Religious Institutions Deserve Support

To the Editor:

As an active church member and development professional, I was disappointed with Patrick Rooney’s comments about “compulsory” giving to churches and other religious organizations (“How Americans Give,” May 1).

Do some churches pressure their members to give? Probably, as do many other nonprofits. For example, it’s common practice at many orchestras and universities to require mandatory “donations” in order to purchase the best seats at concerts and sporting events. Philanthropy, like most human activities, is the product of mixed motivations.

Ultimately, community-based religious groups such as churches, synagogues, and mosques deserve a high level of giving because they offer a high level of service. They provide counseling programs, community centers, food pantries, youth and senior activities, arts events, and disaster relief, not to mention their weekly religious services. You would be hard-pressed to find other groups that address so many needs in people’s lives. If a family with limited discretionary income is going to choose only one charity to support, I think their local church is the best option they have.

Micheal W. Hickerson
Director of Development
New Hope Center
Edgewood, Ky.

To the Editor:

New Englanders are often considered to be “cold” by residents of other states (“New Hampshire Donors Covet Their Independence — and Wealth,” May 1). What these others don’t understand is that New Englanders hold back emotional displays not because they don’t feel the emotions — it’s that one does not burden others with one’s own troubles, because they have enough of their own. Conversely, it is unseemly to boast of one’s generosity.

The article mentions the New Hampshire motto, “Live Free or Die.” Persons who live free (and these folks, bless ‘em, do take the motto very seriously, being Yankees) do not rely on the charity of others to make it through life. You take what life gives, and you deal with it. Period.

New Englanders are no different from anyone else. They feel the same emotions, joys, and fears. They just do not engage in unseemly displays that would affect others.

The challenge for nonprofit organizations in New Hampshire is twofold: one, to educate the populace about today’s economy, and second, to demonstrate that giving will not rob recipients of their independence.

I suppose a third task is appropriate: You’re not blowing your own horn when you agree to let your gift be announced. Rather, you are demonstrating that concern for community integrity which brought the early settlers here in the first place.

Today, a one-salary family most often cannot make it financially, and when trouble hits, they often have no support systems to fall back on because we rarely stay and live in the places where we were born. Families can fall into difficulties very quickly.

Because New England churches historically have not been the kind of organizations profiled in the article about giving in Brooklyn, there needs to be woven — by some means — a social safety net to help people stay safe while they recover. How better to show concern for your neighbor than to pitch in?

Preserving dignity and preserving independence are important. Taking help when it is needed, as long as it is cheerfully given, will not destroy the independence of the recipient. Rather, it is a demonstration of loving one’s neighbor as oneself for the giver, and for the recipient, an acknowledgment that it will be paid to others when they are in need.

I wish the Giving New Hampshire folks a lot of luck. They have a large job to try and change entrenched ideas, a vital task, it would seem. But it is, after all, the American way, is it not?

Lynne Burt-Jenkins
Director of Prospect Research
Pacific Symphony Orchestra
Santa Ana, Calif.