(06-07-2016, 07:23 PM)Doigt Wrote: The problem with the people who is appealing to the wallet of everybody else is how many parts of the global population it represents. Every day, someone somewhere who is in lack of funds to survive the year has the idea of asking for help over the internet; many more wouldn't even ask the local resources (if there is any) after maybe putting some insane pressure and weight on the family. This, fellow forumites, will not end. Donating to individuals, while a noble effort, solves not the many problems society has to confront on this front. The point is that we need to find solutions.
I agree. The same goes with healthcare. If you go to a hospital, they will treat your symptoms, but that's all. Without determining the
root cause, and attacking that, really
nothing has been accomplished, other than maintaining the status quo for a short while longer.
I have made a rule for myself to
never help strangers directly with money. Not with cash. If they need physical help, words of encouragement, learning,
anything else, then that's different. I once was on my way to a movie with a friend. Some guy stopped me, gave me a story about desperately needing money for bus fare. I gave him a token. "What's this?", he says. "It's your bus fare." But more than an hour and a half later my friend and I come out of the theatre, and there he is.,.. still begging for change.
I started pushing him around, demanding my token back. I made quite the scene of it, making sure as many people as possible saw what he was up to, and eventually he gave it back. Then I told him to run, before I really got angry. He did.
With a stranger, you never truly know what is wrong with them, or what they truly need. They should seek what they need from those who know them, and know how badly something is needed.
Now, the majority of people are reasonable, try their best to get ahead, and those people deserve help in their time of need. Should they not all have friends who know, and are only too happy to pitch in?
The point is this:
There is a small section of society that does
not want to work, but exploit this old line:
A fool and his gold are soon parted.
Don't be the foo'!
The same holds true when you are thinking of donating to charities. Not all charities exist only to help the cause that they say they are. Many, have become something else, that seeks more to care for those who work for the charity.
Another anecdote: My mom worked as an accountant, and was hired on by a major charity which she had always gladly donated money to in the past. But during her time there, she saw that as the years went by, more and more of the share of money that they received went, not to the cause, but to pay for the employees, and grossly overpay their "managers". She uncovered fraudulent activity within some of the accounts, and when she began to talk to superiors about it, she was promptly fired.
She had (God rest her soul) too much faith in people -- that they did the right thing, most of the time. She didn't know just how corrupt the organization was, and talked to the wrong people.
So when you donate, always do some research first, and see how much of what you give, goes to the end cause.
So let's face facts. We don't know who this is, or if they really have cancer. We really don't know anything, so before you expend your time, energy, and money... I for one, would need evidence that they need it, and that whatever we collected would help.
Just sayin' (again)... don't be the foo'.