Think Local Act Local with Eric Rowell

Local Politics Matters More Than National Politics

Welcome to conversations that matter podcast. My name is John Harris, and I have a guest with me today Eric Rao who is Well, he's a local attorney in North Carolina, and he's gotten involved with local politics.

We met at a conference I don't know what a year and a half ago or so and One of the things that Eric does which impressed me and why something I want to share with my audiences he really does take to heart the The the adage think local and act local and I'm gonna read you a quote from Eric before He gets on and starts talking about some of his activities on the local level politically.

But he said in 2016 the most depressing aspect of the presidential election isn't the candidates we have to choose from but how many Individuals seem to believe the next president will have a greater impact on their lives than the impact each Individual can have on his or her own life.

Start learning more about your local government prior to municipal elections next year if you want to make a difference in the election with a real impact on your life and Man, I thought that was just such a good way to to put that oftentimes we can get really frustrated with national politics and we want to go online and Say something about what's happening nationally when actually our voice means a lot more on the local level.

And so I'm gonna give the floor to Eric Eric. Thanks for joining me.

Thanks for having me really appreciate this. I know you do a lot of good work on the podcast and you've had a lot of a lot of big name zones. I appreciate you carving out a few minutes for me. Yeah. Well Eric, you know.

You're doing something that a lot of big names aren't doing and that's getting involved on the local level and that's much more Accessible for someone who wants to actually make a difference. So can you take me through your story a little bit?

How did you get involved in Huntersville, North Carolina with local politics? And and take me through a few of the accomplishments maybe that that you see that you think wow that that was something I never thought I would do but here here it is it happened.

Why Local Government Has the Most Immediate Impact

Yeah, sure, John. I mean I for a long time now I have been pushing folks to get involved locally. It's clearly in my opinion where you can have the most impact. So I started out like a lot of folks just kind of a traditional I guess a Republican.

You know never really super involved in college in law school I started getting a little more involved with you know, college Republicans and things like that. But it was not until well after law school.

I think that I really started focusing on the local and So when I'm when I got a law school my first job was at a in a small town and I started paying attention to what was going on in the small town sort of reading the local paper actually wrote for the local paper for a very short amount of time due to some legal threats that were made against some of the folks in town against the paper, but That was that was a very I think eye-opening experience for me because I was able to have an actual impact locally in that small town in South Carolina.

And the example I always give is the town Decided that it was a good idea to buy or to look into buying a local golf course that had kind of become run-down. Membership was dropping and for some reason the town thought it was going to be a good idea.

And me and another gentleman spoke out against this at a town board meeting. And again, this is a very small town in South Carolina. So you have a I think it was a five-member town board with the mayor.

Very very few people Pay attention or show up at local board meetings so when one person or actually in this case, it was two when two people show up to speak out against a An item that's actually a big deal.

It makes a big impact and In part because of my efforts and me writing about this and speaking out against at the town ultimately decided to shelve that measure and Subsequently the golf course was purchased by a private Entity and has now since turned around.

The golf course they made a lot of improvements invested a lot of money in it. It's a really nice golf course now and thankfully the town never had to spend taxpayer money to get involved. So that that for me was really the start of my think local act local Involvement and you know, I always I'm a big fan.

I know like I know you are. Dr. Brian McClanahan. So I like to say that, you know, I've been thinking local and acting local since before it was cool since before, you know Dr. McClanahan has made it so popular but after my time in South Carolina moved back to North Carolina and relocated to Charlotte and Continued to focus on the local.

You know, I don't know what point I You know solely devoted myself to local issues, but you know, I always kind of say The folks in Raleigh and the folks in Washington DC just really Don't really are not going to listen to me.

You know, I can I can send those emails to my senators and my representative in Congress. I can even send Emails to the folks in Raleigh the folks in DC really have no. They don't care at all what most of us have to say.

Now the folks in Raleigh actually, you know, I do know my former state senator. Former state rep. I actually do know them the my current state rep. I have met a few times know her. And so I guess to some extent the folks in Raleigh would listen to what I have to say because I've built a platform locally, but but but still to a much lesser extent than the folks locally and so You know when I moved to Charlotte, I started getting involved.

Charlotte's a really big city. But even in Charlotte the example I always give is There was a pedicab ordinance. That the Charlotte City Council was pushing Eight nine years ago where they were trying to regulate out-of-town pedicabs who would come in for events like Panthers games or big conventions that we would have, you know, like like the debt.

I think the Democratic Convention I believe it was maybe 2012 I don't remember but the Dems came a few years ago and I think in the lead-up to that convention the City Council was trying to ban out of town pedicab companies who would come in and obviously the pedicabs are just the bicycle driven Carriages that people will take around town and I spoke out against that.

I went to City Council. I spoke to my city councilman. And I attended one or two City Council committee meetings on this issue and it was very interesting because one City Council subcommittee meeting in particular always stands out.

You had whatever it was the Transportation Subcommittee met, you know, two or three members of the City Council. You had a room full of folks the vast majority were in transportation industry and We went around the room and actually introduced ourselves and when it got to me, you know, it was a pedicab owner, pedicab owner, taxi cab owner, big corporate media representative, etc.

And I just said I'm just a local citizen here that's interested in anti-competitive measures. And after that I had a bunch of people come up to me because they were just so confused as to why I was there.

But that I was able to help significantly I think reduce the impact that that measure was going to have on competition, anti-competitive type issues here here in Charlotte. And and so but again, that was me.

I was just one person speaking out on that issue. And then, you know, I've now just taken that to Huntersville, which is a suburb of Charlotte. Not a small town, but still small in the sense that only a handful of folks actually get involved on the, you know, local election.

You've got You know, a few old families still kind of control a lot of the the votes, so to speak. But we are we're a growing community, a lot of transplants here. And I'm doing my part to try to get people involved here in Huntersville.

You know, because we have an election this year. We have all year elections every two years. So generally the focus is is just not there for the all-year elections when you don't have a You know congressional race or state house or senate race or the presidential race.

So the um, at least here in North Carolina the way our Calendar works is the local elections are usually in the odd years. And so a lot of times people just don't pay attention and I'm just I'm doing my part to try to change that.

Building a Local Influence Network in Huntersville

Eric, I want to get into some of the things that You've accomplished because the longest list you sent me which by the way I'm going to post this if you go to worldviewconversation .com, I'll post the list you sent me of some of the accomplishments and you're not tooting your own horn.

You're just saying this is what kind of an impact one person can make and as an example, I'm going to post those on this podcast episode. So if you go to worldviewconversation .com, you can find that.

And I want to get into some of those but I want to ask you what what is it about local politics that makes that make locals not want to get involved? I mean you just kept saying over and over you know not many people show up and so when you show up you can actually make a difference as a local citizen because no one else is there to or if you're a few people are there to actually contradict what you're saying.

So why is that?

Do you have an answer? You know, I can speculate. I don't really know why I think it's there are a lot of reasons, especially specific to Huntersville. One reason people do not get involved for at least a number of years until after they've moved here is because they're coming from out of state somewhere.

They're moving into town. They may not have a base of friends or family that are already involved. So you're moving into a big suburb of Charlotte. Charlotte, you know takes up most of the space in the local paper, the local news reports.

Huntersville or the other suburbs make the news if there's a major crime event or some type of major corruption in the local government. Otherwise, the vast majority of the news is Charlotte. So if you're new to town and you turn on the news or you open up the Charlotte Observer, it's going to 90 of it's going to be Charlotte-centric news.

And then, you know, it's just when you're in a community and you're going to community events or you're hanging out in your neighborhood, most of your neighbors aren't involved locally either. So, you know, when you start talking politics, whether it's on social media or in your neighborhood, you're either going to be talking about Charlotte or, you know, what the president has said or what's going on in Washington or to some extent Raleigh.

I don't really know why that's the focus because, you know, again, like Dr. McClanahan talks about oftentimes, you know, the government that's closest to you is the government that has the most impact on you.

And as everyone knows, you know, federal government has shut down a few times over the past few years. And, you know, people kind of joke, well, no one notices when the federal government shuts down unless you're an actual federal employee, you know, you work at a park system or something like that.

There's very little impact of, you know, that most of us feel. And same thing, you know, if your state government were to shut down, which I don't think that's really something that happens often, generally, if a budget isn't passed, you just, you have measures in place to continue funding at prior levels so that state governments don't necessarily shut down in the same way the federal government does.

But, you know, if your local government were to, let's say, stop working, you know, your trash probably wouldn't get picked up. The water bill, you know, water issues may pop up right away. You know, there are a lot of issues that may start impacting you immediately.

You know, no police, that would be a big thing. People would all of a sudden maybe notice that there are no police on the streets, no fire protection for a lot of towns. Depends on how your fire department is set up locally.

So, you know, I'm just doing my part to try to make people aware that these are the issues that affect you the most. And obviously, a big one here locally as well is property taxes. You know, so most of your taxes that you're paying are going to be local, for most of us at least.

Most of us middle class folks, you know, the biggest portion of your taxes are going to come from the state and local government. So, you know, this past summer when we passed a budget here in Huntersville, whether or not to raise property taxes was a huge issue.

And, you know, you've got trash fees, you've got vehicle fees that they tack on the property taxes. So, you know, I don't really know why more people don't get involved. But, you know, I'm doing my part to try to change that because, again, the issues that impact you the most are going to be coming usually from your local government.

That's right. And it's also a stepping stone. I don't think you're using it that way necessarily, but if you want to get involved with bigger, or I should say more, yeah, bigger, I guess is the word I'm going to go with, bigger government issues.

If you want to go to Raleigh and then D .C., then you're going to have to probably get involved at the local level at some point because not everyone's a Donald Trump that can just go from the business world and jump to the presidency.

That just doesn't happen that often. So this is interesting to me. You're a conservative guy, and so far you've given some examples that are about opposing measures that were not fiscally conservative.

But when you get to Huntersville, walk me through that a little bit because there's list here you sent me, and there's a bunch of stuff, including some social justice stuff and some more, I guess, socially conservative measures that you were, or against social conservative measures that you opposed and so forth.

So how did you get involved, and how can that serve as a blueprint for others who might want to do the same thing? And then what kind of success stories do you have from getting involved there?

Opposing Taxpayer-Funded Facilities and Public Art

Right. Well, I would say for me, you know, I moved into Huntersville and, you know, usually when I move to a new town, one of the first things I do, I register to vote, maybe get the library card, signed up at the local library, and then start looking at who is on the town board.

And so that's the first thing I did here in Huntersville, started checking out who the board members were. Because when I lived in Charlotte, I just, I didn't, I didn't really know anyone up here. So once I moved up here, I found out who the players were on the town board, who the mayor was, started just trying to read the local paper.

There really wasn't an online news source that focused on Huntersville. We had one local blogger who does a good job of covering some of the local northern suburbs here in Mecklenburg County, but no one solely devoted to Huntersville.

So I did the best I could to try to get to know who the conservative players were on the town board and reached out to one in particular, had developed a really good relationship with one particular town board member, have actually helped him on some of his campaigns over the past two years.

And so, you know, that's really how I started to get involved. I keep up with the agendas. Usually we have two town board meetings a month. So I've gotten on one of those lists to make sure that the, you know, the agendas are emailed to me so I can review those.

And then I started writing. We have a local weekly paper like a lot of towns do. No one was really covering the opinion. There was hard news coverage for local town board meetings, you know, budgets, etc., but there was no one really providing any opinion on the local government.

And here in Huntersville, we had again a local blogger that did a great job covering another small town. But, you know, so I reached out to the paper. It worked out. Wrote a column for about a year and a half, usually about once a month, covering, you know, kind of specific issues in Huntersville from a more of an opinion perspective.

But a lot of it was just fact-based. So, you know, one of the first things that I got in trouble for, and I consider this a big success story, the town of Huntersville actually kind of owned a gym and a gym slash pool.

And we were paying, using taxpayer dollars to provide management of that facility, paying a lot of the capital expenses. And to me, that jumped out immediately as problematic. I mean, you know, I don't think, call me crazy, I don't think local government should be in the business of running swimming pools and gyms.

So I started questioning that. And one of the articles I wrote for the local paper just simply pointed out, hey, taxpayers are funding this facility in large part. The folks running that management company really were not happy just that I pointed that fact out.

They, in my opinion, they like to operate under this charade of this is a private facility. And so once people started, you know, learning more about how much taxpayer funding was going into this place, some of the local politicians, some of the local town board members, I think, started paying a little more attention and got involved to the point where, it was about two years ago, the summer of 2017, they actually brought up for a vote.

Finally, they said, look, we've got to put out for bid the management of this facility. So, you know, it's not, we may not have gotten to the point where we sold off the entire facility, but at least now we're in a much better position where taxpayers are not, taxpayer dollars are not just being wasted on this facility where we've got a new management company that came in because the town board voted to bid out the management services, which was great.

And so the facility is being run a lot better. But again, that was one of those things initially I was told, hey, this is an issue we really don't touch. Things are going okay over there. You got a lot of the swim moms, you know, you've heard soccer moms.

We have a lot of swim moms locally who are happy. They're voters. Let's keep them happy. Let's not really ruffle any feathers. Fortunately, I usually don't listen to advice like that. I'm pretty persistent when it comes to following up things that I probably, you know, could maybe be better left alone.

But that was one of the early issues when I got involved here in Huntersville that I think I was able to definitely make an impact on. And, you know, again, that's something that's now, it was previously costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Now we're in a position where we're at least breaking even potentially earning some income. Tell me about, because I know.

We talked about this, I don't know, a couple of months ago, maybe it was last year. Time gets away from me. But this may not have been one of the biggest success stories you've had. But I remember there was a social justice activist on the public art committee.

What? And you stopped the town from partnering with this social? What? So just because this is a, for those who aren't a bit big on the fiscal conservative, not that they're not physically conservative, but social issues usually capture attention a lot more.

So tell us that story. What was this person doing? And what did you, how did you put an end to the town partnering with this individual?

Stopping a Social Justice Partnership in Public Art

I probably shouldn't, you know, talk about this too much because, you know, somebody may listen to this and say, we gotta do something about that now that we know that we stopped that person from getting on.

But the bottom line was... Don't say something you'll regret then. No, no. But this is a perfect example of, again, why it is so important to pay attention to what your local government is doing. You know, just to give you a kind of a perspective for folks who are listening, the Huntersville in North Carolina, our town budget, we're roughly 35 to 40 million, somewhere in that range for an operating budget.

So obviously, you know, compared to, you know, your county budget, like here in Mecklenburg, it's about a billion dollar county budget. And obviously the state budget far bigger and federal government is just, you know, it's no telling how much money the federal government actually spends every year.

But the point is, even with the $35 million operating budget, there is so much waste and abuse and fraud that takes place. You know, you can spend a large portion of your week just focusing on the fraud and abuse that takes place in a small budget.

So one of the things that the town board had started looking at doing a few months back, I said maybe it's about a year ago that the topic of starting a public art committee came up. And again, call me crazy, I don't really think that government should be involved in funding public art.

Now, you know, some people, a lot of folks, you know, there are pros and cons to public art programs. But personally, at the town level, I was opposed to this, specifically the way it was being set up.

And so the town ended up starting this. It was, I think, a contested vote. But the town started a public art committee under the premise that there will be no town dollars spent towards this. But the thing is, anytime you have town staff that are acting as liaisons for some committee, or you have town space being used, there's always going to be resources.

And the way these things always start is, you know, just like the federal income tax, for an example, you know, oh, it's only going to, it's never going to tax the middle class. Federal income tax is never going to impact those who are making under a certain amount of, you know, it's just going to tax the rich, right?

We know how that went. And so that's how, that's why I think it's so important to get involved with your town government. Because if you can stop a lot of these things at the outset, then you can keep them from ballooning or growing or inflating later on.

Because, you know, the government only grows one direction. I mean, government only gets bigger. Government never gets smaller. So what I tried to do is to start the public, stop the public art committee from forming.

I mean, look, if a group of citizens wanted to get together, my suggestion was, if these folks wanted to get together and have a private art committee that wants to meet and make recommendations to the town for, you know, art that should be funded, sculptures, murals in town for what, you know, whatever, that was fine.

But I didn't want the town to be directly involved. And so, but that was a contested vote. We lost on that. And I started paying attention to the minutes from these meetings. And maybe the first or second meeting, there was already the suggestion that, hey, let's partner with this local artist.

She can come in. We've got some funding from one of the local hospitals. They're going to fund, you know, give us $40 ,000 for this unspecified art project. I looked up this person, and it was abundantly clear that she was a, what they call, social justice warrior.

And so immediately I saw that this is going to be problematic, that some of the themes that she was going to be pushing in, whatever art the town ended up funding, would probably be something that a large number of citizens in town would probably either object to or have a problem with being displayed in the center of town.

Because, you know, this is not just going to be some piece of art celebrating the town or the history of Huntersville. And so all I did was bring to light this person's social media, some of her past work, and some of the themes that she's been involved with.

And fortunately, the town was able to distance themselves from this person and cut off that partnership. And again, I mean, you know, I know this person is an artist and, you know, a lot of artists obviously don't do what they do for free.

And so I'm not necessarily celebrating that she didn't, you know, she didn't receive taxpayer funding. I just use that to point out that this is something that, if you're able to get in at the ground level and you're able to stop this stuff, it's a lot easier then, as opposed to this art being installed and then having to take something down.

Because then you're a censor, right? Then the town is censoring art. If we have an art, some art installation put up in the middle of town, and that's one of the arguments I always made is, as I said, you know, to the town board members, do you want to be in a position to be on the dais saying yes or no to certain art?

I mean, famously, we had the jar of urine with a cross in it, for example, that I'm sure a lot of your, you know, listeners are from, yeah, are familiar with. What if, for example, we have an artist here in Huntersville that provides something similar and wants to use taxpayer funding to display something like that?

Do you, as a town board member, want to be in a position to be saying yes or no to this art? So, that was something that I was able to get involved with, and we were able to stop it. The public art committee still meets, and I'm sure there will be another example of this, you know, at some point.

But again, you know, if you're involved with your town and you follow the agendas, you follow the committees, these are the kind of things you may be able to identify in your town. Now, you say.

Speaking for Residents Who Cannot Speak Freely

That there's town employees that are concerned about the waste of taxpayer dollars, but they often can't speak out because of fear of retaliation, and so you end up being a voice for residents who happen to be employees that are kind of gagged because they would...

Right. And that's kind of, that's, I think, why I feel a little bit of a kinship with you, and I'm in a different area, with at least my public presence, where I see in this, at least currently, I don't know if I'll stay here forever, I hope not, but in the sort of greater evangelical world in academia, there's kind of that same sense.

I get messages from a lot of professors and people inside academic institutions, students who are like, man, keep going, keep saying what you're saying, we feel this way, but we can't say it. And you're doing that for folks in Huntersville, and so, I mean, I'm sure they're greatly appreciative.

Now, you have a Facebook group of 475 members. What's the name of that Facebook group, and is there a website with that as well, or just the Facebook page?

Well, yeah, that's, I guess, another one of my quote-unquote accomplishments. What I did is, because I was never a social media person, I was on Twitter, but never on Facebook, one of the few people, I guess, our age who had never really gotten on Facebook, but once I got asked to leave the local paper, second time I've been kicked out of writing for a local paper, because one or two advertisers, yeah, they may have pulled their ads from the paper, and local papers are in the business of making money, so I got asked to leave the paper.

I said, well, let me start a website, because I want to continue to advocate for issues, and I started a Facebook page, and then the separate group. The group is Huntersville Politics, but it's a closed group, so if you've got any listeners in Huntersville, North Carolina, or surrounding areas that want to try to join the group, fantastic, but you can also follow most of the stuff I post on my website.

It's also at my Facebook page, and it's just Eric Rowell, and my website is ericwrowell .com. Again, definitely going to be extremely boring to most of your listeners, unless they're really fascinated with local government, because again, all I focus on is the town of Huntersville, but that's something I started.

I started this group, because there was a vacuum there, and I tell people all the time, whatever your town is, start that group, that town, Politics, on Facebook, and I do the best I can to try to provide a platform for all the residents of town.

This is not just a quote-unquote conservative Huntersville Politics group. I let in members of unaffiliated Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, because I'm just trying to, the majority of these issues locally are not partisan issues.

The town board's not going to be talking about gun control or abortion, those kind of things. Town board's talking about contracts with vendors, they're talking about taxes, that kind of thing. So if you're interested in this kind of thing, and there's no one in your town currently really focusing on local issues, then be the one to just start that group.

Invite folks you know in town, and I've got a large number of folks that I've never met in person that have joined the group, and I do my best to post the agendas when they come out every other week. I try to post about town events or the elections that are actually going on this year, this is an election year.

So one of the things I've done, I'll send out candidate questionnaires so that I can post to the group, things like that. And so I've always gotten a good response. 475 may not sound like a lot, but for a town the size of Huntersville where you only have two, three, four thousand people turn out to vote, that's actually a good size group.

Swinging an election that way, yeah. So you're an average guy, you're not getting paid to do this, this is just kind of what you do in your spare time, I guess, and your concerns.

Yeah, to be clear, I get no money for this, and it takes up a lot of time, and a lot of my family members frequently question why I continue to do these type things, and when am I going to start getting paid for this.

So yeah, just to make sure your listeners know, if you're getting this for.

The money, this is not bad for you. You don't have a Patreon or anything like that, do you?

No, I'm not as smart as you. I have not gone down that path yet. Maybe I should.

Well, yeah, maybe in the future. For citizens who are concerned to give you a little something, you might want to monetize that. But right now, you're just doing it because you're a concerned citizen, you're a husband, you're a father, you live there, and these things affect you.

And it would just be so much better, I think, for concerned citizens to get involved on a local level where they actually have more of a chance of not only getting heard, but making a difference. Not that you shouldn't be involved in understanding what's happening on the national level and voting and so forth, but you're drowned out a lot of the time, and people listen when you go to a town board meeting.

So yeah, I appreciate having you on. I also think, you know, I was going to throw this out there for some of my listeners, but from just a Christian worldview perspective, government's responsibility is pretty narrow.

It's to punish evil, and there is a sense in which government is supposed to promote good. But government, the things that are going on right now, especially on the federal level, but even as you said, on the local level, are just crazy.

They're outside the scope of what God ordained government to do. And without fleshing all that out, this is a place for, I think, even Christians to get involved, to put an end to governments basically acting like God and thinking that they can impose on the family and impose on the church and impose on other institutions, on business, when that's not their job, it's not their function.

And so I appreciate what you're doing, and I appreciate you coming on to just encourage people that, you know, you're a local guy and you started a website and you're making a difference. So appreciate it.

Local Charity, Personal Giving, and the Limits of Government

Yeah, and I could go on and on all day about some of the issues where I've had an impact because that's just what I'm passionate about. But, you know, to your point about the Christian worldview and how this impacts Christians, I mean, just one example, you know, the town gives a lot of, well, not a lot, but it gives tens of thousands of dollars to local charities.

And some of those charities are good charities. But the point is, as government, you know, every year it's a fight about how many charities should we be giving to, and a lot of folks want to give to even more charities.

But as you know, the more that government crowds out or the more the government gives to local charities, then that has a, usually a detrimental impact and effect on contributions from, you know, local neighbors, because they say, well, look, the town of Huntersville is giving taxpayer dollars to this charity.

So they're good. They're well taken care of. They don't need my help now as a member of the community. Look how much taxpayer dollars they're receiving. So that's another area where, you know, it's a small item in the budget, but every year I'm one of the only people pushing back saying this is not a proper function of government.

We should not be giving money to charity because force, it's still, you know, it's taking money from others by force and giving it to your select charity, you know. The commands and scriptures, but I think in the New Testament,.

Especially the one and others that are given to Christians for the treatment of other Christians, but even expanding that into how we're supposed to treat our neighbor. These are personal commands. There was never any concept of giving to some kind of a central authority to then distribute.

It was always personal. And that's what I think Christians have traditionally done throughout time because of the New Testament is they set up, I mean, all the hospitals and it's a privately funded charity.

And, I mean, Salvation Army, I mean, I'm sure some of these charities probably have their Christian roots that even Huntersville is funding, but it was a personal thing. It was never meant to function this way, this impersonal kind of, we're just going to put all our money in a pot and someone else is going to, by force really, we're not even voluntarily doing this and they're going to contribute this to those who need it.

I mean, talk about being lazy and kicking back and not even getting, like there's no actual care for someone on a one-on-one face-to-face level. And I don't like that at all. I think we ought to be getting involved if we're going to do that on a personal level.

So, yeah, you make a great point there.

Look, the easiest thing in the world is spending other people's money and taking credit for it. And that's what politicians do best, especially with the charities. The one thing they always want to do is to say, look how great this charity is doing.

So, of course, we should give even more. You're the bad guy for not wanting to give them anything. We should give even more of other people's money away. But then my favorite thing I always like to do is to ask those board members individually, well, how much money have you personally contributed to that charity?