Sociologists may tell us that we are becoming more isolated and atomized as individuals, but this is still a country of irrepressible joiners. Thousands of clubs, societies, associations, coalitions and confederacies exist to answer our organizational impulses, whether they flow along personal, professional or political lines, as I found out recently....

I was directed to an extraordinary book called The Encyclopedia of Associations, which lists more than 20,000 organizations nationwide....

Intellectually assertive types can approach Mensa International, open to those who score within the top 2 percent of the general population in a standardized intelligence test....

Any university professor can join the Association of Concern for Ultimate Reality and Meaning, whose meetings might be blamed for setting the conversational tone of too many faculty tail parties....

The Society for the Eradication of Television opens its arms to anyone willing to carry a card that reads "I do not have a working TV set in my home and encourage others to do the same"....

—William McGowan, "A Sense of Belonging,"
New York Times Sunday Magazine,
August 23, 1987.

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In 1985, the United Cancer Council (UCC), an Indiana-based charity, raised more than $5.1 million from contributions, but spent only $20,000 on cancer research, according to the watchdog National Charities Information Bureau. Ninety-seven percent of the money went for fund raising or management expenses, the Bureau said.

—Washington Post, April 18, 1987

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[Percy] Ross's obvious talent for self-promotion has earned him a fair number of critics, particularly in Minneapolis, where he is known for his bankruptcies as much as his philanthropy. He has been accused of tax evasion, of giving only when the cameras are rolling, of being an incurable show-off.

"Percy is not a malicious person, but he is a flamboyant publicity-seeker," said Robert T. Smith, a columnist for the Star-Tribune and one of the most persistent critics. "Take that stunt where he threw the silver dollars out of the car. Not since Marie Antoinette said 'Let them eat cake' has anyone been so insensitive."

Ross is unperturbed by the carping. If he ever again feels unloved, he can take refuge in the warehouse full of thank-you notes that he has accumulated over the years. Filed away neatly and never thrown away, they have become a paper monument to his philanthropy.

—Michael Dobbs, "Giving While the Giving's Good,"
Washington Post,
August 22, 1987.

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