51
Speaker 1: that's you know, still how much was it? Like fourteen
31:54
Speaker 1: billion dollars? And then Obama has a proposal that I
31:58
Speaker 1: don't know if it's going anywhere or not to basically
32:00
Speaker 1: like set of your adjusted gross income is the maximum
32:03
Speaker 1: you can deduct for higher income tax brackets. Yeah. I
32:08
Speaker 1: don't know if it will go anywhere though, but we
32:10
Speaker 1: may see charities like really getting hurt in the future.
32:15
Speaker 1: I'm so ambivalent right now, you're not You're angry behind
32:21
Speaker 1: the ambivalence. What about the C four Oh boy, the
32:24
Speaker 1: C four that that covers um that covers organizations that
32:30
Speaker 1: lobby on behalf of specific causes like social welfare and
32:35
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Uh yeah, so remember, um, there was
32:39
Speaker 1: a big how about but I can't remember. I couldn't
32:43
Speaker 1: remember it before and I can't remember it now. It
32:44
Speaker 1: was a lobbying group that had five oh one C
32:47
Speaker 1: three status. No, but yeah, but it was they were
32:53
Speaker 1: lobbying from behalf of social values. Remember McDonald's got called
32:57
Speaker 1: out and like left, like all these huge corporation is
33:00
Speaker 1: like left this lobbying group. It was like a chamber
33:02
Speaker 1: of commerce, arm and somehow they have five three status.
33:06
Speaker 1: It was a big call for them to to go
33:08
Speaker 1: back or to be forced into which would mean a
33:12
Speaker 1: lot they'd have to pay taxes. That also will include
33:16
Speaker 1: volunteer fire departments, which I thought was interesting, and civic
33:19
Speaker 1: organizations and they are not deductible at charitable donations UM
33:24
Speaker 1: to the C fours except for volunteer fire departments and
33:29
Speaker 1: UM Veterans Organization. Yeah, exactly, So I guess you up
33:32
Speaker 1: to the v A or the vf W v W
33:36
Speaker 1: or the American Legion, maybe even the not the French
33:40
Speaker 1: Foreign Legion though they're overseas. That's right. The C six, Josh,
33:44
Speaker 1: the C six, that's that's actually I guess it should
33:47
Speaker 1: be that that UM organ that lobbying group shouldn't be
33:50
Speaker 1: a five on three. It should be a C six
33:52
Speaker 1: because this covers trade associations and boards, chambers of commerce, UM,
33:59
Speaker 1: real estate. Yeah, we can't forget those, and you can't
34:02
Speaker 1: deduct any or any gifts to those as well. Basically
34:07
Speaker 1: just five one three. And you want to make sure
34:09
Speaker 1: it's not a private foundation and that's a private operating
34:12
Speaker 1: and that's if you're donating money. But we mentioned you
34:15
Speaker 1: can donate your time is a volunteer, which I think
34:19
Speaker 1: it's kind of a neat way to go about it
34:21
Speaker 1: if you're into like, you know, grassroots, hitting the ground,
34:25
Speaker 1: getting your hands dirty. Um. They have figured out that
34:30
Speaker 1: actually this article is I don't know, I'm sorry, I
34:32
Speaker 1: have a new staff for that. They have figured out
34:34
Speaker 1: that it is. UH. An estimated dollar value of volunteering
34:37
Speaker 1: time is twenty eight an hour in two thousand nine. Wow,
34:43
Speaker 1: that's great. And so in two thousand nine, the volunteer
34:45
Speaker 1: time totaled about hundred and sixty nine billion dollars. I
34:49
Speaker 1: wonder how much of that has wasted though, because there
34:52
Speaker 1: in this article they cite ups Survey UPS Foundation. UM.
34:57
Speaker 1: That was taken its back, but at the time they
35:01
Speaker 1: found that like volunteers said that they stopped volunteering because
35:05
Speaker 1: they felt that their time was wasted volunteering. Yeah. I
35:09
Speaker 1: have had experience like that, UM, and I get it,
35:12
Speaker 1: you know, because if you don't have a lot of time,
35:13
Speaker 1: you're like, I want to give my time, you want
35:16
Speaker 1: to have it be used. And I don't want to
35:18
Speaker 1: call out who this was, but it was a group
35:21
Speaker 1: in town. Volunteer showed up and like they didn't know
35:25
Speaker 1: what to do with me, and I did it a
35:26
Speaker 1: couple of times. They didn't know what to do with
35:28
Speaker 1: me until Vince I was like, you know, I'm not
35:30
Speaker 1: going to come back like sit around here. I'm gonna
35:33
Speaker 1: go find somewhere else or maybe you should get your
35:35
Speaker 1: act together a little bit more. Um. But it's tough,
35:38
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, it's easy to criticize, it's tough
35:40
Speaker 1: to manage volunteers. It's one of the most difficult I
35:45
Speaker 1: think it said in the article one of the most
35:47
Speaker 1: difficult parts of running one a nonprofit is is managing
35:51
Speaker 1: and maintaining your volunteers because they Walton brand new and
35:54
Speaker 1: I'm sure they want to be the one doling out soup,
35:56
Speaker 1: you know, where we really need someone to lift those
35:59
Speaker 1: boxes in the back um, which is unglamorous. It's unglamorous,
36:03
Speaker 1: and so it's probably not the easiest thing in the
36:04
Speaker 1: world to manage expectations and what they're supposed to be
36:07
Speaker 1: doing and training and the like. You know, I got
36:12
Speaker 1: some stats. Sixty of households give the charity UM average
36:18
Speaker 1: household contribution two thousand, two hundred and thirteen UM. Majority
36:24
Speaker 1: of charitable dollars went to religion, education percent, grant making,
36:29
Speaker 1: nine percent, human services. It just says percent. They're like
36:34
Speaker 1: making electricity with bodies. Yeah, I think that's exactly what
36:37
Speaker 1: it is. Um. Ninety eight percent of high net households
36:41
Speaker 1: give the charity, which is great, um and beneficial for
36:46
Speaker 1: your tax status. I'm not saying it's why, but you
36:49
Speaker 1: know it's good that that's there at least. And then
36:52
Speaker 1: um six percent of people volunteer and those and religion
36:57
Speaker 1: leads away again at which leads us to did you
37:03
Speaker 1: read the article? I skimmed it. Yeah, let's hear what
37:06
Speaker 1: you got to say. Well, Mitt Romney was criticized recently
37:10
Speaker 1: because and this is criticism by Bill Maher, so take
37:13
Speaker 1: it with a grain of salt. Um. But he counted
37:17
Speaker 1: sixteen point five percent of his income his charitable donations, uh,
37:22
Speaker 1: a lot of which went to the Mormon Church. So
37:25
Speaker 1: that brings up an important thing tithing. If you are
37:29
Speaker 1: a believer of the Bible, you were supposed to tie
37:32
Speaker 1: off the top. It's off the top, is it? According
37:35
Speaker 1: to the Reverend Wealth Joy? Okay, and UM, you can
37:39
Speaker 1: write that off, which I didn't under I didn't know
37:41
Speaker 1: that until today. I didn't either. Um, so Bill Maher
37:46
Speaker 1: says that, you know, some churches and like these well
37:50
Speaker 1: to do organizations like symphony orchestras, colleges and universities with
37:54
Speaker 1: large endowments shouldn't count as charities any longer. So he's
37:57
Speaker 1: kind of slinging some harsh words there. Um, but that
38:02
Speaker 1: sort of says that the only people who can benefit
38:04
Speaker 1: from charity or the poor. And that's just not necessarily
38:07
Speaker 1: the case, because then you've got like hospitals and libraries
38:10
Speaker 1: and museums and these other things. Um, animal organizations. Uh,
38:15
Speaker 1: that would be thrown out under the Bill Maar model.
38:18
Speaker 1: You know. Well, I mean all you need to do
38:21
Speaker 1: is inject a little capitalism, like make the Humane Society
38:24
Speaker 1: in the SPC a really kind of compete for money. Yeah,
38:29
Speaker 1: the one left standing is the one that gets to survive. Um.
38:33
Speaker 1: And uh, they did a study on church budgets and
38:36
Speaker 1: two thousands, so this is not super updated. UM and
38:40
Speaker 1: Christian Today did this and found that an average church
38:43
Speaker 1: budget is about two dollars went to staff compensation for facilities,
38:51
Speaker 1: sixtent for missions, nine percent for church programs, six for
38:56
Speaker 1: admin and supplies, three percent for denominational fees, and three
39:01
Speaker 1: for other handling handling fees, and uh, one of the
39:05
Speaker 1: things that how much was that? How much of that
39:08
Speaker 1: we really want to charity? Well, that's the thing though,
39:12
Speaker 1: the church itself qualifies as a charity with its non
39:15
Speaker 1: exempt status. So like I guess the six percent for
39:19
Speaker 1: mission work would be charity, nine percent for church programs,
39:22
Speaker 1: A lot of that could be charity. But one of
39:25
Speaker 1: the issues is that, but is that also like the
39:28
Speaker 1: music program. Well, that's what I'm saying. That's one of
39:31
Speaker 1: the issues with with considering churches charities. And this is
39:36
Speaker 1: written by a Christian organization saying that churches need to
39:40
Speaker 1: get better about um connecting the giving to the outcome
39:45
Speaker 1: because people like knowing like the literal outcome of where
39:47
Speaker 1: I'm giving my money, whereas churches apparently are not very
39:50
Speaker 1: good at tying that together. And it's really just like
39:53
Speaker 1: it's your tithe it's just for everything, instead of it's
39:56
Speaker 1: for this program, in this program, it's used in this way.
40:00
Speaker 1: So you know the solution to that, what's that? Charging
40:03
Speaker 1: admission to church? If you want to know more about
40:08
Speaker 1: philanthropy or philanthropy, if you say things like a weirdo,
40:12
Speaker 1: you can type that word into the search bar at
40:14
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com. P h I L A
40:17
Speaker 1: N T h R O p y philanthropy uh and
40:21
Speaker 1: I say a handy search bar or search bar or
40:23
Speaker 1: something like that, which means it's time for listener mayo
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Speaker 1: uh and live listener mail today. Oh goodness, since we're
40:31
Speaker 1: covering philanthropy, we're gonna support co ED because we haven't
40:35
Speaker 1: done it in a while. Okay, awesome, you want to
40:38
Speaker 1: tell them about the organization, Josh. For those of you
40:40
Speaker 1: who don't know, you can go back into the deep
40:43
Speaker 1: archives and find our Guatemala Adventure Part one and two.
40:47
Speaker 1: It's the I think one and only time you can
40:49
Speaker 1: clearly here Jerry speaking. But we went to Guatemala to
40:53
Speaker 1: see firsthand with the Cooperative for Education does. And what
40:56
Speaker 1: they do is they take money UM from different donors,
41:00
Speaker 1: basically pile it all together and buy enough books for
41:03
Speaker 1: a class in Guatemala. Then those kids pay rent on
41:06
Speaker 1: those books something that's affordable. It's like two bucks a
41:09
Speaker 1: year or something like that UM that the average Guatemala
41:13
Speaker 1: and family can afford fairly easily, and that goes into
41:16
Speaker 1: pool helping nes grow. And then at the end of
41:19
Speaker 1: that year or a couple of years or a few
41:20
Speaker 1: years when the books are worn out, that that school
41:24
Speaker 1: has the money to replace them. So it's a self
41:26
Speaker 1: sustaining model. Um And basically you can help a kid
41:30
Speaker 1: get out of poverty by getting an education where otherwise
41:34
Speaker 1: they would be working in the field and making tortillas,
41:36
Speaker 1: which we found out they do in addition to going
41:40
Speaker 1: to school normally. So they do great work. We've seen
41:43
Speaker 1: it firsthand. We stand very firmly behind this this organization. Yeah,
41:47
Speaker 1: and not only they have a book program, any computer
41:50
Speaker 1: lab program, so some of your money can go to
41:52
Speaker 1: computer labs and and getting these kids not only computers,
41:55
Speaker 1: but training, which it's the same model. It's just what
41:59
Speaker 1: rather than like set a book, that's like a computer lab. Yeah, yeah,
42:03
Speaker 1: pretty cool. Yeah, I mean stuff these kids have never
42:05
Speaker 1: seen before, and they're and they're learning how to use computers,
42:07
Speaker 1: getting better jobs. It's good stuff. Yeah. All right, So
42:10
Speaker 1: you can visit uh Cooperative for Education dot org and
42:14
Speaker 1: that's different from their old website. So go to Cooperative
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Speaker 1: for Education dot org and you can there's a donate
42:19
Speaker 1: now button at the top right of the screen, or
42:22
Speaker 1: if you want to go down there, you can go
42:24
Speaker 1: on one of the tours. Tours, we've had some listeners
42:27
Speaker 1: go yeah, um, Guatemala got under Jerry's skin. She she
42:31
Speaker 1: became very very much involved with the co ED after
42:35
Speaker 1: that first tripman returned several times and when she went,
42:38
Speaker 1: she would go and there'd be stuff you should know,
42:40
Speaker 1: listeners that went because they listened to the Guatemalan adventures.
42:43
Speaker 1: That's right, um, and they for you can go February
42:47
Speaker 1: nine or August six through eleventh to the Land of
42:50
Speaker 1: Eternal Spring and you will not regret it. And again,
42:55
Speaker 1: what's the website again? Cooperative for Education dot org. Okay, cool? Yeah,
43:01
Speaker 1: go give your money is well spent there check out
43:04
Speaker 1: their form. Yeah, or volunteer or help somebody, help help
43:10
Speaker 1: a panhandler out who knows. Just be philanthropic not misanthropic. Right,
43:15
Speaker 1: we need a T shirt that says that, I bet
43:17
Speaker 1: there's one out there and hey chuck. Yeah, let's just
43:21
Speaker 1: take this moment to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving. Seriously,
43:24
Speaker 1: I don't know if you have traditions like sitting around
43:27
Speaker 1: the table and like telling each other what you're thankful for.
43:31
Speaker 1: I like doing that. Maybe you don't even have family, yeah,
43:35
Speaker 1: maybe you have no one in the world. Surely there's
43:37
Speaker 1: something for you to be thankful for that. Yeah, dig
43:42
Speaker 1: digne people, I'm thankful for that wall in that carpet square. Deep,
43:50
Speaker 1: that's awful. Deep. Are you ready so after Chuck's speel
43:57
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, whatever your tradition is, we hope you're safe
44:01
Speaker 1: and toasty and happy and you have the warmth of
44:05
Speaker 1: the Great Turkey in your spirit. That's good. Thanks. We
44:10
Speaker 1: should make that our sign off every year for Thanksgiving. Well,
44:13
Speaker 1: maybe we will, the great, great Warmth of the Turkey spirit,
44:16
Speaker 1: the great the warmth of the Great Turkey in your
44:19
Speaker 1: spirit or something like that. It could use a little
44:22
Speaker 1: tinkering before we trade market. Agreed, let's get to work
44:25
Speaker 1: on that. Okay. Well until then, Happy Thanksgiving everyone, be safe. Uh.
44:31
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us to
44:32
Speaker 1: wish us Thanksgiving tidings, even if you're from Canada, which
44:36
Speaker 1: celebrates Thanksgiving us some preposterously early time, right, We'll still
44:41
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44:45
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44:48
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44:52
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45:06
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