Charity Is Good.

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These days, it can be so hard to follow up on charity cases that you get involved in. Especially with social media and how easy it is for things to be manipulated. People can claim so many things, and if what you’re donating to isn’t in a place where you can easily monitor and run follow-ups, you never really know what’s happening to your money, except what you’re being told.

Social media has made it easier to put a veil over the eyes of people, distracting them from the more pressing issues at hand. Which is why when a suspicion is cast on an organization for mishandling the funds donated to them, they quickly post a picture or two, showing what they’ve done, even though that may not even be their project. But in the digital work, anything can be made to look like anything.

For me, I usually prefer to help those who are around me. They say charity begins at home. I prefer to put my money where I can see it work and do the things I was told it would do. I remember stopping making building donations in my church simply because, despite all the money collected for church building, the place remained the same way for years! Nothing different! If I’m not seeing any evidence, it would be hard for me to keep shelling out money to give to you.

Other than that, I’ve also been one to help out on other cases where I don’t even know the people involved. I’ve sent money to a family before because they came on TV asking for financial assistance to treat their sister, who was suffering from a terminal illness. I’ve done that multiple times to different people. I don’t really bother to ask for proof there, because I consider it life or death, and I believe that it won’t be so difficult to run on TV stations or online.

But then, other forms of donations where I might not be able to see the work or even the effects of the money, I’m always wary of them. Back in school, I developed the habit of making donations to the motherless babies' homes and orphanages. This was done through the church then, and other times, I had friends who celebrated their birthdays in such places. And most of the time, we donated food, clothes, and the like to the children.

Later on, we learned that when we give the food, the proprietors usually end up selling it, even the clothes. This made me more skeptical, but I didn’t stop it altogether. I just do my findings now before I put my money into a place. I’ve also refrained from assisting friends who want to celebrate their birthdays at Orphanages and Motherless Babies homes, because the last one I did collected all the donations and used the money to relocate to a different state. The one before that only gave about 10% to the homes, keeping the rest for themselves. It was crazy.

I don’t know what the future holds, hell, I might still find myself donating towards something like this sometime in the future. But for now, I look well before I make donations. It’s my money, and the fact that I’m giving it to you to do something means I reserve the right to question you if you fail to do what you said you’ll use it for. The thing is, donations won’t be so difficult to get if people could just see the evidence of it. But sadly, there are many scammers out there who are ruining the good institutions that actually help. We really need to do better, just as we also need to give more.

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_{Thank you for reading. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below, I would love to know what you’re thinking. Till we meet in the next post.}

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_{This post is inspired by the second topic of this week which is A Little Charity. Feel free to try it out.}

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_{N.B: All images used in this post are mine. The thumbnail was designed using Canva.}

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