Donation Fatigue

With the Tsunami funds not being put to use and and the on going NKF saga, I must admit the I am starting to feel really jaded about this whole charity thingy. On top of the weekly bombardment by school kids on flag day, springing at you from every direction from markets to shopping malls to MRT stations to coffeeshops. And the occasional shady individual walking around with plastic laminated letters and pictures of people in old folk's home trying to get you to part with your money. I have seen them at work in all possible permutations. The fun fair tickets, the donations cum lucky draw......etc

Anyway, the finally straw that broke the my camel's back was a couple of days ago when I was in West Mall waiting for Dave. Standing there I was minding my own business when out of no where this 15 year old girl sprung at me a with this plastic tube canister and a clear folder file. She started going on about her "this poor girl has eye cancer and she lost her sight... now she is blind......can I donate some money?"

At that moment I had no idea got into me but I blurted out, " How do I know if this girl will get the money? How do I know if she really exist?" Stunned she replied, "Errrr.....because I am a student?" At that point I realised that its not her fault and she was probably asked to do it by her school to gain some CCA points. I backed off and said, "Sorry, no thanks."

What surprised me was her response to me, " Thank you, have a nice day." And the thing is she was genuine about it. My heart when out to her, I could not help but feel that she has been made a pawn by some organisation in an attempt to raise funds for the charity organisations that they support. Thinking back I did my fair share of funding raising during my school days and all that I got out of it was a certificate of appreciation and rude stares from strangers that treated me like a rat.

Having said all these I must add that I do believe that there are people out there in the world who really need financial assistance. However, the frequency and the methods are sometimes hard for me to swallow. There has to be a better way to collect money for those who genuinely need it. A method where there is transparency and accountabilty and one where the people collecting the funds are empowered with information and knowledge about what they are actually doing.