This is a post that i am cooking in my head for quite some time, and is a deviation of my own (roman catholic/Mediterranean/whatever) education pattern…
Long story short, since last year i made a personal commitment (several reasons in the decision making process) of donating a portion of my own income to some institution devoted to some noble cause each year. So, last year i selected an known institution as the recipient of the donation, so i contacted them and wired 1000 euro. A couple of weeks later i received back in snail mail a receipt, and that was it, no nothing. That left a bittersweet taste…
One may ask, what do you wanted? A full gospel band chanting “Thank you” and cheering you? Well, no. But a template thank you letter would be nice, and even nicer would be some kind of invitation to visit their work, not as an inspector (i believe that 99% of them have bigger bang for the buck than the public institutions) but to increase the involvement with them and encourage further donations.
Other very relevant point that i want to focus in this post, is the hypocrite view about the disclosure (or indeed the non-disclosure) of donors in our own culture. When you give you shouldn’t say, when you receive you also shouldn’t say. “Be kind and generous and don’t expect nothing in return” – i heard in church. For starters, turning this “rule” even more hypocrite, it only applies to small donations, if you give big enough it’s okay to put your name and bust in some building, even if proportionally, the donor of the smallest sum made a bigger effort. Also, this stupid secrecy has another effect, the lack of peer pressure and accountability, because no one has nothing to do with each others actions, the individuals that don’t give have a shield and the ones that do give are not accountable for their actions… ultimately no one is (both the doers and the non-doers).
As i couldn’t care less about these social conventions (or else i wouldn’t publish this post). This year i am selecting other institution and when it’s selected and the donation made, i will inform the world in the follow-up of this post, hoping that there will be followers.
Marco, nice point of view, and I am glad you brought the subject up. It really would be nice if people talked about donations more, not to brag about it but because it could increase its awareness and maybe, just maybe, more people might consider participating.
As you know I am a big fan of the good work that is done in dog shelters and I have been donating to them on the recent years – maybe one can say that I should be supporting human focused institutions because there are still huge needs there but if everybody thinks like that our good 4 legged friends would have no help, so I feel I am still doing the right thing.
Just last week I loaded a couple of those huge dog food packs and cans on the trunk and I will be delivering to União Zoófila very soon. They do a hell of a good job over there; they really put in all the sweat to make those cats and dogs feel as good as it gets on those conditions…