Offering Incentives For Charitable Acts
DRQ 1: Revisions
Offering incentives for charitable acts defeats the purpose of being helpful and selfless. Most acts of charity are driven by the desire to improve the lives of those less fortunate, not to gain a little trinket for donating a can of Campbell’s tomato soup. Being helpful should not come from the human nature of greed but from the human nature of selflessness because donating is an act of altruism.
There are many who oppose this view and it is understandable why they do so. Many charities benefit from the donations made by thousands of people who are driven by incentives; incentives get the job done. However, how much of a difference do a few cans of beans given by people who have no interest n helping others have on a soup
kitchen? Incentives may drive people to donate, but they do not provoke them enough to make a large impact on the impoverished. In pop culture, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and many others make charitable donations with no incentives whatsoever. They may donate millions of dollars worth of goods to charities and third world countries with no gift while people with incentives only pull out the bare minimum; three boxes of pasta and their platform shoes from the 1970s. With an incentive present, people will donate the amount that matches the price of the incentive, which is usually a mere thirty dollar Walmart gift card, enough to buy groceries for three days. Charitable acts that root in selflessness and desire to help, ultimately, make more of a difference on the targeted people, while donations made because of incentives trail far behind. Therefore, selfless donations are the most effective donations because they create a more positive impact on the world.
Additionally, incentives for charitable acts are used in schools which are morally and ethically wrong. At school, students are given grades based on learning the material that is presented to them. However, many school systems authorize teachers to award students with extra credit or a pizza party if they donate to a school-wide charity. Participating in a charitable act is not a measure of learning and should not have an effect on children’s grades. Children should donate without receiving three points on their lowest test score because if they did not do well on that test, it means that they did not learn the material. Also, in the case of the pizza party, the donation’s meaning changes. It goes from being about the needy and helping the less fortunate to being about satisfying the child’s hunger during second period because that is usually when they are the hungriest. Further, many high school students volunteer or participate in charitable acts in order to receive community service hours. If clubs and colleges did not require service hours, a majority of teenagers would not participate in volunteering.
Moreover, offering incentives for donations reduces the feeling of sympathy in the donator. Essentially, the donator is just trading, not donating his or her items. In exchange for five jars of unused mush found in the crevices of their pantries, they receive a shiny, plastic bobble head that they can place on their shelf of baseball memorabilia. The act loses its charitableness because it is not selfless or caring. The ethics of offering incentives is flawed because not only does it award unjust incentives, it also diminishes the meaning of a charitable act.
Ultimately, offering awards and gifts for donating has little effect on charities because people do not donate adequate amounts of goods. The ethics of the system send out morally wrong messages to donators and the people receiving the donations by saying that one should donate only in exchange for something else. Unfortunately, incentive driven donations are widely implemented today because people do not realize how unethical the practice is. Awarding incentives for an act that is supposed to be selfless degrades the meaning; diminishing the value of donating itself.
Offering incentives for charitable acts defeats the purpose of being helpful and selfless. Most acts of charity are driven by the desire to improve the lives of those less fortunate, not to gain a little trinket for donating a can of Campbell’s tomato soup. Being helpful should not come from the human nature of greed but from the human nature of selflessness because donating is an act of altruism.
There are many who oppose this view and it is understandable why they do so. Many charities benefit from the donations made by thousands of people who are driven by incentives; incentives get the job done. However, how much of a difference do a few cans of beans given by people who have no interest n helping others have on a soup
kitchen? Incentives may drive people to donate, but they do not provoke them enough to make a large impact on the impoverished. In pop culture, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and many others make charitable donations with no incentives whatsoever. They may donate millions of dollars worth of goods to charities and third world countries with no gift while people with incentives only pull out the bare minimum; three boxes of pasta and their platform shoes from the 1970s. With an incentive present, people will donate the amount that matches the price of the incentive, which is usually a mere thirty dollar Walmart gift card, enough to buy groceries for three days. Charitable acts that root in selflessness and desire to help, ultimately, make more of a difference on the targeted people, while donations made because of incentives trail far behind. Therefore, selfless donations are the most effective donations because they create a more positive impact on the world.
Additionally, incentives for charitable acts are used in schools which are morally and ethically wrong. At school, students are given grades based on learning the material that is presented to them. However, many school systems authorize teachers to award students with extra credit or a pizza party if they donate to a school-wide charity. Participating in a charitable act is not a measure of learning and should not have an effect on children’s grades. Children should donate without receiving three points on their lowest test score because if they did not do well on that test, it means that they did not learn the material. Also, in the case of the pizza party, the donation’s meaning changes. It goes from being about the needy and helping the less fortunate to being about satisfying the child’s hunger during second period because that is usually when they are the hungriest. Further, many high school students volunteer or participate in charitable acts in order to receive community service hours. If clubs and colleges did not require service hours, a majority of teenagers would not participate in volunteering.
Moreover, offering incentives for donations reduces the feeling of sympathy in the donator. Essentially, the donator is just trading, not donating his or her items. In exchange for five jars of unused mush found in the crevices of their pantries, they receive a shiny, plastic bobble head that they can place on their shelf of baseball memorabilia. The act loses its charitableness because it is not selfless or caring. The ethics of offering incentives is flawed because not only does it award unjust incentives, it also diminishes the meaning of a charitable act.
Ultimately, offering awards and gifts for donating has little effect on charities because people do not donate adequate amounts of goods. The ethics of the system send out morally wrong messages to donators and the people receiving the donations by saying that one should donate only in exchange for something else. Unfortunately, incentive driven donations are widely implemented today because people do not realize how unethical the practice is. Awarding incentives for an act that is supposed to be selfless degrades the meaning; diminishing the value of donating itself.