Immoral philantrophy?

[kidcolin]

He isn't probably right, it's a completely wrong outlook.

Maybe I'm jaded from spending a lot of time working with the community service center when I was in college, and thus working closely with some charities and some wacky ideologues. I was very picky about what projects I wanted to get involved in. My selection criteria was asking myself these 3 questions:

1. Is this an important cause? (both in general and to me)
2. Is the project run effectively?
3. Will I enjoy working on it?

If any of these 3 was a resounding "no", I didn't waste my time. Some in the office found me to be a nuisance because of this. Others loved me though because the work I did do, I did very well.

You can apply similar criteria to your donation efforts. If you're handing out money to causes just based on need, you might as well sign off your ownership to your money. It's YOUR money. You need to put it to work as how you see fit.

And to reiterate: "need" is too slippery a slope. So you decide cancer is the worthiest cause. Well, which organization? They're all begging for money. They all "need" it. A lot of charitable organizations are big rackets, IMO. They're either inept and inefficient, or very corrupt.

So you narrow it down by picking causes close to you, and making informed decisions within that. That's how effective philanthropy and charity efforts work. Informed decisions made by the donors, based on personal beliefs and a strong assessment of those they donate to.

[Senor Choppy]

It depends on your idea of what is moral.

If you believe it to be immoral to use resources wastefully, then you're obligated to do the maximum good with the money or time you devote to charitable causes. If not, doing good is doing good and there's nothing immoral about it, regardless of how you discriminate between charitable causes.

[RichC.]

I typically only give to help out Vietnam Vets and Wounded Warriors from Iraq and Afghanistan. Is this immoral because these are who I feel are more deserving? No. Is it immoral because I am also a Vet? No. Am I biased? Yes. I also donate to cancer research. Also not immoral.

We donate to certain charities because many times we ourselves have been affected by these same problems or situations. Not because we are immoral, but it is because we feel strongly about these issues. My dad is a Vietnam Vet, Iraq for me, and cancer seems to run in the family. We cant help out every charity, so we make a choice, and choices are based on our life experience and those people around us.