Charitable giving: Immediate need vs. bigger long-term impact

I was reading about a guy in the tech community who was recently diagnosed with terminal cancer. People with this type of cancer typically die within two years after diagnosis.

He’s in his 30s and is married with several young kids. He’s his family’s sole breadwinner.

And he doesn’t have life insurance.

Consequently, even though he’s got decent medical insurance, he’ll be leaving his family with a mortgage, car payments, and funeral expenses.

He’s set up a donations page, asking other people in the tech community to help him defray those expenses.

Being close to his age, I totally feel for the guy. The idea of having to try to explain to your young kids that you’re dying and will only have a little bit more time to spend with them must be excruciating. And I’m sure he is feeling a tremendous amount of guilt for not having gotten life insurance before his diagnosis. (He’s essentially uninsurable now.)

Now, suppose you have some money — let’s say $100 — that you’re willing to donate.

You feel bad for a person who finds himself in his position.

Do you:

1) Donate that $100 to him.

2) Donate it to a fund that pays people’s first month of life insurance, as an incentive to get them to sign up.

3) Donate that $100 to an organization that helps people with dependents realize how important it is to get life insurance while they’re still healthy.

Obviously, if you go with #1, you’re helping someone whose need is immediate, and you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you’re making a direct difference.

Of course, you might feel slightly reluctant to donate to someone who wouldn’t be in this mess if he had gotten life insurance in the first place.

But think about it this way: Now he has to beg and plead and rely on the kindness of strangers, and even then, he has no assurance that he’ll raise enough. I’m sure he’s humbled enough by that experience, which is just one more thing piled on top of a terminal cancer diagnosis, and regrets his mistake. That’s probably punishment enough.

If you go with #2, your $100 might cover three or four people’s first payment, and assuming they continue their coverage, you could be helping to eliminate financial devastation for multiple people, instead of just putting a dent in the financial devastation of just one person.

And if you go with #3, it has the potential to have an even bigger long-term impact. I don’t know if such an organization exists, but I imagine that if it does, it might partner with hospitals so that in the “new parents” packet you get from the maternity ward, it includes a pamphlet or something that says, “You have a baby now. If you were to die today, would it be financially devastating for your family? If so, YOU NEED LIFE INSURANCE. While you’re young and healthy, you can get a substantial amount of life insurance for a very low monthly premium. If you need help, call our organization and we’ll help you handle the paperwork and understand your options.”

Your $100 might help reach hundreds people, and if even a fraction of them decide to get life insurance as a result, then boom, you’ve helped them avoid calamity.

What do you think? Where on the “immediate need vs. bigger long-term impact” spectrum do you fall, in terms of how you prefer to direct your charitable giving?

By the way, a few years ago I created a Life Insurance “Income Replacement” Simulator to help me determine my own life insurance needs, and I put it up on the web in case it’s helpful to other people. It doesn’t recommend any life insurance companies; it just helps you figure out the right type of policy and come up with a ballpark estimate of how much life insurance you need.

If you find it useful, the best way to thank me is to consider purchasing one of my books. Experimenting With Babies: 50 Amazing Science Projects You Can Perform on Your Kid is a great, inexpensive gift for new parents, and Experiments for Newlyweds: 50 Amazing Science Projects You Can Perform With Your Spouse is a similarly great, inexpensive gift for couples who are engaged or recently married.