Today your feeds are likely flooded with #GivingTuesday posts as organizations seek to raise critical dollars for their causes, and, as a someone who has spent my entire career in the non-profit space, I have to admit to feeling conflicted.

At their core, I believe most non-profits (exempting some institutional ones like schools and hospitals) exist to provide solutions to societal ills. In an ideal world, these solutions, and the non-profits that provide them, should be temporary — filling needed gaps until our society steps up to take ownership of more permanent solutions. The issues our organizations are trying to solve are complex and intersectional and, if we’re being honest with ourselves, we acknowledge that no single organization is effective and expansive enough to solve these complex problems on their own. Lasting change takes collective action and, eventually, the buy-in and ownership of the broader community. Philanthropy can and should be a catalyst for this change but relying on philanthropy as a permanent solution is risky at best, and potentially damaging at worst.

Which brings me to #GivingTuesday. We in the non-profit sector feel compelled to participate in this “non-profit hunger games,” competing for your eyeballs and your dollars with pithy elevator pitches and commitments of matching dollars (don’t get me started on the B.S. that is Facebook’s matching commitment today…). But these pitches almost always oversimplify the complexity of the issues we’re dealing with. We don’t get into the need for collaboration because it feels risky to highlight other organizations that might lead to you, the donor, taking your giving there instead. And of course, just like the capitalist instincts the #GivingTuesday movement was formed to subvert and redirect, non-profits with more resources to begin with (financial, political, and otherwise), tend to fare better as they are able to do things like pay to promote social media posts and secure large matching commitments from corporate supporters.

My org (Full Plates Full Potential) is no different. We’re trying to raise money today and motivating folks with a matching commitment from our Board. But we also know fundamentally that, even if we are as successful as possible with our mission of strengthening and expanding child nutrition programs, we will never realize our vision of ending child hunger in Maine if we’re the only ones working toward that vision. That’s because child hunger is complex and rooted in poverty. The good news is that we’re not alone. There are lots of other organizations working on child hunger and poverty issues, some whom we directly partner with and others with whom we haven’t yet had the opportunity.

Shielding you, the donor, from these other organizations might lead to more money for my organization in the short-term but can be counterproductive in the longer-term as it runs the risk of leaving you with the misguided perception that we can solve this issue ourselves and that you don’t necessarily need to support other organizations working in the same space.

So where do we go from here?

For starters, I want to be clear that the solution is not for you to not give at all today.

If you find a great organization and feel compelled to give, that’s great, please do so! But, if you’re serious about systemic change in an issue area, I encourage you to take an extra five minutes to go beyond the pithy pitch to try to understand a little better the root issue(s) that the non-profit you are supporting is trying to address. Follow up to learn how and who they collaborate with. Do so with curiosity to understand the complete picture rather than with a desire to figure out who’s “best.” Any organization that is serious about addressing one of these big, societal issues, should have no problem telling you about their partners and the important roles they play. Determine if there are ways to support this more complete picture by supporting some of these other organizations, financially or otherwise.

I promise that taking these extra steps will lead you to not only feel better about any financial donations you make, but will give you confidence that you are truly contributing toward lasting impact and change, rather than slapping a band-aid on a problem and walking away with a tax deduction.

In the spirit of putting my money where my mouth is, today I’m personally making donations to six organizations that are doing great, complimentary work, to address childhood food insecurity in Maine. Some of these organizations are playing the critical role of feeding kids and families today, while others are working on longer-term efforts that will lead to less poverty and more equitable communities. With the work and support of these organizations, and many others, I’m confident that we at Full Plates Full Potential will one day realize our vision of a Maine without childhood food insecurity.

I hope you’ll consider joining me in stepping back from your cluttered feed today to think more critically about the role we can each play in driving systems change, and I hope you view any actions you take today as a start to your impact rather than the end of it.

Here’s a bit about the six organizations I’m supporting and choosing to spotlight today, with links for you to visit their pages and learn more:

Cultivating Community: Empowering New Americans by teaching them sustainable farming practices and providing a sense of community through food.

The Locker Project: Helping ensure that food insecure kids have ready access to meals and food during critical out-of-school times.

Mano en Mano: Supporting Latinx and Farmworker communities to live and thrive in Maine.

Midcoast Hunger Prevention: My community food pantry and soup kitchen serving as a critical last resort for far too many families in need.

New Roots Cooperative Farm: A Somali Bantu immigrant-run cooperative farm in Lewiston. Donations are going toward helping them purchase their land.

Wabanaki Public Health and Wellness: Providing community-driven, culturally centered public health and social services to all Wabanaki communities, including working to address high levels of food insecurity in Maine’s Indigenous communities.