Brigid Slipka

[This is part of a series of posts on the motivations of donors, ranging from most selfish to most selfless: the Spectrum of Givers]

We have entered the realm of Givers.

Well.  Sort of.

There’s two ways to define what a Gift is.  The first definition is emotive: something that involves sacrifice on behalf of the Giver, heartfelt emotion, a piece of themselves.

The second definition is cut-and-dry: whatever the IRS says is tax-deductible.

Myopics give in a way that the IRS recognizes, but that wouldn’t pass the Potter Stewart test.  The act of giving is not about generating goodwill or interconnectedness or a bond with the Recipient.  A Myopic’s motivations are entirely self-oriented.

She is so concerned with how the gift affects her that she doesn’t even care who the Recipient of the gift is.

There’s many ways an Myopics benefit from her own giving, but here’s three of the most popular:

Monetary

The clearest examples of Myopic giving are donations made for eventual tax savings.  An American’s gift is not only tax deductible in and of itself, but, at the perfectly calculated level, will reduce the citizen’s tax bracket, bumping her down to a lower payment overall.  Financial advisors and tax attorneys alike are skilled in jiggering the donations of their clients so that the amount of taxes saved is greater than the outlay of the gift.

In other words, by giving something away, a donor ends up with even more cash in hand.  (Sounds familiar.)

Social Image

The benefits of a gift can be gained in social currency.  If the highly-regarded are part of a certain charity’s honor roll, then those wanting to be their peers will also give here.  A new employee will enroll in a payroll deduction program for charity if that’s what the rest of his team has done.  Exactly which charity receives the spoils is entirely unimportant; it’s the signal to others that matters.

Self Image

Probably most prevalent of all Myopic giving is doing so in order to benefit a Giver’s view of herself.

Perhaps she considers herself a Good Person, or a Concerned Citizen, or Not A Hypocrite.  Whatever the gift may do to shape her self-image, if the Recipient of the gift matters so little as to be of no concern at all, then the Giver’s perspective is so limited that she becomes Myopic.