The Shoestring Philanthropist | Parade.com
’Tis the season to give, and few people embody the spirit of altruism better than Marc Gold. For 22 years, he has trekked through Asia handing out money to the needy in small amounts, as little as 50 cents and rarely exceeding $500. But even though the dollar figures are small, the impact is big. In Vietnam, a modest donation was enough for a widow to buy a sewing machine and start a business. In Aceh, Indonesia, a fisherman fixed his boat and returned to self-sufficiency.
Compared with global aid organizations and their billion-dollar budgets, Gold’s operation is tiny, but by his own estimate, he has touched over 50,000 lives. An energetic cross between Santa Claus and Johnny Appleseed, Gold, 61, spends four months a year raising funds in friends’ living rooms and the rest on the road finding more individuals to help.
In 1989, while touring India, Gold met Thinlay, a Tibetan refugee, who invited him to his home. Thinlay’s wife, Tsering, welcomed him but kept holding her ears—she was suffering from a painful, deadly infection. Gold found her a physician and bought the antibiotic she needed. It cost just $1—and saved Tsering’s life. Then Gold spent $35 on a hearing aid so she could return to work and her son could go to school. “When I pressed the switch to turn on the hearing aid, her burst of joy burned into my brain,” Gold recalls. “I was thunderstruck, realizing I could restore her hearing for a relative pittance. I thought you had to be wealthy to do such things.”
Returning to the U.S. with a new sense of purpose, Gold wrote to 100 friends, hoping to raise $200 to give away on his next trip. He raised $2000. Today, his donors—through his nonprofit, 100 Friends—exceed 4000. But outside of keeping them informed with a newsletter, he sends no mass mailings and has no paid employees. His mantra is simple: “You give it to me, and I give it to them.”
Five years ago, Gold pared down his belongings to a few duffel bags and boxes. Formerly a teacher in San Francisco, he works out of a Bangkok hotel room and lives off retirement savings and a modest pension. He keeps his expenses—which may include hiring a translator or a van to deliver, for instance, the tools to help a young man open a bike-repair shop—low.
When he meets someone, Gold sits down to chat and maybe shares a cup of tea. Mostly, he listens. He has a knack for spotting people who aren’t on the radar of the large aid groups. One day in Kolkata, India, a rickshaw ferrying Gold broke down, and the driver wept. An interpreter explained that the vehicle was the man’s livelihood and home. Gold paid a mechanic $40 to repair the rickshaw and requested that the driver use it once a month to transport others in need. In Gyantse, Tibet, he saw a girl struggling with a large cart, which held her paralyzed mother. Thanks to him, the mother has a wheelchair and the daughter goes to school.
“Someone once asked me if I was playing God,” Gold says. “The people I help don’t ask questions like that. They only know a stranger is willing to help them.”
While Gold has helped pay for the building of some schools and libraries, the bulk of his giving is small. Rather than expand, he encourages others to become shoestring philanthropists, sharing his experiences and contacts and often giving them their first $100. Arlene Butler, a social worker and minister from Cape Charles, Va., heard about his work in 2006. “I’d saved $300, so I called Marc and asked if he’d help me give it away,” she recalls. Instead, he gave her advice, so she sent out e-mails seeking donations, netting $3000. That year, she went to Thailand and gave the money to sick children. “Now our kids are involved in our philanthropic travel. In Panama, we helped fund the education program of a tribe in the jungle,” Butler says. “It changes you inside when you have a chance to do these things.”
Three More Shoestring Philanthropists
A passion for travel and a growing awareness of global poverty have drawn other Americans to the kind of micro-philanthropy practiced by Marc Gold and 100 Friends. Here are three people who've been influenced by Gold and how they're choosing to give back:
A Fulbright Scholar with degrees in cultural anthropology and international relations, Adam Carter decided to create his own nonprofit after becoming disillusioned with the bureaucracy of large international development agencies. He says, "Marc Gold's lifestyle shined like a beacon for me – here was a guy who carved out this incredible existence, helping so many people yet having an amazing time in the process." Gold mentored Carter on fundraising and methodology, shared his contacts, and donated the first $100 to Carter's new nonprofit, Cause & Affect Foundation. Now Carter, 36, backpacks from village to village through Africa, Latin America, and South America: "I treasure the personal connection to folks on the ground, that immediate contact with people in need. My previous experience was great but I didn't want to be a tiny cog in a gigantic wheel." The best advice he received from Gold? "Don't feel overwhelmed. If you only help one single person you've made the world a better place. Start there." Carter's video shows an exuberant humanitarian equally at home in dirt villages and in the Brazilian slums. His group has brought wheelchairs to amputees ("Once you're mobile you can earn a living") and funded six-person factories and workshops. "By immersing ourselves in the local culture, we seek out the best hands-on way to help local leaders improve their communities, while giving people a chance to climb out of poverty and improve their own lives," he explains. Every summer in Chicago, Carter also mentors inner-city boys from the most violent neighborhoods, and he earns his travel expenses by working as a beer vendor at Wrigley Field. He is currently pursuing humanitarian efforts in his favorite country, Brazil. (www.causeandaffectfoundation.org)
Thanks to Atlanta's Dwight Turner, volunteering in Bangkok is simple. Located in the storied Thai capital, his nonprofit offers travelers a chance to participate in short-term volunteering--and people can even sign up online even before they leave on their trips. Volunteer assignments may include a morning spent teaching English at a school for the blind or visiting families segregated in immigration centers. Turner, 26, went to teach English in Thailand in 2006 but found himself staying on in the country afterwards. Like Adam Carter, he is a generation younger than Marc Gold. He says, "I was inspired by what Marc was doing. I loved his idea that it doesn't take huge organizations to make a difference." He credits Gold with "pushing me to step out and do things on my own," and started his organization with the assistance of Gold and his extensive contacts. "That was important because he has quality information about small grassroots projects that you can only know by going there." Turner's group is called In Search of Sanuk (ISOS) -- "sanuk" is Thai for ‘ fun' -- and Turner dubs his vision "funlanthropy," declaring, "While alleviating the ills of urban poverty in Bangkok, we invite you to make new friends and have fun helping others." Travelers can find ISOS through Facebook and Twitter. Last year, Turner worked with more than 200 volunteers. (www.insearchofsanuk.com/volunteer)
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"My dream is to put orphanages on the big tourist map," says Ryan Anderson, 34, who like Turner, is also turning travelers into temporary volunteers. "People come through Cambodia to go see the temples of Angkor Wat. Then, when they see our posters, they decide to visit us too. Tourists like lending a hand, especially to kids." After graduating from Loyola University in 1999, Anderson backpacked throughout Asia, volunteering in Nepal and opening a Mexican restaurant in Thailand. He eventually chose to focus on several Cambodian orphanages for his philanthropic efforts and started the nonprofit Hands on Helping, saying: "I wanted to do more than walk orphans to school and make sure they brushed their teeth. I realized I could start a small, fun charity that would bring me to amazing destinations and let me improve the lives of unfortunate children." What drew him to Marc Gold? "Marc's excitement and energy, how he adds fun to what he does. He's tech savvy; his newsletters for donors are prompt and accurate. And he goes to beautiful, remote areas of the world that often are ignored." Anderson adds, "One thing I especially love is his knack for odd, ‘big-small' gestures. I've put my own spin on it. It could be simple, like buying all the fruit from an old lady at the market and giving it to the orphanage so she can take a day off and stay with her family." Anderson -- who goes by the nickname "Ando" -- would someday like to devote himself full-time to micro-philanthropy. For now, he supports himself by running a boat-cleaning service business in Chicago during the warmer months. (www.handsonhelping.org)
