Assigning a price to a product is always tricky. But what if the product is illegal and the value subjective? Allison Schrager discusses the matter with a happily self-employed prostitute. “I’ve always wanted my own business,” says Andrea ... ...
ALLISON SCHRAGER | THE MICROPHILANTHROPIST | November 12th 2008 "Yes, children are starving and puppies are dying, and you should probably support these causes", writes Allison Schrager. "But better to support a great museum than my local pub" ... ...
"I can spot someone's weakness a mile away. In any room I can pick out the best target," says Simon Lovell, reformed con artist and famed magician, when asked over lunch about the root of his talents. "Take that woman over there." He motions across ...
A woman who fundraises for a charity dedicated to helping battered women recently told me about her challenges raising money. Called the Retreat, the charity is located in East Hampton, a posh beach community, full of people who make philanthropy ...
I always considered myself a non-joiner; proudly unaffiliated, blazing my own path, the renegade yuppie of the Upper West Side. So when a reader, in response to an earlier piece I wrote on volunteer-work, suggested I lacked a sense of community, I ...
A friend once invited me to spend a cold winter's day picking up trash in a park. It was a community-service event organised by a charitable organisation she was involved with. I immediately told her I was not interested. "It just makes no sense," I ...
Regardless of how you feel about why we are in Afghanistan, many of us would hope to improve the daily lives of those who live there. But how can we help the citizens of a country so far away? How do we even know what they might need? I could join the ...
Some of the reasons why people give to charity may be consideed selfish. People give to increase their social standing, gain publicity, attend a fun party, receive a tax advantage, feel smug to their friends—or just because it makes them feel good ...
My Christmas gifts included a charitable donation made in my name, which got me thinking: in what sense was this a gift to me? I don't encourage gifts and I'm not in serious need of anything that anyone might give me. Of course I can see it is more ...
Christmas is the season of frenzied last-minute shopping, and cacophonous sales pitches aimed at impulse buyers. Among the latter are promises from retailers to give a part of the price or profit on a particular product to charity. This may sound like ...
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