How efficient is doing charity?
What difficulties do we face when we want to conduct charity work?
I strongly believe that the number of people who WANT to do charity is much higher than the number of people who actually DO. One could say: There is a margin, an area of potential, but currently dormant.
I tried several times to speak, hoping to receive back an opinion, some feedback that would help me identify what leads to that full-of-potential mass to stay inactive. Why don't I do as much as I actually can to help the others? What stops me?
(Please, be mindful throughout: By Charity, I mean even the merest act of sharing or giving; not necessarily volunteering).
One day, I finally came up with a solid observation. Sometimes, doing Charity is a mess, especially if you don't have a network of people to guide you on where to go and whom to speak to.
Let's think how it usually works:
- We identify what we can offer, be it food, clothing, toys, time etc
- We search. We search for a place to offer our charity: an organization, a house, a family we know, an orphanage. We try to see if the offering will actually reach the needed ones, what is the mission of the organization, what do they actually need and in what quantities?
- The practical part: How much time do I need to invest to get some stuff there? Is it close to my town? Do I need a car or just the train? Time is a scarce resource after all.
The latter one proves to be the hardest part because we lack some tools to give us the information we need. We luck digital, online, aggregated and easy to access information.
Tools not only for organizations - but for people who wish to offer a box of milk or a bag of toys, because they care. We need tools that make the process easier and help us answer the WHERE, WHEN, WHAT, WHY and FOR WHO faster and thus allows us to think of doing charity it again.
With a team of brilliant young people in Athens, we are developing such a digital platform, because we do care and because we know technology.
We are hoping to make this "charity research" dramatically easier and allow more good-willing people to take even the smallest action. We want to tackle this dormant potential for the good of our local society.
P.S. I put aside -for a moment- the social groups that do charity as a profession (although I wish they read it).