Have we got donations wrong…? Some thoughts.

Some housekeeping, clarity searching, brain dribble, transparency, promotion and a call for information!

This article serves multiple functions; clarifying my own thoughts surrounding donations derived from a recent experience with a promotion, attempting to be completely transparent with my audience about my intentions, further promotion of a good cause and a call out for information! I know many of you will be happy to hear this is under half the length of my last two pieces and with a slightly different flavour, as I explore my own predispositions amongst other things.  

Is talking publicly about donations taboo? Now maybe I’m totally off the ball here and I hope that this isn’t me playing some weird mental game with myself as a technique to justify my own actions, however, having recently made a significant investment to a project I wanted to both support and capitalise on as an advertising tool I have been very two sided about whether I believe this is morally right, wrong or a total non-issue. Therefore, I wanted to honestly spell out my thoughts and intentions on the issue. Should I think I feel guilty about publicising this donation because it looks like I’m doing so to further my own ego and I quite possibly could be; however, this could be a case of completely over-thinking and there’s nothing wrong with it at all.

What I actually did was invest some money buying some t-shirts for a project called plogolution. They are doing amazing work, setting up meetings around the UK (primarily London) and going into schools – in attempt to get both children and adults to go out and collect rubbish in their local area (and there doing quite a successful job of it!). I chose them because their cause is pure, true, has amazing benefits to the environment and brings the community together, I love it. However, I can also see how brilliant it is and I expect them to become very popular and therefore by buying them t-shirts with their logo accompanied by website links to my projects as well – it would hopefully gain some traffic towards the websites and social media accounts I have directed them to. There is a positive effect on both parties and I’m doing nothing wrong by drawing further attention to this by showing it on social media.

I want to be honest to myself and the public to the fact that I am not just skipping around giving money to charity causes, there was multiple incentives, one of which being It was done with the intention to benefit me as well. I already feel a lot better by airing this thought and would be extremely interested to hear others opinion on it! From there I can then take further action if necessary. I’m squirting these thoughts straight out onto the page and will likely upload them this way but am interested to see what others think? Am I right in feeling guilty about this, or is that ridiculous, or in fact is there some deeper dogma around talking about donations in which I should pursue and investigate – if you deem it interesting enough!

Side note time…I have often thought that if we choose to distribute our disposable income towards more positive projects in our communities and across the globe oppose to excess cloths, newer cars and other materialist items it would shift the way the world views production. The great capitalistic machine that runs our society would find its attention surely shifting towards companies who are doing great things as that is where people are putting their money! We could direct the paths that old and new companies take but to do so the vast majority would have to be willing to put their money in the right place, something people may be reluctant to do, may not have the privilege to do and something that may not be so easy to identify! I do think there is a shift towards this type of economy already and I think the answer to a lot of global environmental problems may lie within it! I shall explore the idea of targeting our purchasing power and ideas such as gift economies in another article!

If anyone has any links to content regarding anything mentioned above – I would be grateful for it being sent my way. Thanks.