The Value of Charities to Our Economy

by Dock Houk


Some of you may have read Phil Rucker’s article in The Washington Post and elsewhere on the Value of Non-Profit (Charities) to the Washington, DC regional economy. It is estimated in Rucker’s article that…

1. The economic value of the contributions of Philanthropy to the Washington, DC was more than $9.6 Billion dollars.

2. The charities in the DC area number 7,614.

3. Usually the services are delivered less expensively and more prudently than the Government,

4. And that the key areas are:
a. Health care,
b. Homelessness,
c. Hunger,
d. Violence, and
e. Literacy.

The report also mentions the human effort involved, and that’s where I would like to focus. My personal opinion is that personal effort to “heal the hurts” that our companions on this blue marble planet Earth feel every day, is the reason that charities are important to the Washington, DC Regional Area, and elsewhere in the United States and the world.

In fact I’ll say this: I believe that tomorrow’s world will have a growing and dominating amount of employment in the Service Industries, and of that employment sector, charitable employment will be growing and eventually dominating. In other words, most of our people will be at work, in and for charities, pouring out their energy to help make the world a better place to live.

In the early days of the Industrial Revolution, which began in the Western countries in 1789 in the Textile Field, manufacturing employment was most important. It was not until 1964 that Service Industries caught up and passed Manufacturing Industries in the employment of human beings. In the time since then, Service Industries continue to grow and soon, charitable employment will dominate.

Here are some tips for tomorrow’s planners:

1. Please offer to pay “volunteers” reasonable payment for the work they do.
2. If THEY choose, they may donate those funds for a tax deduction.
3. Pay these people well – do not regard what many call “The Charity Poverty Syndrome” as a valuable model.
4. Realize that unpaid volunteers are not free. They cost the charity money – in recruiting, supervisory, and administrative services.
5. Realize that unpaid volunteers are often NOT dependable and OFTEN unmotivated.

And think about two things:

1. Marx and Socialism opined that, “From each according to ability, to each according to need.” This pillar of Marxism thought that people would work really hard, and be willing to receive someone else’s assessment of his needs. When I spoke about exploitation in 1980 in Irkutsk, Russia, a worker gave me the laborer’s adage “YOU PRETEND YOU’RE PAYING ME, I PRETEND I’M WORKING. Volunteers or low paid workers are a bad idea.

2. Take a look at the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 9:7, where Paul says: “Who serves at his own expense? Or who tends a flock and doesn’t drink of the milk? Or who tends a field and doesn’t eat of the grapes?... for the plowman who plows or the thresher that threshes ought to be the first to share in the crops.” Or try Deuteronomy 25:4 where Moses advises, “Don’t muzzle the ox while he treads the grain.”

Because we need to build a solid foundation for the charitable activities that will be so important to tomorrow’s world. And the free market is the best guide we have. The socialistic model has already failed.