The Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy

The 161 Street Writing Group is in full swing. Three Sundays a month, Eric, Enrry, Shakur and I meet at McDonald’s to share our writing and discuss topics of interest to Bronx teens high school, the Yankees, and fresh graffiti. You can take part in the discussion at our blog. An awesome excerpt from Carlos’ latest piece:

Today I woke up, had two cups of coffee, I’m feeling wide awake. I feel like a motor filled with gas sitting with my old classmates. Enrry looks like a college boy. Eric looks red. We all sitting having coffee. I’m looking outside.

The first thing I see is the new Yankee Stadium. Looking at different faces. I say the world is crazy. Why do I say that? I say that because here I am with my old teacher and his friend, and Enrry and Eric, and I think I did the right thing in coming instead of being in the streets.

It was another year of ingenuity, hilarity, and the right-between-the-eyes reminder that human beings have an enormous capacity for compassion and creativity. Here’s a summary of the projects that the third class of the Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy came up with:

Chris M. (’07) initiated Sarah, a friend from work, and she followed—unknowingly—in the long tradition of secret philanthropers giving to their artistic friends so they can make more art. An excerpt from her write-up:

I am on my iphone, in a car with my parents, crossing the Delaware Memorial Bridge. We are on our way to DC, where I grew up, to the Inauguration. This was much more difficult than I imagined. Everyone likes to get money. And for me it’s easy to spend money. If it’s in my wallet then I get to buy juice at the deli, and so on. But money in my wallet with a responsible trajectory, a sort of hundred dollar bill paper airplane with a hero for a captain, this was new. I was tempted to give it to the Jewish man on 14th street, who holds the sign that says, my wife and daughter died. But then I realized it would be a hot potato paper plane, possibly motivated by guilt, and that I needed to give it more thought. Then I got mad at myself for not being more resourceful, for not knowing resourceful people. What happened to my life? I used to work outside in shorts and now I buy juice from a deli. Frustrated and cranky, I thought about returning it to Chris. Finally, I am out with Sarah. We have just eaten an amazing meal. There is snow and the trees are beautiful. My boyfriend throws a snowball at us which nearly hits a Hasid who is wheeling a body into a building. A body! It takes me and Sarah a mutual minute to realize this, what with our talking and the snow and the nightsky. Plus, it could have been a long tray of cookies the ease with which he wheeled that body by us. There’s snow on the canvas which covers the body.  And for a moment we all smell death. This is a smell that stays in the nostrils. I decide right then and there, in a moment I tell some of my students to have, a be here now moment, that I’m giving the money to the person I’m standing with. We are alive, she’s also called Sarah, only she’s a graduate student and a curator and artist and a new friend. And Danish. She made her own wedding dress. I say, what would you do with one hundred dollars. Buy a small pig and house train it, she said. For serious, I said. Buy those feathers I always wanted, she said. But actually, she needs money to put towards a trip to Marfa, in West Texas. A curator’s paradise, to visit Donald Judd’s Chinati Foundation.

Ramin (’07) and Hallie, a new member, recently faced the daunting task of writing, addressing, and sending a thank you note. They started reflecting on how easy and wonderful a practice it is, and how rarely it happens these days, so they bought $100 worth of thank you cards and stamps and handed them out to the folks in the room, inviting them to send someone a thank you note from their lives for anything that had been meaningful, even existence.

Felice (’07) initiated Monica, who took her challenge to heart and spirit. When Felice first told her about the society, Monica’s first image was of herself dropping the $100 in an offering basket. Later, as she walked around the city, chatted with friends, reflected on what she might do (all, by the way, improved for the group on party night as Monica is a woman of the theater), she kept wrestling with other ideas vs. this original image. Finally, at church, the basket went around and—gasp!—missed her entirely. She wondered if it wasn’t a sign, when all of the sudden the person who had volunteered to do the collecting gave her a knowing look and held the basket out toward her. She dropped the money in. Right before the party, still not sure if this was the right thing to do, Monica sat down next to a cute man at a bar and told him about the society. He said he was so inspired by her offering. Monica got his number.

Amy (’08) (who was initiated by Ramin of ’07) and Mike, a new member, decided that they wanted to use money itself as a medium for their reflections on giving. First they asked 100 of their dearest friends to send along some thought, image, emoticon that expressed their relationship to giving. Then they picked their 20 favorites and wrote them on five dollar bills. Then, like little economic Easter bunnies, they hid these bills all over New York City. One was hidden somewhere in the venue of the party, they explained, sneakily. We only found it upon leaving for the night; it was dropped in a little plastic slot for brochures right outside the theater. We left it there.

(more…)

Claire, one of this year’s givers saw this short film and was so moved that she, not only organized a screening for the LGBTQ teens that she interacts with in her role as a social worker, but endowed an internship for one of those teens to work on the making of the full length feature. Check out the trailer:

You can watch the short on iTunes or Netflix.

Journalist Marci Alboher on her experience:

I think this style of giving really does cause you to question why we give and what goes into the the decisions we make about who is worthy of our generosity. But for me the whole process was fraught. Because this process involves reporting back, I felt some weird pressure to give in a way that had a good story to it. And I’m not sure that’s what should motivate our giving decisions. I also felt consumed to find someone who appeared exceptionally needy and ran into the same ethical/moral/philosophical quandaries that hit you any time you choose to give to one person or cause over another — why help here when there is greater suffering there? And because 100 is an amount that would feel generous in some circumstances (a tip to a taxi driver), but miniscule in others (to someone who is being evicted from an apartment), I found myself searching for those who were not suffering too badly but for whom any little bit would provide a welcome treat. That all said, when I ultimately gave my hundred away, I did it on a lark. Last weekend, I was visiting my 94-year-old grandmother and told her about this experiment. She immediately said, “Why are you looking so hard when we have so many people struggling in our own family?” I realized she was right and when I got home, I sent a card to a cousin of mine who lives in Florida and whom I rarely talk to. She’s a single mom and recently had a hard time with a lot of dental work that has left her financially strapped. I’d missed her birthday last month so I sent her the money with a card telling her to buy something she wants or needs. Then I got my next round of guilt. Why didn’t I just send her a hundred of my own and help someone even more in need?

How much does human interaction cost on the conversation market?

Amy and Mike wrote quotations about giving onto five dollar bills and then hid them all over New York City. Here’s an inspiring sample:

Daniel May, class of ‘07, had these strangers pick out their favorite book, he paid for them, then he invited them to exchange and explain why the book had such meaning for them. The strangers also took these super awesome awkward polaroid pictures together.

Workshop NYC, an amazing group of graphic designers, created this video collage for the second meeting of the Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy. They were sponsored by Mr. Christopher Roan, the Vice President of the Society.

As the Oprah empire started rolling out advertisements for her latest adventure — a reality television show called “Oprah’s Big Give” — my inbox and voicemail were flooded by friends and family claiming indignantly, “Oprah stole your idea!” They were referring to Oprah’s new show, in which participants compete every week to give away large amounts of her money in a short amount of time — and in a way that will please a team of judges.

I wasn’t that mad. After all, it’s not the worst thing to be ripped off by the most successful communicator in the universe and, let’s face it, Oprah’s “idea people” probably weren’t lurking at KGB Bar listening to my friends and I tell stories about slipping $20 bills in young adult fiction books at the Brooklyn Public Library.

You see, two years ago, I started The Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy. Not so secret, but indeed creative, the project consisted of me giving ten of my friends one hundred dollars and inviting them to, in turn, give that money away. Then my whole motley crew gathered together at a bar, imbibed, and told the stories of their forays into guerilla giving (no competition involved). It was so fun in 2006 that we did it again in 2007, and the second time, some of the original recipients gave away their own hundreds. It’s become a bit like Pay It Forward, without the annoyance of Haley Joel Osment.

Read more here.

Intro video from 2007 of the Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy, held at Tom & Jerry’s. Please excuse my screeching above all the pandemonium and the less-than-optimum lighting.

For more, check out bubba56’s YouTube channel. Thanks Bub!