This weeks readings really made me think about the effectiveness of the money being donated. Not only the effectiveness of the donation, but about why people give money. I think that when I have given money in the past it was because I found the cause of the organization to be worthwhile or felt some sort of connection to the cause, but after reading Tim Harford’s article about studies done on giving by the University of Berkley, I realize that a large number of donators know very little about the organization they are giving to, and even less would give if they didn’t feel socially pressured.
The PhilanTopic article, while talking about things that are a bit confusing (taxes), made me think about taxes as more than just annoying J. I had never connected donating and taxes on estates. It makes sense that if the estates of the deceased are highly taxed, the recipients of those estates will give less, because they are losing more, so I think that the tax being decreased a little, couldn’t hurt, as it will probably, hopefully, increase giving, BUT, ten percent decrease on estates worth such large amounts of money, is a significant lose to the government. I think that in a recession, decreasing the tax by so much, is a risky move, whether it increases giving to non profits or not.
The Non Profit Nation chapter about Religion focused my attention on the amount of charitable work churches and religious congregation do. I found it interesting how much work churches and religious congregations do for the government. They fill a gap that, after tax increases or cuts, and most often regardless of recessions, in my opinion wouldn’t be filled. People that donate to churches have their reasons, like those studied in Harfords article, and it is usually faith based, but I think that the statistics show they give no matter what, and whether we agree with their intentions of giving or not, the donations they make to their churches fills a need for public service that our government cannot fill. Churches also seem to have less red tape, which in class became a fairly heated discussion, but if it allows them to make necessary contributions or set up relief after disasters faster than the government (which was the case after Hurricane Katrina), maybe less red tape is better.
The last article Our Ineffectiveness at Measuring Effectiveness was sort of interesting, but I was somewhat confused by the points the author posed. I understand that he/she wanted a database of charitable organizations and how well they serve, or maybe spend their money, but other than that, I didn’t really find anything else interesting. In the library class today, we looked at a few websites that listed charitable organizations and how much they spent, assets, any bad feedback, and their tax information, so I don’t really understand why the writer is so intent on having such a costly project if it seems what he is trying to achieve is already somewhat readily available.
So that’s it for this week! Until next..
