I was having an interesting discussion with one of my friends about charity, and why we should or should not be incentivized to donate.
On the one hand, people who might not otherwise donate are more likely to donate if they have an incentive. On the other, tax breaks are an ugly reason for donation. Well hey, at least there is a reason. However, there is so much more to do.
Here are some of the things I’ve done or am doing in this financial year, not all of which are tax deductible:
- Donating my FlyBuys points. Arguably this only gives a tax deduction to FlyBuys, but that’s fine because I will keep shopping at Coles Supermarkets and collecting these points (and not using them in a more productive manner). I last donated last week or so.
- Donating blood. I donated once this year, and as it was a whole blood donation, can only do so every 3 months. Apparently, every blood donation can save 3 lives, so I anticipate that I will save 12 this year. Australia’s blood bank does not give any monetary rewards for donations in a bid to keep it clean.
- Share the dignity. I donated hard cash to a fantastic supply collector than myself (an entrusted close person to me who is collecting for many bags) to go towards two bags for women in terrible situations. Hopefully that will help 2 people.
- $20 donation to the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. This one is tax deductible to me but that’s not why I donated, obviously.
- Time. I’ve donated some of my time in helping a couple of small business owners I personally know and am friends with. The tasks were small marketing tasks to help them grow. I felt particularly sorry for one of them, as she spent thousands of dollars on poorly executed and incorrect marketing strategies that led to nothing and she was not far from closing her doors.
I know that my contributions have only been small this year so far, but I hope to keep growing that amount. If I make it business-wise, I hope to donate much more in the way of cash and time just like Bill Gates does. He serves as an inspiration to me, but what he does seems out of reach for most of us. Hopefully you can see that contributing to society in a positive way is not as hard as all that, even if it is only small and even if you do only help a handful of people.
Beautiful image from Pixabay, as always.