Political Giving is a Sugar High. Nonprofit Giving Promotes More Durable Gratification
In the early fall of 2022, a confident and gregarious middle-aged man accompanied by a younger aide approached me as I walked around the local farmer’s market. He introduced himself. “Hi, I’m Congressman B__ and I am running for re-election. I hope you will vote for me and, if you can, make a donation to support my candidacy.” After chatting with me for a couple of minutes, he moved on to greet another suburban Saturday morning shopper. I walked away from our encounter pleased and a little puffed up. My Congressman had singled me out and he had listened attentively to my concerns, I told myself. He didn’t need to pay attention to me to get my vote, but his brief attention had accomplished its principal purpose. When I returned home, I popped onto his campaign website and contributed to his campaign. Then I sat back and, for a little while, felt virtuous about my participation in the democratic process.
My Saturday morning story illustrates many of the dynamics of grassroots giving. Political and nonprofit donors give for a range of reasons, including altruism, an affinity for the recipient’s political orientation or social mission, social forces often including a wish to have their generosity seen by others, and the emotional reward triggered by helping others. A candidate may appeal to the ego of a likely supporter by singling her out at a local gathering. A candidate may ask for a donation in a telephone call or solicit support at a cocktail party where a host gathers like-minded friends. Some may write a check because the candidate’s attention flatters them or because they wish to fulfill the implied social contract they made when they accepted the invitation to the party. After making a donation, the giver feels the self-congratulatory shine that comes with membership in the donor class. And maybe, if the donor pauses to think about it, he or she feels a little warm glow because their contribution may make it a smidgen more likely that a candidate who shares their social and political values gets elected. Nowhere in this process is there a thoughtful consideration of how their campaign dollars will be spent or whether their preferred social mission could be advanced more efficiently by giving to another candidate in a different race or to an organization that more directly supports that mission.
If I had reflected before making my donation, I would have recognized, to borrow a phrase from Edwin Edwards, the former governor of Louisiana, that the only way my Congressman was going to lose his race was if he was “caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy.” My District has sent Democratic representatives to Congress for at least the past 50 years. In 2022, my Congressman would outspend his opponent by a factor of more than 100/1 and would win by almost 30 points. At the same time, (according to 2020 Census data), 11.6% of the residents of my District live in poverty and in 2022 a local food kitchen served more than 70,000 meals to District residents living with food insecurity. The annual budget of that food kitchen was only 30% more than my congressman spent winning an election that he could not lose.
My District is neither alone as an example of ill-considered political giving, nor is it a particularly egregious case. In 2022, donors contributed $29.1 million to the campaigns of Marjorie Taylor Greene ($12.5 million) and her opponent Marcus Flowers ($16.6 million). That’s $97 per voter. In the 2020 South Carolina U.S. Senate race, the candidates received $239.5 million in donations – approximately $161 per voter. Congressperson Greene won her election by almost 50 points. Senator Graham won re-election by 10 points. A convincing argument can be made that the Democratic donors in these races lost twice – first, because their preferred candidates were defeated and second because they wasted dollars supporting candidates that never had a chance at winning. But I am transfixed by another possibility. What if donors recognized the all-but-certain outcomes of these races and instead directed their giving to truly competitive political races or to social missions that they endorse or that serve their local communities? Either of these goals is achievable with minimal effort. Each major party has campaign committees whose principal function is to collect and re-allocate private donations, presumably to candidates in competitive races. And digital fundraising platforms have evolved to identify where political donations will offer the most impact and to aggregate donations and allocate them to highly competitive races. In many places, community trusts gather charitable donations and re-direct those gifts to nonprofits serving the local community. Either of these conduits (and many others) offer a more effective path for channeling altruistic giving.
In 2024, according to the Cook Report, both candidates have “a good chance of winning” in only 22 of the 538 upcoming congressional elections. Only 4 of the 34 Senate elections this year are similarly rated as “toss ups”. In approximately 90% of the upcoming congressional and Senate elections, each marginal dollar donated will be water poured into a glass that is already full. Thoughtful grassroots donors should limit political donations to toss-up races, and even there, they will learn what every political donor eventually learns: the one certain and lasting reward for making a political donation is a raft of solicitations to make more donations. In contrast, social science research has found that “prosocial spending and happiness fuel each other in a circular fashion.”
In future election seasons, I hope for the good sense to learn from my past mistakes. I also hope that media and nonprofits in localities with non-competitive races will decry wasteful political fundraising and promote giving that more directly helps local communities. My congressman is going to win re-election by a large margin, so I will direct my donations in another direction. If I want to participate in the political process, I will look for close races or I will give to a donation aggregator. More likely, I will donate my dollars to one of the many nonprofits that make a visible contribution to my community, either by giving directly to a local institution or indirectly through my local community trust. In hindsight, I feel a bit foolish about my past political donations. Any reward that I once felt receded as soon as I recognized that most of my donations went to candidates who had no chance of winning or, more frequently, no chance of losing. I am confident that a year from now, I will continue to feel the warm glow of my contributions to local charities.
About the Author:
John K. Carroll is passionate about helping organizations make a positive impact in their communities. He is Chairman and Founder of DonorSpring, LLC and is committed to empowering nonprofits with the tools to connect with small-dollar donors and raise the funds to achieve their mission. John has spent most of his career in the criminal justice world, first as a federal prosecutor and then as a criminal defense attorney. Upon retirement from practice, John took on the position of President at the Legal Aid Society in New York. At DonorSpring, John is developing a suite of easy-to-use tools, specifically designed for nonprofits, based on the successes of political fundraising.