Oh those emails!

I received an email from a friend of mine this morning. The email was written as sort of a "heads up" about giving to nonprofit foundations that support other organizations that may not be in line with ones "moral compass." While I appreciate where she was headed with the email - I am looking to the potential damage it can do. Let me explain.

Right now I'm enrolled in an MBA program. I have Business Economics (I could go on and on in another post) and what I've gotten thus far is this....economics is all about trade offs. By choosing one aspect over another there are certain costs and sometimes choices are made withouth thinking about the secondary effects.

The email was sent to raise awareness about the misuse of funds. A particluar foundation gave money in support of a cancer program the grant seeking organization never enacted. Instead, the funds were thought to support another program, specifically abortion. So the idea behind the email was to "inform" me, before I decided to support the unnamed foundation via a walk/run etc. I should be aware what I "think" I'm raising funds for...I'm not.

So I took it upon myself to check out Guidestar and the Form 990. What I discovered is this Foundation spends hundreds and thousands of dollars supporting other organizations that do exactly what they are supposed to do with the monies! Pages upon pages list Universities and University Medical Centers - all of which are the hubs of brilliant minds that may one day develop a cure for cancer.

So, back to the email that was sent - encouraging me "not" to support the Foundation because it supports an organization that supports pro abortion. Yet, the Foundation is impacting and making real strides in supporting education, awareness and research of cancer (pro life? If I try to develop a cure for something that kills people...is that pro-life too?). Consider for a moment I forward this particular email to everyone I know and individuals decide to withhold their donations on the grounds one specific organization misused funds. We must ask ourvselves...what are the potential "side effects?"

There was no mention of the fact the Foundation has not made an recent contributions to this organization as well....as far as I'm concerned it is old news.

What I struggle with is the idea of being short-sighted. Stop giving - without considering the amount of good. I guess it goes back to the other book I started to read (and never finished) called "The Paradox of Choice" - we can ask ten people what they think about a paricular automobile and have ten favorable reviews, yet once one person indicates they've had trouble with that particular auto - we can't let it go. We most often, will take the 1 negative over the 10 positives and make that negative influence our decision.

Do I let 72 grants made over 5 years to an organization that supports abortion influence my opportunity to support an foundation that has given thousands of grants over 15 (or even more) years to organizations that truly value quality of life? I guess I have to weigh the costs...and I don't have to think very hard.