Rage Giving
Are crowdfunding donations to a defense fund for the Casanova Killer deductible. No.
Humans can be pretty stupid, emotional or rational, depending on your perspective. People who would never give a dime to to a nonprofit hospital gladly give hundreds of thousands of dollars in a fit of rage to a good looking murderer caricatured striking a blow against health care corporate greed. It’s called “rage giving” and it is usually mentioned to explain a temporary increase in donations following a disturbing legal or political occurrence. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, for example, donations to pro-choice organizations increased for awhile. A defense fund for Daniel Penny, the New York subway rider who choked out a mentally ill black man took in millions in donations. In my neck of social media, people talk about whether the outcome in Penny’s case or the outpouring in Luigi’s case would have been different if the angry and otherwise “law abiding citizen” had been black and the greedy or dangerous victim was white. I hate to admit that I kinda don’t care in Penny’s case. I can’t be objective because my starving artist daughter — 100 pounds soaking wet — rides the subway all by herself to her Manhattan day job every weekday. If she is on a subway platform or car where some nut is yelling, screaming and threatening to hurt someone, well . . . Anyway, here is an interesting article about “rage giving” from Town & Country:
Individuals are increasingly turning to a philanthropic phenomenon scholars have deemed “rage giving.” Rage givers typically donate in small sums ($5 or $10), are first-time donors to the organization, and are donating as much to make a statement as to make a difference. According to a report on the phenomenon published by the Association of Fundraising Professionals (ATP), the experience of rage giving is almost always sparked by a divisive political moment, fueled by extensive media coverage around said moment, and characterized by a sudden, unexpected increase in donations and a strong emotional response in donors.
Historically, philanthropy wasn’t about intense feelings of anger or outrage. People typically gave to charity as a sense of duty, or because they were passionate about the cause. That is definitively not the case in rage giving. “The rage gift is actually a form of political protest,” says Dr. Jennifer Taylor, who studies donor psychology, “a charitable donation motivated by dissatisfaction with the political climate.”
Giving in response to bad news is not exactly new; humanitarian groups and disaster-relief organizations have always fundraised in the aftermath of catastrophe. But rage giving, Taylor says, is “unique and distinct from other types of giving.” Taylor, who co-authored Rage Giving with Katrina Miller-Stevens for Cambridge University Press, first noticed this phenomenon during the 2016 election. Rage donors, she explains, are dissatisfied with something happening in politics or the world, and thus compelled to do something—in part because they actually believe it can make a difference, and in part to get rid of those negative feelings. Taylor calls rage giving a form of effective altruism, a concept that advocates using “evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible.”
Nonprofits all over the political spectrum benefit from rage giving. In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook school shooting, the NRA “had a record fundraising cycle,” according to The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to reporting on gun violence. The anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List raised $20 million in the two months following the news that the Supreme Court would be ruling on abortion—many multiples of their average donation rate.
darryll k. jones