By John E. Gibson

Blooming Prairie

As we approach a season of giving, beware!

Charity has become an industry.Your charitable impulses are praiseworthy but please look further. Most of the problems charities address are the social and environmental damages left behind as corporate persons pursue profits. Consider how we can hold corporate persons responsible instead of trying to clean up after them.

I suggest that you find one or more charities that advance your concerns and become sustaining members. Ignore all other appeals no matter how valid or heartwrenching to avoid donor fatigue. Give as much as you can but don’t stop there. Consider how the socioeconomic system that creates these problems can be changed as well as the governmental system that fails to collectivise the costs of remediation.