The Hierarchy of Needs

If you ever studied psychology, or most social science disciplines, for that matter, you had to read about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Psychologist Abraham Maslow theorized that people have a number of needs that are organized in a kind of pyramid, with the most basic needs at the bottom, and the so-called "higher order needs," such as the needs for self-esteem and respect from others, and the need for self-actualization, at the top. In Maslow's view, people could not pursue higher order needs until their basic needs, such as food, clothing, shelter, and safety, were satisfied.

This seems like such a simple idea that it makes you wonder why it took a man with a Ph.D. to tell us about it. Actually, this view of human motivation, called a humanistic view, has always been disputed by some people, but that's not the point. The point is, as more people have difficulties fulfilling these basic needs, even those of us who make charitable contributions are having to readjust our priorities for giving. An article in today's New York Times reports that institutions that address our higher-order needs, such as operas and orchestras, are bracing for a bad time.

A couple of nights ago, I got a call from a fund-raiser at the SUNY at Buffalo Law School (one of my alma maters), and I made a pledge to contribute. After I did this, I found myself wondering if it was the right thing to do. For years, much of my charitable giving went to educational and arts institutions, but during the past few years I have seen my pattern of giving shift. The agency that gets the most of my charitable dollars these days is the Food Bank of Central New York. It's important to me that it's a local agency, and I like the fact that they don't send me 8 1/2 by 11 inch envelopes filled with glossy brochures. This is a poor area, and there are plenty of food pantries that get supplies from the Food Bank of CNY. I could never contribute to all of them, so it's good to know that an agency like this can buy food economically on a bigger scale and help people in several upstate New York counties survive.

I started giving to Habitat for Humanity a long time ago, when I first saw former President Jimmy Carter and his wife swinging hammers at a Habitat project in New York City. If it was good enough for Jimmy Carter, it was good enough for me. Since then, he was won the Nobel Peace Prize, and I am still giving to Habitat. They were very effective at building and rebuilding houses after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. I'm glad to think that my contributions may have helped to get a few people out of FEMA trailers and into a house of their own. I like the fact that people who are chosen to receive Habitat houses work on their own houses and on houses for other people, as well. And I also like the fact that they have to buy the house, even if it's by way of an interest-free mortgage.

Another one of my favorite charitable institutions is Doctors Without Borders. This international humanitarian organization (consisting of 18 European countries and the USA) provides urgent medical care to people in many countries where there are wars, epidemics, or natural disasters. One thing I especially like about this agency is that it doesn't confine itself to helping people in countries where there is oil or some other natural resource that is of interest to first-world countries. Doctors Without Borders has an international staff that partners with local medical personnel to treat people's injuries and illnesses and try to prevent disease and the health effects of poverty and malnutrition. In 2007, the USA branch of Doctors Without Borders raised over $150 million in contributions, and I'm glad to be a part of that effort.

What I am trying to get at is that I find myself making hard choices these days about where to donate money. Of course, I also have my eye of the list of charitable contributions I can present to the IRS, but, assuming I am going to donate a certain amount in 2008, who's going to get it? How do you choose between, for example, the Metropolitan Opera and Remote Area Medical, a group of volunteer physicians, nurses, and other medical experts who provide free care to a lot of uninsured or underinsured people right in the USA, as well as internationally? More and more, I have been giving to the people who minister to the needs that are at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy, but I feel bad about the other worthy institutions that I have eliminated from my list.

Two important donations that I still have to make before the end of the year are to the local libraries in Fulton and Oswego. I consider the Oswego Public Library to be my "home library." I borrow books from Oswego and also from other libraries in the North Country Library System via inter-library loan. I love the fact that the Oswego library has hours that make it easily accessible to many people in the community and that they provide services that people need and use, including a great children's room and many computers for public use. I give to the Fulton Public Library to honor my mother, who used it faithfully for more than 60 years. In later years, when Mom's sight had deteriorated, we used to look there for large-print books, and now I specify that my contributions be used for that purpose. To me, reading is a basic need, and I think that helping libraries is a humanitarian activity. I'm sure my mother would feel the same way.