Does Charity Begin at Westiefield?

There are so many charities asking for donations, sponsorships, goods and other things. They do mailouts, door to door campagins, collecting in the street or at shopping centres. If the charity is really big, they might have a website. They might have a highly visible public campaign once a year. That's not to mention the phone calls. Some of these charities are aimed at helping people within Australia and others concentrate their efforts overseas.


Now I'm not here to say to you which charities are worthy and which aren't. Some organisations that you might not believe operate and survive based on public assistance and donations, especially in the areas of public safety. Some of these organisations receive government assistance and some don't.


So how do you decide who to help and who not to support? Unless you are very rich and powerful, it would be hard to support more than a few charities, of course assuming that you do.


One question I have to ask is, how do these charities fund their fundraising? As an example, I was shopping at my local Westiefields this afternoon. I was wearing my green "Homer Simpson playing golf" shirt. I'm walking fast trying to get around someone slow in front of me and I've got my Bluetooth headset on as I've just finished a phone call. So the WWF guy (supporting the pandas and suchlike, not the wrestlers) makes a golf swing type action in my direction. I remember what shirt I'm wearing and I stop and say "have you seen the back?"


Obviously he hadn't. So I turned around and showed him the back, showing the top of Homer's head and a golf club poking out of a rather large hole. "It's an oldie and a goodie, init" and by the time he said "yes it is", I'd started to walk off before he gave me the option to adopt a panda or something. I think he got the message that I didn't want to donate and I didn't even have to say no or anything - I was most surprised about that.


But my point is, there were 2 guys there that had obviously been standing there all day and if I was to go back there right now, they'd still be there. So are they volunteers or are they getting paid a wage or a commission? What about the space that they are occupying at Westiefield? Do Westiefield charge for that?


Ultimately, it is up to you to who you donate to if you choose to. And if you choose not to, that should be up to you. I understand that a shopping centre is a high traffic area but does being harassed at a shopping centre, over the phone, in the mail, at the front door, on TV etc etc make you want to donate or not?

Thank you for donating your time to read this blog. I'll donate each comment to a favorite charity that you might not have heard of - ME (My Enjoyment, thanks Homer for yet another line).


Disclaimer: I do donate to a select band of local charities.