Psychology of Giving

[bloodofareptile]

A charity that I give to pointed me at the Toyota Cars for Good program earlier this year. For 100 days, Toyota is giving away a new truck to a charity. The catch is that there are five potential charities per day, and a public vote decides the winner

Comments

[bloodofareptile]

I'm a bit bewildered by the survey options on that thing you've linked to. I'm bemused that "people" seem to be somehow different to "homeless" and "deaf and blind"... and confused as to what would be in the "people" and "other" categories...

I don't doubt the zoo does good work, but they also have several sources of earned income. I just don't think I could pick them over someone else that had a definite plan for how to use a new truck...

Why would you over something else?

(And no, Goodwill is kind of like Salvation Army. I'd give to the zoo before I gave to them!)

[bloodofareptile]

I think I know far less about this than you do. :-p

I think the 'using the new truck' thing is a bit of a red herring: I imagine in almost all cases it would be a better use of resources to sell the truck, buy a cheaper second hand one if you're in need of a truck and use [the rest of] the money for something else.Hmm... while I would agree that is true purely in financial terms, I wouldn't say it is as practial in the US as it is here. You're unlikely to ever need to do significantly long journeys here (in the UK), whereas you can clock up thousands of miles in the US. Newer vehicles are more fuel efficient. There's no national MOT-alike thing (set by the county), so second hand vehicles are very hit and miss. Your car dying is more of a life and death thing as public transport is terrible outside of cities

[annifa]

There was a news report a couple of years ago, that the Donkey Sanctuary received more in donations in 2008 than ALL domestic violence charities put together. The sanctuary got £17m and the charities got like £4m or something. Cute animals over people every time...

[bloodofareptile]

I find this all very interesting.

I have to say that I'm inclined to give to animals because they are completely unable to help themsevles and it seems that even the law is against them sometimes (example: it's legal in the US to use big cat tiger cubs for attractions for about six weeks of their lives, so they're bred incessantly, then shoved into horrible cages to live the rest of their lives and die. I write a lot of letters to malls who let these twonks display the poor cats inside them...). Also, I am frequently not that fond of people and my cat rarely pisses me off. :-p

But there were a lot of really good (or wrote good briefs!) charities in the Cars for Good thing. When I didn't know the charities, I was picking them based on if they had a Solid Plan (tm) for how a car would impact what they were able to achieve... And I guess my perceived importance of it.

[etienne]

It's probably at least partly due to prejudice - I know HIV/AIDS charities really struggle with it because people tend to think it's self-inflicted and receives no support. The same probably applies to other things like homelessness.

I also sometimes think (personally) that doing something like sponsoring a cat feels like it makes more of a difference than giving that same £10 or £20 to a "human" charity that sends it to Africa, for example. £20 can't solve the draught in Africa but it can buy cat food for a month, that sort of a thing.

[aiwendel]

I only give to animal charities. Actually that isn't quite true. I do occasional one off donations to people ones sometimes.

Mostly I have less sympathy for people than animals. The planet is overpopulated with humans. And we already have a lot more opportunities than the animals that we frequently abuse either directly or by taking their habitats away from them.

I am happy to support 'cure river blindness' 'help the homeless get back on their feet' etc, but still would go for 'help the brick kiln donkeys from a lifetime of suffering through neglect abuse and ignorance' in preference.