Donation Motivation

I recently responded to two requests for donations via my PLN on social media. The first for my time and ideas, the second for money. Both are in support of activities to help refugee children. 

Why did I agree? What motivated me to sit up, take notice and positively respond to these particular requests when so many more go unheeded on an almost daily basis?

This exploration of what motivates me to donate arose from a virtual conversation about the veracity and trustworthiness of a person who was effectively asking fellow TEFLers to crowd fund his wages, on an interim basis. Initially, I responded without reservation, went straight to the donation page and transferred some of my hard-earned cash to – well, to a completely unknown (to me) person. Why did I do that?! Not until a friend asked me to vouch for the person before she considered doing the same, did I pause. Then I felt stupid and gullible. 

Had I fallen prey to an online scam? Was I just another naïve do-gooder handing over cash on a whim? Or am I an altruistic supporter of fundraising? 

Times Higher Education article about a Syrian refugee school

Timely exposure to stories of the migrant crisis on TV awakened the philanthropist in me. I was ripe for the picking, as it were. Being unable to directly make a difference myself, I jumped with alacrity at the chance to facilitate others who can. They offer me the chance to contribute from the comfort of my home and alleviate my privileged-person’s guilt. I can buy some “moral licence”, bank a good deed to offset against “bad” behaviour some day in the future. Job done, I can carry on with own stuff secure in the knowledge that I have helped. 

Have I though? How does contributing towards another person’s wage guarantee that the ultimate recipients of all this time, money and effort actually benefit? How does my one contribution towards a collective book guarantee the teachers using it can make a difference to the refugee children? 

We can mask our apathy with cynical questions and concerns about the true intentions behind a fund raising activity.  We can easily refuse to share our (arguably meagre to us) wealth on the grounds of “corrupt charities” and “nothing changes anyway”. The thing is, there are never true guarantees of anything in life, apart from the guarantee that nothing will change if no-one does anything!

 

The Hands Up Project

I think giving in such cases as these is a leap of faith and trust in a person’s good intentions. Talking about trust, it being potentially mistreated and we still doing it anyway, a colleague of mine expressed it well, “I'd much prefer to risk giving money to a scammer than refuse to give money to someone with a great idea willing to devote themselves to the plight of refugees!”

I might be acting naively and gullibly; maybe I am using donating as a way to alleviate guilt and bank some moral licence. So what? That’s between me and my conscience. And does it matter, if it means my small contribution ends up making a small difference to some people along the line? 

According to William MacAskill of the charity 80,000 hours, it matters hugely in the grand scheme of things. Funding cannibalism is an increasingly critical issue in the social sector. Where I sympathise with much of MacAskill’s arguments, I’m painfully aware of my reluctance to “make a commitment to find out which charities are most cost-effective”. Nor am I prepared to publicly pledge to give a proportion of my wildly fluctuating freelancer income. 

However, if I did want to “set up an ongoing commitment to those charities that (I) conclude do the most good with (my) donations”, Give Well would be a good place to start. Or if I did want to pledge some of my earning, Giving What We Can could make it easier.

Meanwhile, back to my original question; what is my motivation for donation? If I’m brutally honest and self-critical, I want to assuage my sorrow for the plight of today’s people in crisis without causing myself too much disruption or cost. Which fundraiser benefits from my emotional need? The one run by a person to whom I can relate, is doing something I understand, could even imagine doing myself. Someone from my profession, who knows the same people I know so that I can feel they are trustworthy. In a nutshell, I donate to projects run by people I feel I can trust. 

So, until I have reached the point of “meaningful behavior changes” and have made altruism part of my identity, I give thanks to you honest, committed fund raisers making a difference on my behalf.  

PS: Writing this turned out to be quite challenging. I find my thoughts continue to churn while I can come up with no answer to the problem of “funding cannibalism” and judging who deserves what from me. But I keep coming back to: every little helps; doing something is better than doing nothing, whatever a person’s motivation is.