Throughout the month of December, the Gazette has written thousands of words about giving. Christmas is a fine time to be jolly, but scratch a bit deeper and you’ll find a season of compassion and charity. Right now in St. Albert, it seems the entire city is caught in a selfless frenzy of fundraising, singing, cooking, collecting and donating for any number of causes, after which it all comes to a … pause. Note the word – pause. Not a stop, but a brief slowdown until the whole glorious exercise gets going again.
The name for this behaviour is philanthropy (from the Greek, meaning love of mankind) and in today’s world it is a year-round pursuit. There are cycles in the giving calendar but at a certain base level it never stops. Someone or some organization is always recruiting, doorknocking, soliciting pledges or working on the next campaign. And it’s everywhere. If it weren’t so widely dispersed, it would qualify as an industry. Think of all the players in St. Albert alone who do good work though the year – the schools, churches, the city, service clubs, charities, sports associations, and businesses small and large.
What’s happening in our city is a reflection of the evolving breadth and sophistication of philanthropy, which has moved from government and charitable organizations to NGOs and private foundations deploying the latest in management techniques and mobile technology to promote their causes and solicit donations. Some groups use social media to ask for microdonations of a few cents per person, which can raise a lot of money if you have a mailing list of several million. Some foundations, notably in the United States, reach out to millionaires and billionaires, also with truly happy results.
Behind all this giving of time and money there is the central question of why we do it. The answer is simple: because it’s good. Human beings are capable of tremendous evil as the 20th century amply demonstrated. But we also have an astounding capacity for helping our neighbours, community and society. On a very small scale, look at the good works that were done during the recent snowstorms in St. Albert, strangers helping strangers with shovels, snowblowers or a friendly push. Look at the worthy recipients of the City of St. Albert philanthropy awards. (An excellent feature on local philanthropy appeared in the Dec. 1 edition of the Gazette under the byline of reporter Scott Hayes).
On a larger scale, there is much to celebrate as well. True, the world is not a perfect place but we’re moving in the right direction. Indeed, Canadian academic Steven Pinker, who was recently in Edmonton, has written a book on this very topic. In The Better Angels of Our Nature, he argues that the growth of literate, modern, trading societies has produced a dramatic decline in human violence as manifested in war, child abuse, animal cruelty and a number of other measures.
Canadians can expect to hear more about philanthropy over the next few years thanks to Gov. Gen. David Johnston. In 2011, when he was sworn in, Johnston pledged to make philanthropy a priority of his term in office. He also expressed the hope that it would be a hallmark of the celebrations marking Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017. Helping one’s neighbour, he said, should be seen not as an extracurricular activity, but as a core feature of Canadian citizenship.
To which we can only say: Merry Christmas!
