philanthropy?

here's something i've been thinking about for a few days... i belong to a club at school whose purpose is to raise money to give grants to students who take non-paying public interest law jobs in the summer. the group has a snack table in the student lounge, holds a small fundraising event in the fall semester, and puts on a big auction every february.

after hurricane katrina, the group put a jar at the snack table to collect donations for the red cross recovery/relief effort. it didn't bring in tons of cash, but it did raise a couple hundred dollars.

at a meeting last week, a member suggested that we do the same thing (put out a collection jar) for the victims of the earthquake in south asia. that earthquake was october 8th, so the suggestion was a little delayed, but the group decided to go ahead with the collection.

i have mixed feelings about this. first of all, in my experience, schools and universities can be frighteningly insulated from the outside world, so it's good to have a little reminder of reality to encourage people to help out when they can. secondly, giving to good causes is noble and worthwhile. thirdly, this earthquake was incredibly devastating and those who have suffered losses as a result are absolutely deserving of assistance.

on the other hand, however, i think a not-for-profit group that exists to raise money for it's own good cause has to be careful with what it asks of its contributors. maybe it's my years of catholic grade/high schooling, with its annual carnival ball fundraisers, church collections, bingo games. maybe it's my days of being a grant writer at the philadelphia museum of art, or those several months i spent doing part-time telemarketing for the museum's membership department. maybe it's my own gut reaction to years of telephone and mail solicitation from the university of notre dame trying to cash in on its alumni contingent. regardless, i have some strong feelings about asking people for money. and those feelings pretty much boil down to the belief that you have to be choosy with what you ask for and how often you're asking.

not to say that this group at the law school is in the wrong, but i'm not convinced that it's in its best interest to be a general, all-purpose make-your-charitable-donations-here outlet. the group's purpose is really to support itself and its student members. and at that it's been successful. the fall fundraiser is a fairly new idea (as i understand it), and the auction seems to get better and better every year. but is it possibly hurting the larger self-sustaining fundraising efforts by having these little nickel-and-dime donation diversions?

it's honestly probably not that much of a big deal, and the people who've given money to these disaster relief collections are generally folks buying things from the snack table who, rather than put their change back in their wallets, toss it instead into the jars. and i'm not going to make an issue out of it by bringing it up in the meetings (mostly because i think what would realistically happen is that i would look like a selfish bitch), but i can't shake this theory that efforts like this would be better carried out by groups like the student bar association that have a broader reach and who aren't in the practice of asking students for money.

eh.