Which is an excellent point. Suppose Bob owns a supermarket just at the edge of a disaster area. His store miraculously survives with just a few tiles blown off the roof. He helps out by donating a bunch of cases of soup and stew, but can’t give away his whole inventory – he’ll go broke.
Now suppose that WalMart, Campell’s and UPS decide to help out the people in the disaster area by sending people all the food they can eat, gratis. Obviously, nobody is going to buy food from Bob. Having miraculously survived the disaster, he’s wiped out by the charitable response.
I’m sure that considerations like this go into the charities’ usual preference for cash.
THe United Way scandal still has a lot of folks stung about the big charities in general. But in a crisis like this I think the ARC would be the best way to go. They have the presence to put the money to work ASAP. A local outfit may not even have the capacity to take donations while power and phone are out.
Frankly with the ease of Internet donations nowadays, who needs the United Way? Instead of giving to this monster outfit, you can tailor your donations to however you want. The only foks I actually have to write a check to are the local volunteer fire and ambulance companies.
I think there’s another thing to factor in, too. While a single independant truck driver might be more willing and able to give $500 worth of transportation than $500 cash, for a big corporation, it’s probably much easier to give cash. Can you imagine the logistics of Walmart suddenly deciding to donate $50 million worth of food and supplies? It would require diverting trucks from stores and warehouses all over the country, taking inventory away from stores, possibly causing runs and shortages in other parts of the country. Who would authorize and coordinate this effort? It would require coordination between the purchasing, shipping, retail, warehouse, and other departments at various levels of management. And then they would all have to spend an enormous amount of time coordinating with the Red Cross to make sure that the right supplies got to the right places at the right times.
On the other hand, lets say that Walmart has a depatment dedicated solely to charitable giving. I don’t know if they do, but many large corporation do, and if Walmart doesn’t, they must have someone with that job. (Target, which I know does a lot of charitable giving, almost certainly does.) No one answering the phone at Walmart headquarters can authorize the sort of goods distribution you suggest. Possibly no one in the company can without meetings between the heads of all the affected departments. But it’s easy to transfer the Red Cross caller to the Director of Corporate Giving, who can instantly offer as much money as is budgeted for, and with possibly as little as one phone call, authorize $50 million or more.
You’re working for the Red Cross trying to raise resources. Which one do you ask for when you call Walmart?
I asked for suggestions for a charity in [url=http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=332761]this thread**. A suggestion from pinkfreud was perfect for me. I had heard of the Mennonites and although I am far from the religious type, I know they will use the money to send people to help re-build, to help salvage, and to help them get there to do the work. These are volunteers. I can’t afford to go, and I probably wouldn’t be much good if I were there. So - I donate to help get someone there who can do what I can’t.
However, to cut you some slack…I used to work for a charity and saw the horrible misuse of funds. I understand mistrust of some of the older charities. Lots of that money goes to the insane salaries of the CEO’s of the organizations. That is why I prefer to donate to smaller, closer to the cause, organizations.
Some of these people are going to need assistance for a very long time. I hope that people and corporation will continue to be generous in the coming months, but, realistically, I think that many of us will start to move on with our own lives and the desire to donate clothing, food, fuel, services, etc. will lessen.
Hopefully, relief agencies can raise enough money to meet these people’s needs well into the future–after many volunteers have gone back to their regular jobs, food donations have been used up or perished, etc.
I prefer to give money anyway. In part, it’s just easier for me. There’s just not a lot around here to dontate. I can make an online donation now without having to go shopping. Plus, I assume the relief agencies know better than I do what people will need. In addition, I would prefer to give money so people can buy new clothing (in sizes and styles that work for them) that they can use to apply for jobs, go on interviews, or have the dignity of wearing something other than my worn cast offs.
But the most important reason I give money: my company matches my contributions dollar for dollar (up to an amount that I couldn’t reach). That means any contribution I make is doubled. Even with any agency overhead, that goes a lot further than a donation of clothes or food.
Well, I’m not a rich guy and I donated a small ammount of cash to the Red Cross.
But if I bought stuff, I would have to set aside some of my donation for the expense of shipping.
Now the Red Cross gets my money electronically. So the full ammount of my pitiful donation is in their account.
The Red Cross people in the field can say, ‘Today we need this and tomorrow we’ll need that.’ They are free to procure the items they most need and can do so imediatly. My donation is able to be put to use pretty quickly.
If I bought some stuff and sent it, there would be less stuff and it would get there less quickly.
I think A is too stupid to count as benovolent. Unless Joe has all the bandages in the world, and all those bandages are needed to keep the victims alive, then it’s irresponsible of Joe to bankrupt himself (thus impoverishing himself and his employees and their families) in such a fashion. He’d just be creating MORE people in need fo help.