Is PayPal Money Pool ruining the Christmas spirit?
By: Elizabeth Rust
Tags: Parenting, Gifts, Poverty, PayPal, Christmas

Tis the reason for giving. It’s a time to say thank you. To help those in need. During the Christmas Eve church service, my family would put a little extra money in a sealed envelope. I have no idea how much my family offered throughout the year, my grandmother always told me she gave a little more at Christmas. “Giving is all that matters in this world,” she would say.

But what happens when these donations are no longer anonymous to everyone around you? If you see a family added an extra twenty-dollar bill to the envelope, do you do the same? What if all those donations were made public for all your friends and family to see?

This is what happens with PayPal Money Pool. PayPal Money Pool launched in 2017 is a way to create a page on PayPal for friends and family to fundraise for a specific serve or event. Say for example, a Christmas gift for a class teacher. A parent, usually within the class WhatsApp group, arranges a PayPal Money Pool. They then link the page to the WhatsApp group so that parents can donate to the fund.

In theory, this probably seems like a very organised way of collecting money. In reality, it’s a much different situation. Within the PayPal Money Pool, parents can see how much other people are giving. In my UK parent PayPal Money Pool, for example, 35 parents have pooled £785 ($1,040). At the beginning of the pool parents gave £10. This then very quickly went up to £20 ($26) then £30 ($40) with the latest being £40 ($53).

Now I’m not against giving to teachers in any way. I’ve blogged about being from at least three generations for teachers. But what I feel when I see these numbers is parent one-upmanship. And I wouldn’t be alone in this feeling. According to a study published by the Economic Journal in 2013, giving is fundamentally a social act.

Within their research they studied the UK’s two largest fundraising websites — JustGiving and Virgin Money Giving — during the 2010 London Marathon where 35,000 runners take part, with 20,000 of them fundraising for a charity. What they found is that when a large donation was made, larger donations followed. For example, a £10 increase in the mean of past donations increases giving by £2.50 on average.

So what does this all mean for the class Christmas pool? It probably doesn’t mean anything to those parents who have participated. But it does probably mean something to those parents who can’t afford to give this year. The Covid-19 pandemic has put financial pressure on families like never before. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Covid-19 pandemic is likely to put an estimated 2 million families into poverty, seeing them struggling to afford to eat, keep clean or warm.

Publicly giving such large sums only intensifies the divide between families who can afford to give and those who can’t. Perhaps schools should follow this teacher’s lead. Last year she asked that her students instead of giving her Christmas gifts, to donate £2 to families in need.

This year, I’ve decided that I won’t be following suit and giving to the pool. Instead I’ll write a letter to my son’s teacher thanking her for all her work — I may even include a box of mince pies — I’ll then be donating a sealed envelope of money to our local foodbank so that they can support families in need.