To Give or Not To Give, That is the question.

There is an oft quoted piece of prose from William Shakespeare's Hamlet that begins:

“To be, or not to be: that is the question:”

 In this case I have used creative licence to contort this into the question that gets posed at my doorway several times during the year.

Typically it is to a younger person that I am refusing to give at the door to.

Ah, yes to be young again.

But wait. I am young, relatively speaking, so why do these dooor-to-door salespeople think that it is any less noble to do the work of a volunteer, in their local community.

Instead they travel sometimes 100 km to canvas a neighbourhood  such as mine, and approach with the pitch for their worthy cause.

I can relate to fundraising, and I can empathize with the aims of the Society or Association that is attempting to fund-raise by direct donations.

But for me, it does not work.

Why? You may ask.

Well, In the first part, there is a  significant amount of energy that gets wasted in just canvassing, and then there is the overhead of the fund-raising activities as well.

Just look up the "King of Charities", and the brilliant expose in the Toronto Star Newspaper of Kevin Donovan. 

I am not saying that charities are not worthy of the dollars given to them, but the means at which they arrive at their donation are suspect.

So I prefer to donate a little, where I can, and when I can to the charities that matter most to me, and not because somebody I do not know, asks If I am familiar with their program.

Even if I knew the person, and they were asking for some valid cause, I still initially refuse, until I have had time to reflect upon the organization doing the spending/