This article is correct that lots of charitable giving decisions are focused on benefiting the giver. It's true that most orgs' fundraising pitches emphasize th

This article is correct that lots of charitable giving decisions are focused on benefiting the giver. It's true that most orgs' fundraising pitches emphasize the effectiveness of their programs. Retail orgs also tug at heartstrings to get people to give. But I think the author misses something. The "feel-good" and "effectiveness" arguments are part of entry-level charity. They are not the whole story, not by any stretch of the imagination. They're intended to convince people to start giving, using this argument: There's a lot of bad in the world and I can exercise my personal agency to make it less. This so-called consumer-hero pitch is a retail pitch. It's a way to get people to start giving and acquire a habit of generosity. In behavioral economics lingo, it's a "nudge." Think of the pitch from "Save the Children". It's effective. So is the Kiva pitch. The next question is, what are we nudging / being nudged toward? Once we have a habit of generosity how should we proceed? Who can we trust to deploy the capital and labor we hand over to them? My observation from my experience working in nonprofits: the real problems are hard. Sure, we can raise money to buy a Thanksgiving turkey for each family in public housing, and that's all good. But actually changing things so fewer families need subsidized roofs over their heads? I don't know how to do that. I personally believe better education will help, so I work with kiddos. Others work on addiction issues, higher-minimum-wage issues, systemic racism, public transportation, criminal-justice reform, and all the other civil-society stuff that makes life hard for people down on their luck. I have to trust them with my cash donations. They WILL do a better job deploying my cash than I could. Charity spending is like the old adage about advertising: about a quarter of it is worthwhile, but we cannot know which quarter. If the "consumer-hero" pitch gets more people to the point where we know that and still are generous, I'm all for it.