My family has money but doesn't give to charity. How do I challenge them without being weird?
Your Mileage May Vary is an advice column offering you a unique framework for thinking through your moral dilemmas. To submit a question, fill out this anonymous form or email sigal.samuel@vox.com. Here's this week's question from a reader, condensed and edited for clarity:
I have family and friends who are relatively well-off but don't spend much time thinking intentionally about how to do good. So I've been wondering whether or how much to challenge them to do more good and take doing good more seriously.
For example, I've always given a percentage of my income to charity. I've got parents who are lovely people, but they donate basically not at all. It's hard to know how to bring this up to them. They're retired. They have a house and a summer house. They clearly have enough money. I'd love for them to answer the question of 'How much should we be giving back?' I have the sense that they haven't actually thought about it, so the default decision is to do nothing.
And especially with people in my generation, it feels uncomfortable to talk about this. I don't want it to feel accusatory or make people defensive. I want people to make an affirmative decision they're happy about and not have it live in the ambient guilt zone. How can I bring it up in a way that makes clear I just want people to be actively making a decision, even if it's not the same as mine?
Dear Do-gooder,
'The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change,' the 20th-century psychologist Carl Rogers once wrote.
I think the same is true about changing other people. Start by accepting them just as they are, and you may find they're a lot more receptive to what you say.
It sounds like you're not trying to shove your own ideological commitments down your family and friends' throats, and I think that's great. But I'd encourage you to go even further.
Rogers' insights are helpful here. Contrary to the views of other psychologists, Rogers didn't think it took any special therapy for a person to change for the better. He believed that just a few conditions were necessary: The person has to feel that you view them with unconditional positive regard — that you like and accept them as they are, not only if they change in this or that way. The person also has to feel that you're able to truly empathize — that you understand how things feel to them from within their own internal frame of reference.
Meet those conditions, Rogers said, and the person will naturally move toward greater consistency between their values and actions, becoming healthier and more integrated.
Have a question you want me to answer in the next Your Mileage May Vary column?
Feel free to email me at sigal.samuel@vox.com or fill out this anonymous form! Newsletter subscribers will get my column before anyone else does and their questions will be prioritized for future editions. Sign up here!
You sound like you're already pretty good at the 'unconditional positive regard' part — you write that your parents are 'lovely people' despite not donating to charity. But ask yourself if you've truly understood how the world feels to them from within their own internal frame of reference.
Maybe they're nervous about money, and maybe there's a good reason why they're like that. Yes, they've got a lot of resources now, but was there a time when they didn't? That can lead to an enduring scarcity mindset. Take me, for example: I grew up in a family on welfare, and even though I started earning a decent salary as an adult, I kept grappling with money dysmorphia — feeling nervous about money even after becoming financially stable.
Or maybe your family and friends just have a different idea about what counts as 'doing good.' It's possible they already see themselves as very committed do-gooders, only their approach isn't about giving charity; it's about volunteering or helping the environment or engaging in political activism. Are you sure your way is better? Or is it possible that there are multiple moral perspectives that are equally valid, even if they conflict with each other? Philosophers call that latter view moral pluralism, and I think it's worth taking really seriously.
But even if you do think your way is better or your loved ones are ignoring a pretty powerful way to do good, you'll still want to be very careful about how you express that.
I say that because of the Stanford psychologist Benoit Monin's research on 'do-gooder derogation.' Monin's studies showed people tend to feel less warm toward those who are extremely moral and altruistic. And the more people sense that the altruist might judge them, the more they put down the altruist. For example, Monin's study participants rated vegetarians more negatively the more they expected the vegetarians to see themselves as morally superior to meat eaters.
People really, really don't like to feel morally judged. And if they get even the slightest hint that you might be judging them, your approach is likely to backfire. Again, a personal experience: In college, a friend who was studying environmental science looked at me with disgust when she saw me once eat my lunch — a vegan lunch, for goodness' sake! — with a plastic spoon. Her reaction turned me off environmentalism for longer than I care to admit.
So, what actually works? If you understand what it really feels like to be the other person, a la Rogers, that might give you clues about what it would take for them to become more open to your views. Often, I think you'll find that they need carrots, not sticks.
That was the case for me. Because of my money dysmorphia, donating to charity felt genuinely scary to me for a long time. I worried: What if I need that money for myself down the line? Then I got a job where my colleagues were super-excited about donating. They seemed to genuinely derive a lot of joy and meaning from giving to charity. I wanted that joy and meaning, too! So I started small, giving in increments of $10, then $50, then hundreds and thousands of dollars. And believe it or not, I enjoyed it so much that Giving Tuesday actually became one of my favorite days of the year.
If I'd felt pressured to donate, I would have pulled back in fear and resentment. But because it was fine to approach it in a way that felt safe to me, and I was given the sense that there was an awesome feeling waiting for me on the other side, I willingly made the change.
As for environmentalism, I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I didn't reengage until, as an adult, I was re-exposed to the beauty of nature and of the animal kingdom. It started when someone invited me to try birding. To my surprise, I fell in love with birds! They turned out to be a gateway drug: I soon found myself watching monkeys, listening to bugling elk, and snorkeling with colorful fish. And caring deeply about the natural world they inhabit.
In other words, sometimes people need to feel safer or to have positive experiences that show them just what's at stake for them personally before they'll engage.
The research bears this out. As psychologist Molly Crockett has shown, when people judge how good a 'good deed' is, they consider the benefits that those deeds bring about — but they also consider how good it feels to perform them. If anything, Crockett's data suggests that people put more weight on how good it feels to them. So they might think that a good deed that brings very little benefit but gives them a really warm, fuzzy glow is actually more praiseworthy than a good deed that feels detached and emotionless but brings about a lot of benefit.
That's a bit bizarre — but that's human psychology! And you can work with it by talking about the personal satisfaction that you get from donating or other ways that you do good. Don't emphasize the moral arguments (lest you fall victim to do-gooder derogation). Instead, emphasize joy.
Since it's tough to find ways to slip this into conversation organically, you'll probably be better off doing this as part of a ready-made ritual that you share with family or friends. That could be, say, your birthday party. But, since neuroscientific research indicates that practicing gratitude can prime our brains to be more altruistic, I'd suggest piggybacking on a holiday traditionally associated with feeling thankful for all we have — whether that's a religious holiday, like Judaism's Sukkot, or a secular holiday, like Thanksgiving.
Say you offer to host Thanksgiving. (In the invite, give people a heads-up that you'll be doing a short reflection.) After people have had something to eat but before they're totally comatose, ask everyone to reflect on what they're grateful for. Then say, 'I feel really grateful that I've been able to donate 10 percent of my income to charity X this year. I just got an update from the charity, and it said that my money helped 10 poor families put food on the table and send their kids to school. It felt amazing!'
Then you can ask everyone, 'What makes you feel amazing? Is there something helpful you've done this year that felt super-satisfying? Do you want to set an intention to do more of that between now and next Thanksgiving?'
Don't expect people to magically change their entire personality then and there. More likely, you'll be planting a seed that will germinate over months or years. This patient approach might take longer than direct persuasion, but it typically creates more sustainable change and preserves your most important relationships in the process.
If you want to nudge the seed along, remember Rogers's advice about providing the optimal growing conditions. Help people feel safe. Help them feel understood. And then help them fall deeper in love with the world by putting them in contact with what's beautiful and good. Chances are they'll naturally gravitate toward it.
Bonus: What I'm reading
Thanks to this week's question, I went on a real Carl Rogers bender. In his book On Becoming a Person , which you can read online, he observes that we typically don't engage in good communication because it requires real courage. 'If you really understand another person in this way, if you are willing to enter his private world and see the way life appears to him, without any attempt to make evaluative judgments, you run the risk of being changed yourself. ... This risk of being changed is one of the most frightening prospects most of us can face.'
Written by a psychologist, this piece in the magazine Psyche offers some more granular tips on how to make other people feel heard. Validating someone's opinion doesn't mean you agree with it; in fact, the author notes it can 'increase the probability that people will seek you out and act on what you suggest.'
Nautilus magazine recently published a very interesting piece called ' Why Our Brains Crave Ideology .' Psychologist Leor Zmigrod, who studies the neurobiological origins of ideological thinking, explains in it why ideology is the 'brain's delicious answer to the problem of prediction and communication' — and how to avoid becoming an ideologue.
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For endangered salamanders like the Hickory Nut Gorge green — a striking amphibian with black skin and splotches of green — forest loss caused by Helene's floodwaters is a new and urgent threat. But as I spoke with experts for the story, they told me that a bigger problem for animals in some rivers and streams has actually been the cleanup after the storm. To clean up debris from Helene, counties in western North Carolina either enlisted help from the Army Corps of Engineers — which then hired contractors — or contracted debris removal companies themselves. In both cases, FEMA provided financial support. According to three state biologists and several other experts familiar with North Carolina's stream ecology, it was debris removal contractors working under the Army Corps that created the worst environmental problems. AshBritt, one of the Corps' big contractors, managed debris removal in Polk County, where I saw the partially deforested beaver wetland. I also visited a stream west of Hendersonville called Little River that was cleaned up by a different Army Corps contractor. Share a tip Do you have information about disaster cleanup in North Carolina? Reach out to or benjijones@ (encrypted). Find me on Signal at benji.90. In Little River, cleanup contractors severely damaged the stream ecosystem, which is home to the world's highest density of the endangered Appalachian elktoe mussel, said Luke Etchison, a biologist at the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC), the state wildlife agency. Giant excavators drove over the riverbed, almost certainly crushing elktoes and burying rocks used by hellbenders, the largest salamanders in North America, he said. The contractors also left parts of the bank bare and almost certainly removed natural habitat features that were not a flood hazard, according to Etchison. On a warm and sunny morning in June, Etchison and his colleague Michael Perkins, another state biologist, visited Little River for an informal survey. I tagged along. The river was shallow and calm with a rocky bottom and flanked by shrubs and trees. It looked like a pretty typical river — and it was beautiful. We threw on wetsuits, goggles, and snorkels and waded into the cold water. It was only when we swam around with our heads tilted to the riverbed that I started to see some of the impacts Etchison was describing: crushed elktoe shells, broken rocks, and hardly any of the debris that crayfish and hellbenders use, such as old logs and large, flat boulders. Perhaps most telling was that we saw fewer than two dozen elktoe mussels that day. Past surveys at this exact site turned up several hundred of them, Etchison said. Etchison holds up one of the many broken shells we collected while snorkeling in Little River. Benji Jones/Vox Perkins said that people often have the perception that debris removal is 'charitable work,' but it's not. 'This was a taxpayer-funded endeavor,' he said, and some contractors 'are making millions by removing not just woody debris but also thousands of live, healthy or otherwise undamaged trees and vegetation that pose no risk to life or infrastructure.' In another river, known as the West Fork French Broad, a technician working with NCWRC told me that he saw similar signs of damage. Rocks that hellbenders live under were fractured, covered in sediment, or pushed into the riverbed, he said. From his experience walking the stream before and after debris removal, he also claims that contractors removed habitat features that were not a flood risk — either because they were here before the storm or not obstructing the channel. 'I don't know what's a more telling sign that something is not a threat to a future flood than something that was in the river before this flood and in the exact same place after,' the technician told me. 'They were operating in these rivers, treating them like highways, driving up and down, crushing everything.' — Lori Williams, state wildlife biologist Etchison and two other state biologists allege that the Army Corps made little effort to coordinate with NCWRC to avoid harming threatened and endangered species. Once they learned that debris removal was underway, NCWRC sent Army Corps and other disaster recovery officials a one-page document with guidance on how to minimize harm to the ecosystems, such as by leaving stumps in place and, when possible, driving machines on the bank and not in the riverbed. The agency also produced detailed maps that marked areas with rare species, including the section of Little River that I visited. In those areas, the maps say, contractors should avoid running heavy machinery in the stream bed. NCWRC biologists asked the Corps to coordinate with them if they're clearing debris from rivers in those areas. A hellbender we caught in Mills River. Benji Jones/Vox 'We gave them [the Army Corps] all of this information and they ignored it,' Lori Williams, a conservation biologist and hellbender expert at NCWRC, told me. 'They were operating in these rivers, treating them like highways, driving up and down, crushing everything.' Early one morning I talked to a couple workers who were clearing debris from a stream north of Asheville. They were both from out of state and hadn't heard any complaints about their work. Locals were happy they were cleaning up, they told me. But I also heard another story. A man named Nathan Turpin, who briefly worked for a subcontractor of AshBritt doing debris removal, told me that he left the job, in part, because of the focus on 'production.' Related These photos are literally saving jaguars 'I ended up walking off the job just for the fact that we were pressured to produce a lot of yardage of debris every day to make a profit,' Turpin, who said he drove a dump truck, told me. 'There were a lot of plants and trees I saw that were being destroyed for no reason.' Who deserves blame — and are they accepting it? No single company or organization is at fault for the mismanaged debris removal, experts told me. Cleaning up involves a messy constellation of state and federal government agencies, private contractors and subcontractors, and independent monitors that audit the work. There are so many people involved that it's difficult to figure out who does what — and who's paying for it. And when you start asking questions, everyone involved tends to just point at each other. Key takeaways Scientists claim that cleanup from Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina was careless and damaged the environment and wildlife in some areas. They claim that contractors hired by the Army Corps of Engineers, a federal agency, cleared far more debris from rivers than was necessary for public safety, removing habitat features there before Helene hit. They claim that those contractors were motivated by a perverse incentive common in the debris removal industry: companies are paid by volume, so the more debris they remove, the more money they stand to make. The Army Corps told Vox that its contractors follow strict environmental guidelines to avoid undue ecological harm and it does not tolerate over-clearing of debris. The Corps provided detailed comments that experts Vox spoke to generally disagree with. Debris removal is nearly finished, but environmental experts say there's a big opportunity to make future cleanup efforts less destructive — largely, by changing the incentives for contractors. FEMA declined an interview request. In a written statement, FEMA told Vox that North Carolina coordinated with federal and state agencies to provide guidance for debris removal to counties and the Army Corps including measures to minimize environmental impacts. Those measures include using high-profile machines in riverbeds, so they don't bottom out, and filling heavy machinery with biodegradable hydraulic fluid, FEMA said in the statement. The details of that guidance are not clear. FEMA directed my follow-up questions to the Army Corps, which declined to share the environmental guidance that contractors were given. The Army Corps similarly declined an interview request, though it shared detailed comments in response to our reporting. The Army Corps told Vox that its contractors and subcontractors are required to follow strict environmental rules to minimize environmental harm — though again, it's not clear what those rules are. The agency also said that it does not tolerate over-clearing of debris. 'Contractors that exceed limits receive warnings or are removed from the job,' according to the statement. Dave Connolly, chief of public affairs for the Corp's Wilmington District, said the agency has not issued warnings or removed contractors. The agency also said it 'constantly' has quality assurance specialists on site to verify that contractors are removing only what they're tasked to remove. Some environmental experts I spoke to said the Army Corps didn't have sufficient oversight over their contractors or subcontractors to know whether or not they were over-extracting debris. The Army Corps also told me that 'wildlife biologists and environmental experts have been involved throughout the operation, particularly in areas where endangered species are known to exist.' That ensures cleanup has a minimal impact on wildlife and their habitats, the statement said. The state biologists I spoke to said that at least some of the wildlife biologists hired by debris removal contractors have little knowledge of the local endangered and threatened species. The Army Corps noted that they shared 'mapping data' with the state wildlife agency that's meant to indicate where contractors would be working. According to the Corps, that gave NCWRC the opportunity to advise workers when debris removal is happening in ecologically sensitive areas. The agency said it would 'attempt to adjust the debris removal plan in that area, and/or allow wildlife specialists the opportunity to temporarily relocate any discovered wildlife until debris removal in that specific location is complete.' The state biologists I spoke to said Army Corps contractors showed little indication that they would adjust a debris removal plan to spare rare animals. And often, the state agency wasn't aware of where the cleanup was happening because the mapping data was so hard to parse. 'We were not given the chance to locate and move animals out of harm's way,' Williams said. Although AshBritt declined to comment on the record, the Army Corps defended its work with the company: 'USACE's decision to contract with AshBritt was made after a thorough evaluation of their capabilities, experience, and past performance in emergency response operations,' the Corps said in its statement. 'There is no evidence to suggest AshBritt is unable to successfully fulfill its contracts.' (See here for a more detailed response from the Army Corps to our reporting.) Most of the damage from cleanup is already done. Scientists are looking to the next natural disaster. Killing federally threatened and endangered species, like elktoes and another mussel variety known as longsolids, is typically a crime — because they're protected by the Endangered Species Act (ESA). And that's why some environmental advocates have suggested to me that debris removal in certain regions, such as Little River, may have been illegal. I raised this with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which oversees the ESA. Gary Peeples, the acting supervisor for the Asheville Field Office, told me that, at least so far, debris removal is not violating the act, even if it's killing endangered species. This is a bit wonky, but: Typically, the USFWS consults with federal agencies — in this case, FEMA, because it's financing the Corps's work — before taking actions that harm endangered species. Those agencies then receive what's called an incidental take statement, which creates an exception and essentially legalizes harm to federally protected species (assuming their actions don't jeopardize the entire existence of the species). In an emergency, however, consultation happens while the action is already underway, Peeples said. That's what happened here. In the coming weeks, he said, FEMA is supposed to report on how they've impacted endangered species, at which point the service will issue the agency a take statement. FEMA and the Army Corps have been 'diligently monitoring and documenting' the potential impacts of debris removal on threatened and endangered species, the Army Corps told me in its statement. A pile of woody debris on the banks of a stream north of Asheville. Benji Jones/Vox 'From the legal standpoint, we must remember that the Endangered Species Act does allow for harmful impacts to species,' said Peeples. Still, he added, the impact of debris removal 'pains' him. 'Not only am I a biologist who works here, but I'm a resident who lives here and recreates in these areas,' he said. 'It is grossly unfortunate how things have played out.' Beyond raising alarm among local environmental experts, the cleanup has also prompted significant public outcry. And those complaints haven't gone unnoticed. In May, a number of state residents, including environmental advocates, met with Rep. Chuck Edwards — a Republican who represents western North Carolina — to express their concerns. Afterward, Edwards announced a new agreement with FEMA and the Army Corps 'to improve accountability and transparency' in the cleanup process. Under that agreement, landowners can mark important trees and other landscape features with flags. 'These flagged areas will not be disturbed until the property owner, the county, and USACE [US Army Corps of Engineers] engage in a consultation,' according to the announcement. Edwards also uploaded maps of where the Army Corps is working to his website. Tread marks from heavy machinery that was used to clear debris from a stream in western North Carolina. Benji Jones/Vox It's not clear whether this flagging approach has worked, or whether it was simply too little, too late. Edwards's office declined an interview request and, along with FEMA and the Army Corps, did not respond to a request to see the agreement. The opportunity now, experts told me, is to make future debris removal better — to learn from what environmental advocates call egregious mistakes. There are really only two things that those advocates want. The first is to change the incentive structure in the disaster recovery industry. Paying contractors by volume is 'the biggest problem,' Williams, the state biologist, told me. 'It puts a dollar sign on literally every leaf, stick, twig, [and] blade of grass out there. That's how these people are making money.' Instead, Williams, Lohmeyer, and other experts recommended paying contractors by linear foot — meaning the more distance they cover, the more money they make — or by job. A job might be, say, clearing debris from a particular creek or property. The other key ask is that the Army Corps and disaster recovery companies coordinate with regional environmental experts — the people, like Williams and Etchison, who typically know the ecology of the rivers far better than contractors. State biologists are not asking to stop or even slow debris removal. Just to take more care in regions known to contain incredibly rare creatures. Where cleanup has gone right(ish), hellbenders still lurk In some regions of North Carolina river, cleanup left a much smaller scar. According to Etchison and some of his colleagues, waterways in counties that opted to work with a contractor called Southern Disaster Recovery (SDR) instead of Army Corps contractors were generally left in better shape. SDR tended to listen to state biologists, he told me. 'They've done a pretty good job coordinating with us,' Etchison said. For example, when Etchison asked an SDR subcontractor to avoid removing specific bits of habitat, such as a log home to freshwater mussels, the contractor listened, Etchison said. That may be because SDR and their subcontractors are paid by linear foot to remove debris (though they're paid by volume to haul it away). As a result, Etchison said, there's still lots of large woody debris and big rocks for hellbenders to hide and nest under. After the survey in Little River, I drove with Etchison and Perkins to the banks of Mills River, which was cleaned up by SDR. This river, Etchison told me, was a good place to find hellbenders — in part, he said, because cleanup didn't wreck the waterway. There are still plenty of logs and bramble on the bank and big rocks for hellbenders to hide and nest under. 'If you have to do it, it was done the right way,' Etchison said of debris removal here. We slid down the bank and stepped into the cold water, which was waist deep and moving quickly. The water was murky, so we couldn't see the bottom, making walking tough and finding a hellbender tougher. Etchison and Perkins used their hands and feet to feel around for the kinds of rocks that these Hulkish salamanders love — large and flat, with a gap underneath that they can squeeze into. When they found such a rock, Perkins would position a seine in front of it and Etchison would lift the rock up. Then we'd check the net to see if a salamander had entered. We did this for more than an hour, catching mostly leaves and mud and a few crayfish and small fish. But eventually, somehow, this approach worked. Etchison lifted up a small slab of concrete on the riverbed and when Perkins lifted up the net, there was a squirming hellbender. These animals are famously ugly-cute: slimy brown with wrinkly skin, tiny eyes, and pudgy little hands. They look like something out of a Miyazaki film. The hellbender we caught. Benji Jones/Vox Perhaps worrying about the future of unconventionally attractive animals like this is not a priority for everyone in the wake of disaster. Biologists have a hard time rallying the public around salamanders, especially compared to animals of the large and fluffy variety. Yet it's the hellbenders and the mussels and the crayfish and the fish that make these ecosystems so unique and healthy enough to support our own needs. Mussels clean the water. Crayfish break down debris. Hellbenders tell us when rivers may be polluted. While traveling in North Carolina I was constantly reminded that natural disasters are disasters for these animals, too. And that's troubling for North Carolina's utterly epic array of creatures because many regions — including the American Southeast — will likely face more flooding in the decades to come as the planet warms. The least we can do is be smart about how we react to it.
