My End of the Year Giving
Time to fork it over.
I'm giving to a few different causes here at the end of the year, but for all of the rest of you, I’m going to make this easy. You should give to PAZ (Pan American Zoonotic Research and Prevention). While everyone else is telling you to give locally, I’m going to ask you to give to people you will never see and suffer from diseases that you will (ideally) never know. The world is full of charities that are emblazoned with pink, covered in ice water, have wealthy celebrities hawking for them, and get all sorts of people to run, swim, or slide through the mud in order to fill their coffers.
PAZ will not ask you to do any of this. From the comfort of your couch in your dry, climate-controlled dwelling, you can donate any amount of money, large or larger, and I will not ask you to undergo any sartorial or physical deprivation. My preference? Actually, that you give less, but check the box for monthly giving. With a regular income we can plan for the future, and don’t have to rely on trying to beg donors to give large amounts.
It’s also trying to get away from the band-aid approach. Very few problems are fix-it and go. Change is generational, there are setbacks, and the water and electricity and medicine are ongoing costs. I’m going to stop here.
Today’s recipient of my charitable dollars is Wikipedia. I feel like I have a responsibility to pay for the information I use, and I don’t want the information paid for by someone with an axe to grind. Wikipedia’s editing and forums allow dissenters to make their views known, and misinformation can be corrected. It also gets some really realllly funny hacks. Try that with your World Book.
