Altruism is not a deliverable (redux)

5 questions for entrepreneur and investor Jessica Jackley

Two quick things first: a lot of you wanted to join the FRESH Live gathering and didn’t have a chance to, but good news, you can watch it on YouTube. Also, check this interview I did about education coverage, race, and parents. Now on to the main event…

Awhile back I wrote a reaction to a new company called Alltruists, which delivers boxes to families with young kids and engages them in volunteering and giving around particular topics. Maybe you remember it? I wrote:

I fear that it makes these people feel as if paying for this box and doing the activities it encourages each month somehow supplants self-examination and moral grappling and ethical action-taking.

Randi Zuckerberg, sister to Mark and former head of marketing at Facebook, is quoted on the Alltruists site making the case otherwise: “Any family that buys this box has moved past slacktivism.”

I got in touch with the creator of the box through mutual friends and offered to publish a Q&A with her. What follows is her explanation of Alltruists. I’m grateful to her for being up for clarifying her intentions and hopes for impact with the Examined Family community. It’s clear, as she puts it, that we care about a lot of the same questions—personal and political. I remain skeptical about the ways in which this box will function in families’ moral lives. I’m so curious to hear what you think after reading it.

Without further ado, Jessica Jackley…

Jessica with her family.

Courtney Martin: How did you get the idea for Alltruists and what’s your definition of success for it as it moves out into the world? 

Jessica Jackley: Alltruists was born out of a desire to engage my family more regularly in service. With four kids, 10-years-old and under, it’s difficult to get out of the house and engage in volunteer projects in and around our community on a regular basis. There are the usual challenges — it’s hard to find and schedule opportunities, and even more elusive to find ones that allow let alone welcome kids' contributions — and then during COVID, it felt almost impossible. Alltruists is my attempt to bring families opportunities that can be done at home, and to provide guidance and tools to help parents feel more confident explaining tough issues to their kids. The box experience helps to provide context and basic definitions around complex issues using our four main pillars: LEARN from the overview we provide in each issue’s mini book, CONNECT with empathy-building activities, ACT by participating in the volunteer project itself, and GIVE to one of our charity partners, with whom we co-design the volunteer projects (an initial donation of $5 is included in the subscription but subscribers have the opportunity to give more). And for those families who want to dig deeper into a particular issue, we provide resources, ideas, and additional activities so they can do more online and offline as well.

It’s my hope that Alltruists can provide regular ways for families to learn about important issues together, and to take a first step toward engaging with the world in a positive way. I hope this is a sort of gateway for families to become more and more involved over time.

What has the reaction been like so far? Who is using it (race, class, family structure, geography?) and what are they telling you about their experiences? 

We’ve had really wonderful feedback so far. The content in the mini-books has been well received — we’re lucky to have a number of passionate experts who give us feedback on each issue before we go to print.

With only a few hundred customers so far, we don’t have many statistics beyond geographic location (mostly coastal cities, in what we assume are wealthier households) and some anecdotal information on parents and kids being our main users (vs. kids and, say, a grandparent or caregiver or teacher). 

We strive to design our products and build our company with honesty, humility, inclusivity, and as much input from a diverse group of advisors as possible. I’m sure we’ll get some things wrong, despite our efforts. But when we do, we’ll do our best to learn, repair, and iterate our way to getting it right.

As you know, my main critique of the product is that I fear it will soothe people’s conscience without getting them further along on the arc of engagement. Is that a fear you share, and if so, how do you think about it?

I get it. However, I wouldn’t say I share your fear, and I don’t think Alltruists is unique in its likelihood to overly soothe people’s conscience or divert them from deeper engagement. In working towards our mission, Alltruists could become a catalyst for engagement. If I have any fear at all it's that people will do nothing. 

This is how I think about it: Let’s say there are three basic modes that a person (or a family or a community) could exist in at any time. They could be actively retreating from the world, defensive and trying to protect or shelter themselves. They could be pretty much standing still, not looking to shrink away but not seeking out ways to engage. Or, like many of your readers I’d bet, they might be actively trying to connect and be active and participate and show up in the world with goodness.

For the ones who are retreating, in my experience the solution is almost always a transformative relationship. Maybe seeing a child whom they love learning and being curious and trying to be helpful can soften their hearts. Maybe doing a small activity with their kid, seeing their kid’s generosity or compassion come to life, could inspire them. Maybe they need a little bit of hope to drop their shields, to come alive and start to engage in community.

For people who are pretty content with where they stand, my hope would be that they could learn or re-learn about something important in the world. Maybe this will help them be reminded of life beyond their comfortable bubble. I know that some of the kids who have completed Alltruists projects on the issue of homelessness, for example, have encouraged their families to do more afterward. Several of our first dozen families have become donors to our nonprofit partner New Story. Two sisters did a neighborhood awareness-raising and fundraising campaign, selling plums from their plum tree, for New Story. So far— and we’ve shipped very few boxes as I write this — we’ve seen ripple effects that are encouraging and that we view as a signal that this is a catalyst for greater curiosity and deeper involvement — not the opposite. 

For the last group, the ones already engaged, my hope is that Alltruists helps to translate difficult, sensitive, confusing issues into kid-appropriate terms and levels of complexity. My friend Leah made a great comment that led to this insight about a year ago. She joked, “I wish my kids would just ask me about something I actually know about, like sex. I'd take the birds and the bees talk any day. But all they want to talk about is climate change and all the injustices of the world and I just don’t have any answers!”

She’s a very intelligent person, of course, and actually knows a lot. But she felt flustered by some of her kids’ questions. I think that’s a common experience. None of us wants to hide the truth from our kids, or sugarcoat issues to the point of minimizing their severity. And yes, the world can be so messy, and unfair, and cruel, and flat-out terrifying. But I believe there’s a way to be responsible and thoughtful with how we break the news— good, bad, and ugly— to our kids. I think how we do that, and what we do together in response to the brokenness of the world, matters tremendously. It can leave them feeling either more confused or more informed, stunned or satisfied, helpless or empowered. I’m trying to create something that makes it less likely families will get stuck and turn back when those difficult conversations arise by building a foundation of empathy.

One more thought here. We’ve all seen organizations that peddle fast relief from the pain of the world. I wrote about one of my experiences with this in my book. Here's that section: 

I saved one of the most confusing, dissonant thank you letters I ever received. For a while it was taped to the wall above my desk so I would never forget it. The letter came in response to a donation I had sent to a nonprofit organization specializing in free medical procedures for babies born with cleft lips and palates. Along with a standard one-page thank you note expressing how valuable my relationship was to the organization, I received a self-addressed envelope for an additional donation. So far, nothing new. But the envelope stood out. On it was a photograph, the face of a baby who had been born with a cleft lip, leaving a gaping hole from her mouth to her right nostril. Bafflingly, next to the picture – after I had just been told how much the organization appreciated my loyalty, and how much of a difference I had just made – was text with a special offer just for me. It read: “Give today, and we promise, we’ll never bother you again!”

We’re told over and over again that giving is a burden. Subtly or not we are sold the idea that when we do “enough” to make a positive impact in someone else’s life, we will find relief, too. It’s so tricky because we’re wired to want to connect, to matter to each other. So, of course, it feels good when we think we’ve done that. But we’re given this strange default relationship as well-intentioned contributors of any kind (volunteers, donors, lenders, anything) with well-intentioned nonprofits, where involvement becomes just a way to feel good about oneself. It becomes a transaction about one’s own liberation vs. anyone else’s. 

So I was very surprised when your reaction to this brand new venture — which, with all respect, you knew nearly nothing about — accused Alltruists of being in a similar category. I’ve tried hard to understand and learn from your reaction. At this point I’m grateful for it.

My best understanding is that you conflated our attempts to simplify complex issues for children as simplification en large. That you confused our goal of giving families a few small achievable steps to take together, in order to get started on a path toward deeper engagement, with an attempt to give people the easiest, cleanest way possible to check something off of their lists and never look back. Every person has to choose how, and how much, they are able to engage. We are calling people to action from a place of knowledge and optimism. 

What do we owe each other? What is enough? I haven’t figured that out yet. But I believe you and I both care a lot about trying to get that answer right. I feel connected to you because of that. Maybe our answers in the end will be similar, maybe very different, but either way I’m glad we both seem to be asking those kinds of questions. I wish everyone was.

What’s one of the best existential questions your kids ever asked you and how did you respond? 

My kids have asked a lot about good vs. bad. This was one of my favorite times. (As you’ll see, they also ask a lot of questions involving snacks.)

Any feedback for me? 

In the case of your response to Alltruists specifically, my feedback would be to do sufficient research (and not based on just one article) before jumping to criticize a person, their intentions, or their work.  

In general, my feedback to you is that your writing is really beautiful. I love the content, the insights, and your commitment to so much that is good. Thank you for your voice in the world.

Thank you, Jessica! That’s very generous.

For clarification: when I write a feature story or a book, I do journalistic research (interviews, background research, sometimes observation), but when I write a newsletter, it often comes from my gut. In this case, the information you’ve provided actually doesn’t change my central thesis much (you have little data to provide, as you yourself point out about who is using the box or where it took them on a moral journey.) I’d love to follow the story and see how it unfolds. I’m absolutely prepared to be wrong.

We will be donating to Hello Neighbor in honor of Jessica’s labor.

So readers…what do YOU think?