warrrreagl

I hope this doesn't repeat another thread, but my search revealed nothing similar.

I've seen it mentioned scattered around various threads, but I'm curious about discussing this in one encompassing thread. What are your experiences with charities, donations, and volunteer work? Horror stories? Inspirational stories? How much do you donate (cash or time or both)? Do you have it pulled from your paycheck or do you impulse-donate (or both)? Do you volunteer your time? Where and why? Do you and your significant other agree or disagree about some of these aspects? Would you consider this a relationship make-or-break characteristic?

The only donation I have taken directly out of my paycheck is something toward our college's scholarship fund. I face the usual Gestapo-style tactics at work from The United Way every year, but I don't donate money to them - only time. I have worked in many educational positions where our bosses' job security was threatened by their superiors if they didn't garnish a quota of donations specifically for The United Way. I've seen lists of non-giving employees published openly in attempts to humiliate them into giving to The United Way. I've seen rewards handed out by my employers to people who donated generous amounts of money to The United Way. I've never understood why The United Way is the obligatory charity of choice for so many businesses and it has always made me suspicious of them.

When Grancey and I lived in Iowa, we wanted to donate a piano to a needy institution (nursing home, after-school program, children's ward, etc.) that could use it. So, we contacted the local United Way office and began making arrangements for them to come collect it. The receptionist was extremely excited about our offer and it made us feel really good about what we were doing. But she kept calling back with odd questions about the piano's dimensions. She wanted specific length/width measurements and weight estimations. But it really got freaky when she called back asking about the type of wood and what color it was. When I finally started to press her about why she needed those details, she non-chalantly told me she wanted to make sure it would fit in her house. She wasn't going to allow that piano to go to a needy institution - she was sending her husband and sons to our house to grab it for herself! When I told Grancey, she fucking blew up! She called the lady right back and cussed her absolutely flat out. I mean it was a good, old-fashioned Southern tongue-lynching. To this day, we still refer that phone call as the highest point of intervallic measurements for verbal abuse. Needless to say, The United Way did NOT get that piano.

Since that day, we never donate any money or items to them, because we're never sure what happens to it. However, I run a service-learning option in our music program at work where my scholarship students must complete a specified number of volunteer hours and I rely heavily on The United Way to help me place those students with the proper organization. I generally find that I respect The United Way a lot more when I volunteer time and effort instead of cash or items.

We occasionally impulse-donate (like Katrina, or Farm-Aid, or something like that), but not too much. Lately, we've been getting phone calls from the Fraternal Order of Police asking for donations, and we're always scared shitless to just hang up on the police. However, last month we talked to an officer in our local FOP and she told us those phone solicitors for FOP are almost always bogus. She said you should always ask them which chapter they're collecting for in which city, and you'll find that they either hang up on you or they're calling for an FOP thousands of miles away.

Our alma mater used to call a lot for their annual capital campaigns, but one year I angrily confronted them on the phone about how they'd recently used donated money to pay off an outgoing football coach, and they've sort of left us alone since that.

We always make a big deal at Christmas about buying toys for needy local kids, and one year we adopted a whole family who we knew that went through a tragedy right before Christmas.

I guess the connecting theme in our charity is that we do not like to give distance/blind charity very much. We'd much rather help out with people we know or situations we're involved with. We avoid giving money and would much rather give our time.

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