Quick one. When I was in Fairfax, I was able to contribute to local charities with some matching grants from my employer. Now that I am in Houston, the setup is different. There is no particular advantage to giving to any charity anywhere over any other.
So I find myself trying to decide how to give. I know the charities in the Washington, D.C. area, and I started out assuming that I should now support local Houston charities.
This is actually the tip of a much bigger ethical iceberg I don't want to get into right now, but the tip is: how do you decide whether it is better to support a charity in Houston, or Washington, or Louisiana, or Allentown PA, or the Sudan, or anywhere else? I'm not even sure what different arguments ethicists would propose either way.
Thoughts?
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I'm not sure how to even find an ethics about this one. My own rules are to give to what I'm passionate about -- at whatever level. That means supporting National feminist groups like NOW as well as local battered women's shelters. If time is what you have to give, of course, that usually has to be local (unless you are Angelina Jolie). I'd say that there is nothing "better" about giving in Houston, especially if you found charities that you found to be particularly good in Fairfax. (You may find some in Houston after living there a while.)
Your company probably matched funds thinking that they want "their" communities to benefit from them being there. That doesn't make it a "better" thing to do, in my opinion, if the financial incentive is removed.
Anyway, that's a winded way to say, "I don't know."
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