Charity – to give or not to give

Recently, there have been reports on the latest President Star’s Charity netting a big sum of $6.22 million for their comchest beneficiaries.

I was deeply touched by the acts of many Singaporeans. If we average out, almost everyone contributed about $1 each to help out. But of course not all of us do that. Reason being that some believe that there are needy to be help, but they are reluctant to give the money to charity organisations to do this job for the needy, as they think that 100% of their money should go to the needy, and not after deducting the wages of the people working in the organisations.

After the NKF incident, a lot of people cancelled their monthly donations, as the idea was that the money had not been used to the correct usage and they should not be donating to build more gold taps and sinks. On the surface it sounded like a really good logic, as it meant that the money needed to be use properly. But on second thought, i asked my friend, then what about the folks who are still needing this help? By removing the donations, the needy do not get a single cent at all. Will you then bring the money to the needy yourself? With this thought, i decided to continue donating although I know that a part of my donation would be given for operation expenses, i felt that this was the way that the needy can continue to receive help. Furthermore, do we expect those working at the organisations to be eating grass and drinking wind? They may be doing charitable work and are non-profit, but they themselves have a family to take care of. Somewhere somehow, they need to get paid as well.

Even the latest Lance Armstong incident, I am thinking that yes, people will be upset and disappointed over armstrong. His time and limelight is over, but will his foundation be affected? Will people and corporations pull out because of this negative publicity? If so, what will happen to those people who depends on the foundation for financial support.

So, charity – to give or not to give. what is your call?