It sounds like something out of Curb Your Enthusiasm or Seinfeld, but we have recently seen some donors embrace giving out of spite.
Shortly after conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh died, Tommy Marcus, a social-media influencer and meme artist made a gift of $100 in Limbaugh’s name to Planned Parenthood. He posted on Instagram, where he runs the account quentin.quarentino with over 600,000 followers, that he made this gift asking: “Would [it] be terrible if we raised $10,000 for Planned Parenthood because Rush Limbaugh hilariously is deceased?” Limbaugh was known to use mockery and belittling language in criticizing birth control, abortion, and feminism so that this appeal was turning that approach around on him. In the end, Marcus reported 46,186 donors gave over $1.2 million. Planned Parenthood did not launch this campaign, but it tweeted out its thanks.
While giving in honor of someone has a long tradition, this collection represents rejecting someone’s legacy. It was matching a scornful approach with a positive outcome for one nonprofit. It was spite philanthropy. Like the social media that birthed it, spite philanthropy is likely to exacerbate rifts in society and place nonprofit organizations at the center of societal divisions. While such an approach may attract attention and support in the short term, it may move nonprofits further into the realm of partisanship.
Those of us who study philanthropy have long argued that giving is the public expression of private values, but scholars and nonprofit professionals have focused on the brighter lights of human motives: altruism, generosity, and concern. Charitable giving after disasters is among those emotional reactions that propel people to donate. People see the images of need and react generously after major disasters, especially as we have seen during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Disasters are certainly not the only time that emotional responses drive donations. Since the 2016 election, so-called rage philanthropy led donors to support a multitude of causes, including Planned Parenthood as well as civil-rights organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center. This continued with gifts to charities focused on immigrant rights or environmental organizations following Trump administration policy changes. A GivingTuesday 2019 fundraising appeal by Patagonia even explicitly mentioned donating in the name of “your holdout uncle who refuses to believe in climate science.”
Rage philanthropy was driven by outrage over President Trump’s language. But it was also a response to an actual danger — donors correctly surmised that a Trump presidency would challenge civil rights, immigration, and environmentalism after 2016. Rage philanthropy was essentially politics by other means, a long tradition in philanthropy. But the fundraising appeal for Planned Parenthood in Limbaugh’s name was not a reaction to a threat. It was not a response to a policy change. It was spite philanthropy.
Studies of bequests indicate that frayed personal relationships motivate some donors to give to a charity versus leaving money to family members. Some cite dislike and others apathy on the part of relatives. These personal, private relationships are now, thanks to social media, extending to the public sphere. The collection was in “honor” of Limbaugh, although it clearly was the opposite of the values Limbaugh stood for. We don’t know the full range of donor motivations, including how many had previously supported Planned Parenthood, but we do know that the campaign drew on social-media conventions of mockery, owning an opponent, and dismissing opposite views.
A GameStop Moment?
What does this mean for philanthropy? How long before nonprofits, whether through intermediaries or directly, begin to use other occasions like this to engage donors? In some ways, this is an opportunity for more controversial organizations to crowdfund. The average gift in the Limbaugh spite drive was about $26, close to what Sen. Bernie Sanders famously raised in his presidential campaigns. For causes that have failed to achieve support from traditional philanthropic sources, such edgy campaigns may allow them to draw support. People are already giving more to hot-button issues. For instance, there was a doubling of donations made from 2015 to 2019 by corporate employees through the Benevity workplace giving site to organizations focused on income inequality, immigration, women’s rights, and climate change.
Still, there is a threat to philanthropy here as well. Certainly the historical record is strewn with examples of donors giving out of self-serving and even distasteful motivations. But in focusing on issues that are politically charged, do donors leave behind more traditional nonprofits that provide essential services? Does a rush from one hot-button issue to the next pose struggles for nonprofits that cannot rely on donor engagement to keep them giving? Is this a “GameStop moment” in which the fundamentals of an organization don’t matter so long as there is publicity and support behind an idea?
For nonprofit organizations, the question is, is the money worth it? Like any fundraising question, the answer depends on the values and positions an organization seeks to advance. Is the nonprofit seeking to sharpen a politicized position, or is dedicated to a broad tent of services? Is it comfortable raising money for the short-term or seeking long-term engagement? Does it want to become the go-to organization for such giving or get ignored in the publicity such an appeal brings another organization?
Short-Term Gains
If disaster philanthropy is any indication, then the answer is that spite philanthropy is likely to create new winners and losers. Disaster donations mirror mass-media coverage, and when that ends, most giving ends. This means the majority of donors give immediately and never really learn about or seek to address the long-term impact of a hurricane, flood, or mass shooting. Spite philanthropy is also likely to create spikes that quickly drop off once the moment passes. Donors are not looking to address a problem but gleefully expressing feelings through their gifts.
As we have learned repeatedly this year, donors and nonprofit organizations have all of the biases of societal life at large, so it may be inevitable that social-media conventions would be adapted to philanthropic giving.
Spite philanthropy will certainly remain a small portion of the total amount donated annually but may lead to spikes in gifts to organizations that pursue more aggressive approaches to defining problems — namely, the organizations that seek to tear down a view as opposed to build one up. The open question remains: Will the nonprofit world and society be worse off for spite philanthropy? And will these appeals exacerbate societal rifts and increase partisanship in an arena where Americans have often worked together to benefit their communities?