Dear Diary...
Charity
dimanche 21 mars 2010
I had wanted to sleep early tonight, but I decided to stay up to talk about my sentiments on charity.
Reflection is mental nourishment, and thus is more important than sleep :D HAHA.
Tonight's Thong Chai Charity Night, which was organised and broadcasted by Channel 8 wasn't much of a success, in my opinion compared to charity shows in the past. When I looked at the figures close to the end of the show, I had seen that there were only 400K+ call-in donations, a far cry from previous years' 1m+ calls. I'll post the donations received as soon as they are released.
So, this reminds me of an article/essay I wrote on charity that only got a measly 22 marks. I decided to try writing it again :D
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The word, “Charity” entered the English language through the French word, “Charite”, which was derived from the Latin word “Caritas”. In the twelfth century, charity indicated a state of benevolence towards the poor.
In the fifteenth century, charity was used to indicate the state of love or simple affection which was in or out of regarding one’s fellows; an occasion or body of people seeking to embody that state; the love of god, in both directions.
The fraternity was the embodiment of this ideal. In 1700, it meant an optimistic judgement about the good intentions of others; an act of benevolence towards the poor or the needy; an institution erected as a result of such an act.
In essence, the act of charity meant giving to others, with no strings attached.
However, in recent years, there has been an overwhelming trend of commercialisation in charity, which is a paradox within itself. Commercialisation and charity cannot exist together. Commercialisation involves making money and profits while charity purely involves helping the poor and needy. Therefore charities are
often dubbed as non-profit organisations.
Charity has crumbled in the era of commercialism, where only money talks. There is no concern over quality, the poor, the needy, the hungry or the sick. No longer are charities non-profit-driven. A recent study commissioned by Google.org and conducted by the Centre on Philanthropy at Indiana University claims that less than a third of donations are targeted at those in need.
Where does the money go then? They go to the local telecommunication companies, the administrative charges, and to the cost of the fundraiser. Thus, the “love and simple affection” common people like us shower on the needy through donations, do not all shower upon the needy we expect to help. For example, the calls in to Thong Chai charity night were charged $0.21 of administrative charges, including GST apart from the donation itself. For the 400K calls in tonight, the
administration and government coffers would have grown richer by $
84,000.
Apart from the fact that not all that we donate goes to the beneficiaries, there still are other factors why I feel that the spirit of charity has been lost in this era.
Many fundraisers organised by non-profit organisations are often sponsored by large companies or even conglomerates. However, charity is definitely not the main reason behind their generous contributions. The number one reason why the sponsors would agree to fund a campaign is because of the positive media exposure they can receive if they agree to contribute to and sponsor charities and fundraisers. Big names such as Tan Chong and Sons Motor Co. sponsors NKF annually for its charity show, giving the Nissan cars they carry a large amount of publicity. A Chinese saying goes like this, “A good businessman will never make a non-profitable deal”. As such, the sponsors will never agree to sponsor the non-profit organisations if not for the profits they can earn.
Hence, until the day companies are able to contribute under the veil of anonymity, charity will remain a name in the wind.
Tax-deductible donations are another example of the profit-charity paradox. Since an act of charity is to give willingly and voluntarily without expecting return, giving a donation to a charity should be acknowledged as a form of charity. However, the introduction of tax-deductible donations has destroyed the spirit of charity and the act of giving. People no longer donate out of goodwill, they donate so as to be able to receive tax incentives and rebates. Moreover, some people feel that they rather do charity with their money, rather than to pay them as taxes to the government. As such, these forms of donations and acts of charity are not really donations or charitable acts as they are not made out of genuine goodwill, but with an underlying motive of becoming eligible for tax-deduction.
In this modern era, charity is really dead. We no longer help our unfortunate fellow human beings out of goodwill, but with motives. Our acts of charity are no longer genuine as we demand returns for every action. There is little hope for the spirit of charity to be revived, for our youth are benevolent only to earn CIP hours. The era when true charity existed, is a lost generation.
Very little change to it. I only added a few examples to make the essay not so
theoretical. Because I'm tired ):
Goodnight.
Au Revoir
yongliang
he closed his diary at {00:20}
