Giving to Charities

I’d like to ask this question to whoever that’s interested to read.

Giving to charities, would you….

1. Donate via the people who comes up to you at the shopping center/restaurants asking you to donate for a charity organization/orphanage?

or

2. Go to the Charity/Orphanage to donate/volunteer?

The reason I asked is, more and more people seems to be coming up to me whether I’m alone or with a bunch of friends asking to donate some money to a charity organization, and the best thing is, they have a photo album to show, just to trigger that guilt that we would get looking at how all these people is suffering.

What would you do in such a situation?

Personally, I’d just ask them which organization they are attached with and jot down the name and address/number if available. Purpose? If I’d want to donate money or items, I’d do it myself rather than rely on them.

Yes, I’m skeptical about these people. How many of them are actually doing what they say they do? Out of all the cash they collected, how much actually reach the charity’s home (if it does reach the charity home)? For all we know, out of $10 that was donated, only $2 reach the home, claiming the $8 as administrative fees and processing fees and all that stuff.

One of the reason why I’m skeptical was also what a charity home operator told me once when I went and deliver some donations. I informed him that I got to know about their home through this guy going around Taman Mayang asking for donation for them and he look at me with eyes almost popping out of the socket and say that they never send any one out to collect or ask for donations before. In fact, they are so short handed that they could barely have time to do any administrative work outside of caring for the children in the home!

I’m sure there are some that’s genuinely out to help these charity organization. But how do we truly identify who is the genuine deal and who isn’t? These days, we can easily create an ID card starting that we represent this or that organization and then flash it at anyone we came across easily.

How do we know which are the one that really does give all the money and goods donated 100% to the charity homes? Do we ask them to hang on while we call up the charity home first to check on their ID before donating or just take their words for it and donate?

Could anyone tell me?

With the recession hitting an all time high, people getting retrenched, companies closing down, expenditure of families being slashed, I do feel and worry for these charity homes. They operate based on people’s charity, with the recession, less people want to give as they’d want to save as much as they could. The children at these charity homes would eventually be the one who suffer. Especially the ones that’s not cared for by big organization. I’m not asking for donations for any charity homes here. But am just pointing out the sad fact that, with people tightening their belts, who would then channel in funds to these homes to feed these children? who would be able to fund their education needs with no money being channeled in?

Recession, it really does affect everyone but my heart goes out to these children for most of them do not know what’s happening around them yet they are the one that would have to suffer the most.

What can we do on our part?