I found this article at http://www.ecauldron.com/opedpagancharity.php and the really sad part is the site Shea mentions was a dead link when I clicked the article. How many good resources must disappear before the Pagan community begins to address our own issues?

It's For A Good Cause (Really)
by Shea Thomas

An interesting exchange took place not too long ago on a large Pagan email list to which I belong. A member of the list suggested the undertaking of a community service project. Initial reactions were quite positive. Several good charitable causes were suggested. It was obvious that many of the charities were personal favorites. What was interesting about this exchange was the fact that not one of the organizations mentioned in the initial rounds was Pagan.

To be fair, the charitable causes that were suggested were all themselves fine organizations, and a single Pagan email list should never be considered representative of the entire Pagan community. At least, that's what I thought until I found another online resource called Pagans Donate.

Pagans Donate (http://www.pagansdonate.com) is a wonderful site operated by Lorna Tedder out of (where else?) "Niceville" Florida. To promote the idea of charitable giving by Pagans, Lorna asked her site visitors to tell her what and to whom they donate. Of the 152 organizations she lists as the recipients of Pagan donations, only one could be rightly called Pagan (The Military Pagan Network). The remaining 151 are all ecumenical, secular, and (interestingly enough) Christian.

While the kinds of charities that appear on Lorna's list may surprise some, I'm actually pleased to see so much diversity in Pagan philanthropy. Pagan giving (regardless of ideology) is a profound way to demonstrate a broad and unselfish commitment to the world in which we live. I also feel good work should be honored no matter what religious symbol happens to hang over the door.

What I think much more odd about Lorna's site and the emails filling my inbox are not the charities listed, but those that seem to be missing. Fairly well-known organizations like The International Pagan Pride Project (IPPP), PagaNet News (PNN), The Council of Magickal Arts (CMA), The Pagan Educational Network (PEN), Witches Against Religious Discrimination (WARD), and The Witches' Voice (TWV) are all conspicuously absent.

As someone who regularly volunteers for a Pagan charity, I find this somewhat disconcerting. I would never advocate the support of one kind of charity over another, but I would have thought that Pagan charities would receive at least as much mention as their non-Pagan counterparts among Pagan donors. The fact that they do not gives me pause. There is a lot of work yet to do in own community and our charities are some of the most effective tools we have for getting that work done. If we can't (or won't) find a way to support the charities tending our own gardens, than I shall begin to fear for the rosebushes.

Sadly, one of our community flowers may already be gone. The Green Egg, a publication of The Church of All Worlds, is a magazine that has served our community off and on since 1968. Despite a long and rich history, including the first publication of the "Rede of the Wiccae" in 1975, The Green Egg finally ceased operations last year in part (to quote its editors) "We have not been able as yet to muster the support necessary to publish the next issue."

And The Green Egg is not the only Pagan charity with funding challenges. While some may think any organization engaged in fundraising must (of course) have lots of funds, this isn't necessarily so. In the GuideStar.com directory of nonprofit organizations, most Pagan charities required to report such things list earnings of less than $25,000. In other words, if these organizations were a family of six instead of a charity trying to serve hundreds, they would easily fall below the national poverty line.

And yet, the tasks and missions our charities have set for themselves continue to be identified as important. This past August in Virginia Beach, Virginia, group leaders from across the Mid-Atlantic came together in an attempt to identify the critical needs currently facing our community. An entire laundry-list of needs were named at this gathering (now called the Mid-Atlantic Pagan Leadership Conference) including community centers, libraries, prison ministries, advocacy groups, networking resources, and educational tools. What also became apparent was that many of these needs were already in the process of being addressed, in whole or in part, by existing Pagan charities. Indeed, another need identified at the conference was the desire to find ways to support those organizations already in the trenches and working to meet these community challenges.

If the work done by our Pagan charities are important, than why would Pagan charities ever fall off the radar screen? If the needs they are addressing are relevant, then shouldn't they be the first charities supported by Pagans? Obviously this is not universally so, and I think the fault, to paraphrase the Bard, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves and our charities. We need to do a better job supporting our charities; and our charities need to do a better job building relationships with their donors.

For those of us who work with Pagan charities, there are some great philanthropy standards promulgated by The Council of Better Business Bureau's Philanthropic Advisory Service (PAS) and the National Charities Information Bureau (NCIB). While these standards are voluntary, they do outline many of the core traits of reputable and trustworthy charities, or (to say it another way) charities with whom we might feel comfortable "trusting our worth." These standards can be retrieved from the Web for free at: http://www.ncib.org/standards/ncibstds.asp.

For those of us who don't work with a charity, there are some hard questions we need to ask ourselves as well. Have we identified a charitable cause important to us and the Pagan community? Have we identified a charity serving that cause? Have we made a donation this year? Has our family? Has our group? If the answer to any these is no, then the next question should also be "Why not?" Pagan charities are some of the best engines we have for driving new Pagan community services and resources. As we motor through the country(dweller)side, would it kill us to pitch in a little gas money?

And before the ever-present cry of Pagan poverty echoes through the trees, please know that most charity sponsorships are really quite reasonable. You can become a supporting member of The Open Hearth Foundation for $30. You can become a "Silver" member of WARD (the most expensive they offer) for only $60. Their cheapest is a mere $10. I've seen Pagans spend more at a single restaurant sitting than it would cost to sponsor The Witches' Voice for two whole years. If the cause is important to you, you should also be able to find a way to support it.

One of the things I've always found exciting about being a Pagan at the start of this new millennium is that so much of our future is already visible. You see it in our courtrooms. You see it in our laws. You see it in our cultural perceptions. There are still bumps along the way, of course, but I would much rather be a Pagan in 2002 than 1702 if you catch my drift. Things are much better than they were, and starting to move along much more quickly.

Even more exciting, our future is already evident in our people. It's contained in all the great ideas we are just now starting to make real. Capital-intensive resources such as community centers, libraries, and land retreats (things unimaginable a few decades ago) are either here or already on the way. But, like most everything else worthwhile or worth having, these resources still require time. They still require energy. And they still require that icky green stuff we call money.

These are the harsh realities of charity work. Believe me, if I could conjure a Pagan community center with feits instead of fundraisers I would have chosen that path years ago. Instead, I spend my time engaged in a completely different kind of group ritual and spellwork: "asking people to donate."

For those of us who support Pagan charities, I do have some good news. What we give is coming back. Like the threefold law, donations to organizations serving our community return to us as members of that community. The services and resources these charities create are yours. They are your community centers, your online resources, your legal defense funds, your libraries, your charities.

With this in mind, I would encourage all of us to identify a favorite Pagan charity (which one is entirely up to you) and to try and keep that charity in mind the next time a call is put out for community service. It's pretty good magick theory. It's excellent community activism. And that tax-deductible receipt ain't too shabby either.

About the Author

Shea Thomas is the Chair of the Board of Governors for The Open Hearth Foundation, Inc. - a nonprofit 501(c)(3) Pagan charity working to create a Pagan community center in the Washington, DC region. This article first appeared in PagaNet News, Volume 9, Issue 3, Beltane 2002 and is posted here with the intent of gaining notice for a worthy organization.

We Are Not All Victims!
by The Coven of The Dragon

For more than a year now I have watched – haunted if you will – the Witchvox site. I have watched countless articles and essays posted, and the discussions that have followed. But through all of this, there appears to be a disturbing trend I have seen, and lately, others have taken notice and spoken up about it. While the news and articles are meant to not only inform, they are meant to spark discussion, and sometimes debate. But there seems to be a rise in Anti-Established Religions going on.

As a member of a religion that is considered a “minority”, it seems to be easy to fall into the trappings of becoming a victim. One’s outlook becomes skewed by the feeling that “Everyone is out to get me”. With this mindset, hearing about events somewhere else in the world causes panic, fear, and the need to proclaim a “Call to Arms”. Why is this?

As I sit back and watch, I see more and more people slipping into a mindset that the whole world is out to get us. And by us, I mean Pagans, Heathens, Witches, Neo-Pagans, and followers of what is considered “alternate or earth based” religions. People constantly reference the Salem Witch Trials, or the Burning Times, to parallel with the events of today’s world. Will these events reoccur? I personally doubt it, there are laws against torture, murder, and mob incidents. Will a president who believes in one religion single handedly bring down equality and tolerance for other religions? I doubt that. Is there a reason to be concerned about world events? Yes.

But not everything wrote and printed in the news is fact. Not every article that mentions the occult, or Wicca, or Paganism, or Shamanism, is part of a covert plot to deface our community. Why must everyone jump to conclusions that just because a person’s religion is mentioned, either good or bad, that it is a personal attack? I have seen an article posted that mentions what many would consider a victory for our religion, and it is praised, yet another article mentions a victory for another religion, and it is bashed. In many cases, it is the same victory, but instead of Pagan, it may be Muslim, or Jewish, or Christian.

We speak of equality, of the freedom to be who we are, to practice as we wish, but then, you read the comments of members of our own community, and there is an air of discontent and malice towards other religions. Freedom of religion is not freedom from religion. For us as a community to be able to be open, and practice our religion, we must be willing let others do the same. Is it really necessary to remove the word God from our world? No. It does not say “In the Christian God we trust” or “One nation under Jesus Christ”, it says God. The interpretation is left to the individual. It is not used as one specific deity.

Honestly, does it matter if someone has a sign up that mentions every holiday celebrated in late December? Christians are pushing to get the focus back on their faith, and for their followers, I applaud that. The entire holiday has become too commercial. But why must people get offended by others wishing to express their beliefs out in the open, the same way we want to? Do I believe there should be a separation of church and state? Yes. Do I think it needs to go to the current extremes? No.

On a daily basis, on this site, and I am willing to bet money on several others throughout the world, people post these very same sentiments, anti-Christian this, anti-Pagan that. What good does it do to debate these things until we are all blue in the face, and at the end of the day, what have we accomplished? We have argued the point of a subject into oblivion, and by the end of the thread, the arguments are not even about the intended subject.

Instead of arguing about the negative aspects of being out in the open, why not take the energy used for bashing the religions people perceive as out to get us, and instead focus that energy on our own community. The average person does not hold malice towards our community. The average person only knows what they see on TV, or read in magazines, or what they see on their local news. The best way to change people’s perceptions is not through arguing amongst ourselves, but to work towards the betterment of the community. Will people really come out and protest a group of Pagans working for the Adopt-A-Highway program? Or if a group of Pagans are assisting a local soup kitchen, will all the Christians leave? I doubt it. Will that shed positive light on us? Very much so.

I have always prided myself on being open about my religion. I have been lucky, I haven’t run into the extreme religious fanatics, but I have had to explain my beliefs to those who did not know. Instead of ignoring or getting hostile, try discussing it. If it really is harassment, take it up with the right people. Assuming you are a victim all the time will just continue the outside world’s concept of misunderstanding and fear about us. If it is not appropriate to work on or perform a ritual in public, is it really that bad to practice it in private? At the same time we push for equality and visibility, it is time to remember both sides of that sword. Do most Christians always display and practice their faith in public? Or Muslims? Or Jewish? Or Mormon? No. They practice both in private, and in groups.

The general public’s fear of us is not only due to bad publicity, but from misunderstanding. I am not trying to say the world is a happy accepting place, but if you ask a normal, average person what they know about Pagans, they will only be able to tell you what they know from TV, or movies, or the article they read in their local paper about a Witch. If you want acceptance, other need to understand you, and what you believe. People like Kerr Cuhulain are doing just that. They are working to dispel the myths and fallacies regarding our religion and community as a whole.

When these debates on a posted news article start, ask yourself a question before you hit the enter key. Would you want the reverse of that message posted on a Christian message board? Or would you want a loved one who does not follow your path to read it? Would your words hurt them? Or do you want a Christian or someone of another religion to read what you have written, and take that as the beliefs of the entire community?

Before we worry about everyone being against us, we should focus on ourselves. We need to work towards the common goal of equality, by practicing the same things we want others to do. If we expel all references to religion from our lives, so we are not offended, then our own references will be lost as well. If you want others to be understanding, you yourself must be understanding of others. It does not matter if you do not agree with what they say, if it is what they believe, then they have a right to express it, same as you or I.

What it comes down to is this; we need to work together, for the betterment of everyone, if we wish to be accepted. Practicing your religion in private is fine, but at the same time, if you go public, think of the consequences. Even though posting a message on a website is fairly anonymous, a reader of your words may be influenced by what you write, and may base their feelings about your religion by what you say and do. Would you rather someone judge you for being a Pagan/Witch/Wiccan that is helping the community, or by an anonymous message online, decrying the evils of Christianity and their oppression of your brothers and sisters?

I for one, would rather be the one seen helping others.