Donating to Non-Profit Organizations

Group one, they sincerely care about the less fortunate and they donate to make a difference. However, they donate to a faceless organization to shield themselves from the people they seek to help. Better to keep them at arm’s length. 

The second group are those that donate in an attempt to placate the gods in hopes of not upsetting the pendulum of chance that has favored them with good fortune. They fulfill the requirement then that messy business can be put out of their minds. They’ve done their duty.

 

The third group are those that give solely for the benefit of themselves.   Their “gift” involves huge public acknowledgment. It is a business strategy rather than a sincere interest in “giving back”.  

 

Let’s go back to group one for they have the most potential for making a difference.   Here is the issue with donating to most non-profit organizations. You take your $1000 donation, subtract the organization’s overhead, you are left with $600 (most times much less….but let’s use this figure for argument’s sake). With that $600 the organization seeks to slice it as thin as possible to benefit as many people as possible…in essence, giving textarea in support to 600 people. Everyone admits that does not even begin to make a difference in anyone’s life BUT the demand far exceeds the supply of donations. Your $600 donation has accomplished absolutely nothing. The 600 people are no better off and neither will the generations that will come after them. Poverty is as much an inherited trait as curly hair!! 

 

LET ME TELL YOU WHY…How do I know?? Because I inherited the “gene”. 

 

Growing up in poverty means a lot more than growing up without money. A poor family is usually not only lacking money but also lacking in many other infinitely more crucial areas. Having grown up in low-income housing projects, I know this to be true. I preface this with the caveat that of course there are exceptions.     

 

The underprivileged marry in their own “class”. Relationships are typically abusive and dysfunctional. The pregnancies arising from these relationships are either ill planned or unplanned. The children are raised in the same abusive and/or dysfunctional milieu as their parents had. Parenting is mostly reactive. The plain fact is the parents are battling to provide the most basic needs of food and shelter in addition to attempting to fulfill their own emotional needs, which results in chronic neglect of the needs of the children. Little or no emphasis is placed on fostering healthy self-esteem, respect, morals, ethics, values or achieving higher education. The parents themselves as well as the community around them are poor role models. You become the product of your environment. The outcome is a generation of children with little or no ambition, low expectations and limited motivation or drive. And the cycle repeats itself. 

 

THE SOLUTION: 

 

Your donation dollar discussed above is required to bridge the gap between how much they can provide for themselves and the minimum required to sustain life. Unfortunately, this is a permanent, ongoing requirement of modern societies that no one has yet been able to solve.  

 

However, (and this is the cloud’s silver lining) despite the inherited predisposition to inert behavior, a percentage of these possess the insight, self-awareness, introspection and enlightenment critical to break this cycle but lack the necessary tools. This group I will call the “potentials”. This is the target group where your donation dollar will have positive impact with repercussions for generations. This is the group that Non-Profit Organizations fail to recognize and for this simple reason, your donation to these organizations is ineffectual in breaking the cycle of poverty. These organizations deal with the urgent, immediate needs of individuals (for example, food banks, shelters, snowsuit funds and the like) but contribute only marginally, if at all, to solutions.

 

My philosophy is about providing the “potentials” with the mentoring, coaching, guidance, education and continuous oversight required to reposition them for success. This includes, and MUST include, the temporary alleviation of financial burdens of meeting basic needs. 

 

You donation here will achieve just that for me and others like me. I posses the critical attributes stated above, and with your help, I can help myself and others. In this context, the $1000 donation example above contributes in its entirety to breaking the cycle of poverty and all it represents.

 

Just take a minute and come to http://overthestairsbelow.blogspot.com/  

 

Although I am seeking your support, I desperately need your feedback.