A few weeks ago I was asked to help at a charity event by calling the charity auction. There were some really great items up for auction and with an expected audience of around five hundred business people and their partners there was a solid opportunity to raise some much-needed funds so I agreed to donate my time and skills. I'll admit that my auctioneers voice and skills were a little rusty due to lack of use (it's been years) but I practiced for a week or so and figured I'd do a reasonable job.
The event was a great success and much was raised, most of which will go to the right place.
I can't recall who I was speaking with in the last couple weeks but someone on Hive mentioned charities and we were commenting about how many of them are dubious at best.
Much of the funds raised go to paying salaries, for "fact-finding", conference and seminar trips, the CEO's new Jaguar and other such "operational" things which don't leave much for anything else. It's for that reason I do not donate funds to charities preferring to donate my time and skills instead and, even then, I need to know the funds raised will actually do some good rather than line the pockets of those running the charity.
There's an entire industry that revolves around charity and so many are simply there to create revenue that doesn't get to where it's supposed to and even though there's systems in place to prevent that...well, there's some clever folks out there circumventing the system and taking advantage of others for their own gain under the guise of being a charity.
I was pleased to give my time and skills, the event was well run, focused on bringing attention to the cause and I know the funds raised will make a huge difference to those the charity exists for...I mean military veterans, not those who run the charity.
I received a nice framed letter of thanks a couple days ago and it'll sit in my home office with other such things and will make me feel a degree of contentment knowing that I helped to make a difference to a few people; that's a nice feeling to have I think.
So, what's up?
With that in mind, making a difference to others, I thought I'd see if anyone else has volunteered their time and skills in aid of a charity and, if so, did you feel the need to vet the charity to ensure the funds raised went to the right place first? What did you do to assist and why did you do it? Also, have you ever had a situation in which you discovered a charity was misappropriating funds raised? If so, what was the situation? Feel free to comment and tall me what's up should you wish to.
Design and create your ideal life, tomorrow isn't promised - galenkp
Want a free Hive account? Click Here
[Original and AI free]
Image(s) in this post are my own
