Ladies, Gentlemen: may I invite you to contemplate your favorite charity, and make a donation? Please take note: your donation, should you elect to make one, can be financial, or a donation of your time and/or expertise, or some combination thereof.
I invite you to consider those things that you consider important, and of those, which you either consider to be underfunded, or which might benefit from your contribution.
Please consider how much of your donation goes to overhead, of whatever sort, and how much goes to the service/cause you value. Some charities compensate their executives handsomely (American Red Cross president receives 694,000 dollars annually (https://marketrealist.com/p/red-cross-ceo-salary/), for operating an organization with an annual budget of $3,096,487,000 (that’s three-billion-with-a-B)(https://www.redcross.org/content/dam/redcross/about-us/publications/2022-publications/FY2022_Red_Cross_Financial_Statement_FINAL.pdf)
Others, less so. The Salvation Army pays it’s CEO $122,330 (https://www.zippia.com/answers/what-is-the-salary-of-the-ceo-of-the-salvation-army/), to manage an organization with a budget of $5.8 billion (again, billion-with-a-B) (https://www.forbes.com/companies/salvation-army/?sh=1e072b8fcb57)
Some organizations support causes you may also support, or, that you do not support. For example, in 2021 The Salvation Army published a guide (since retracted) asserting, among other things, that “…White culture” has challenges it needs to overcome, including “denial of racism” and “defensiveness about race,” and “White Americans” need to “stop trying to be ‘colorblind.’”
You may think this is on-target. You may think that this is tone deaf. In either case, consider the position your intended charity takes on issues that you find important.
My point? Please consider if you want to contribute to a charity. If so, consider what that charity might be. Then, decide what form your contribution will take.
Then, contribute. Your money, your time, your effort. Volunteer firefighter? Volunteer medic? Go get some!
A check when you are able, to a charity (or charities) that you are satisfied will further things that you value? God bless you.
Time on the serving line at a shelter, or sorting donations at your local St, Vincent DePaul? Rock on with your bad self!
And, for those who want to “level up”, contemplate how, or if, you can/will make donations at other times of the year.
The economy sucks. Our politics sucks, harder. (ditto politicians, derived from the ancient Greek of “poly”, or many, and “tics”, or blood sucking insects) The need is there, even more than we had previously known.
I write, frequently, about neighbor helping neighbor. To paraphrase The Noted Sage And Moral Philosopher, Fred Rogers, “Won’t you be that neighbor?
Musings of A Stretcher Ape 