Question:
I agree with Riddle and KBE. The other thing to consider is that nobody knows here knows the incomes and giving practices of any other member. Everything is relative and to one member, a $200 fragrance might be a smaller percentage of their monthly income than a soda or a pack of gum to a student or part-time worker. If you make $100 a week, a $50 fragrance is obviously more "costly" than if you make $25,000 per month.
Not to mention that throwing money at any problem (charity or otherwise) seldom causes any major changes. Money can only help when the underlying motivation and consciousness of a given area or society have been changed. How much money have we thrown at the problems in Iraq, only to have them get worse because of ideology?
Every few months this question is asked on various types of forums, whether it be for fragrances, handbags, shoes, suits, etc. It's good that we continue to question ourselves, because sometimes an expensive hobby can turn into an obsession, but I'd say that having the right outlook and attitude towards the world's problems is far better than throwing a little cash at them now and then. And, at the end of the day, we all do the best we can. Considering how generous and giving member around here are towards each other (just one example of many, I was looking for Jicky once and Thrax sent me some free, along with lots of other goodies, and he wouldn't even take $$$ for shipping) I can only guess the amount of wonderful work they do for others in their daily lives.

Answer:
I like giving to charity - particularly my church's ones, since they cut out the middlemen.
But I make it a point never to give to anybody who tries to persuade me using guilt - because I am not responsible for other people's problems:
a. the poor in India - I didn't create the caste system that dooms a 100 million to poverty.
b. the starving in Africa - I didn't vote for Mugabe or start any of the upteen civil wars in the place.
etc
etc
I'll keep happily buying my scents without the slightest twinge of guilt.
Renato

Answer:
Originally Posted by Renato I like giving to charity - particularly my church's ones, since they cut out the middlemen.
But I make it a point never to give to anybody who tries to persuade me using guilt - because I am not responsible for other people's problems:
a. the poor in India - I didn't create the caste system that dooms a 100 million to poverty.
b. the starving in Africa - I didn't vote for Mugabe or start any of the upteen civil wars in the place.
etc
etc
I'll keep happily buying my scents without the slightest twinge of guilt.
Renato
That's true, of course. But I never give more that a a token offering to my church. It's lovely, and has basketball courts and a little soccer field, a very nice library and other good things. I make an offering at church like I pay a membership fee at a club--most of the money stays in the church, and it's like spending on myself. I'm ALL for strong youth programs and delivered meals to our elderly, and I do my deliveries very cheerfully. But,
For a sense of charity, I'm with the original poster--those funds go to the world's hungry children(who also did not create the caste sysytem or start any wars.) I know it's a band-aid, I know it's an eternal unsolvable problem, and I know my bit doesnt' amount to much, and yes, it does make me feel a little better about the problems since I'm not ignoring them. There's still that fact though: one child who is terribly hungry will get one meal in his one little belly.
Habitat for Humanity is another pet of mine, though I do admit I've never gone to work on a house, I did cover for a partner who did.... does that count?
To each his own, for sure. That's just what seems to help me keep balance.

Answer:
Originally Posted by Shycat That's true, of course. But I never give more that a a token offering to my church. It's lovely, and has basketball courts and a little soccer field, a very nice library and other good things. I make an offering at church like I pay a membership fee at a club--most of the money stays in the church, and it's like spending on myself. We have our contributions/donations to the church for local projects too - but they're not contributions to charity. The government doesn't deem them so, and as such those contributions are not tax deductible. Our donations to the church's charities get sent to overseas charitable projects, and those contributions are tax deductible, as our Tax Office deems them to be true charities.
With in some cases up to 90% of monies raised by commercial charities going to administration costs (i.e. payment of commissions to the collectors, advertising, and salaries of administrators) I make it a point to never donate to them. I really dislike their sanctimonious collectors as they give their spiel about the poor people I'd be helping - when I know full well they'll be keeping 50 or 60% of what they collect.
Renato

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Originally Posted by Renato With in some cases up to 90% of monies raised by commercial charities going to administration costs (i.e. payment of commissions to the collectors, advertising, and salaries of administrators) I make it a point to never donate to them. I really dislike their sanctimonious collectors as they give their spiel about the poor people I'd be helping - when I know full well they'll be keeping 50 or 60% of what they collect.
Renato That's too bad. The few churches I was in did it differently. (I'm Baptist by the way)
The pastors were all paid very little to none, because all of them had their own careers. We invited pastors from all over the world to come give a sermon at our church, so we rarely had the same lineup two weeks in a row.
Our church was extremely nice, and large, but I remember them setting a specific percentage of each weeks donations aside for charities outside of the church. They would then let us know how much we raised, and where it went to.
When we were building our third church, they gave us numbers each week for how much was left to raise, but they also included outside charities, even when working on a $10 million building.
What little I had at the time, I gave, but since I don't have a steady church right now, I have nowhere for me to worship with others. I don't give to charities because of the afore mentioned reasons by nearfantastica. I too believe in correcting the problem rather than throwing money blindly at it and praying. Our church made concentrated efforts, not the unfocused attempts by other charities I've seen.
When I was in Kansas City, I participated in the Meals on Wheels program, one program I believe in whole heartedly. The main reason though, is because I got to talk to a lot of really cool elderly people, and that may be selfish, but there was some good out of it too.
I'm glad to see all of these intelligent responses, it makes me have a little more faith in mankind. At times, I get to feeling like everything is futile in a world where is seems no good is happening, but you guys make me feel a lot better.
- Rich

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Originally Posted by _R$_ At times, I get to feeling like everything is futile in a world where is seems no good is happening, but you guys make me feel a lot better.
- Rich Hi Rich,
Interesting how your church does things and the way they gave you constant feedback.
As for your comments about the world, it helps to try be more objective. The news media focuses on every bad thing that happens in the world, and being a big world, lots of bad things happen. But they leave out the good things.
The biggest good thing is that after thousands of years of butchery, bloodshed, famine, diseases and plagues, since the end of WW11 things have been extremely peaceful relative to the slaughter that occurred before. What's going on in world hot spots, while traumatic for those involved, pale in comparison to what was going on just over 60 years ago. And the place that used to be the centre of most of that bloodshed seems to be going out of it's way to make sure that such does not happen again (I'm referring to Europe).
The next good thing, despite all the talk of poisoned and dying planet and the masses of starving people in the world, on a calories per person basis, the world has never been better fed than right now.
The next good thing is that over the last 25 years, lots of really cool gadgets and technologies have been introduced, that on reflection make it look like I was born in and grew up in the stone age, relative to now.
Don't lose sight of the fact that it's a marvellous world, and that it is better than it ever has been, and that the main problem it has is that all those new gadgets make it easy for doomsayers to spread their messages of woe and guilt to a population which has a lot more leisure time on its hands (none of the old style get up at sunrise, work till your back nearly breaks, then go home, eat, and crawl into bed - one didn't have time to think and get depressed those days).
Renato

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I hope this isn't taken wrong for no one knows what someone else does to help out. If everyone goes under then what? We are becoming a world of victims and victim mentality. Fight for this, fight for that. This may sound cold; it is not meant to but with all the well meant helping of the victims are we getting any less victims? Of course not.

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/\ All very good points, but I think that I chose the wrong word. When I said world, I meant the people of the world. I know a lot of people, and of those, I would say four of them are good people. The rest of them aren't bad people, but I fail to see why people can't make concious descisions to make the people around them happier, rather than bitching and complaining all of the time.
When I tell people about my dorm bill, university bill, car note, insurance, blah blah blah, they tell me they're sorry. Why? I really don't care how much money I owe, I'll pay it all back eventually, and it's not going to stress me out in the meantime, because I live a good life. Hell, I'm spoiled by my own definition of the word (It's VERY inclusive), so I have no reason to bitch and moan about debt, especially when others don't even have the opportuninty. I'm constantly amazed by the world we live in, and I'm constantly disappointed by the people inhabiting it. It's OK though, I'm really not too concerned.
- Rich
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Anyone seen the front page of Yahoo! today? $2.3 million for a baseball card. I don't really care that much, but it seemed kind of ironic for the discussion of this topic. Talk about ridiculous spending, $2.3 million for a piece of cardboard paper? Give me a break. Yeah, it's just investing, but still, whoever ends up taking the loss on this one deserves it.
- Rich

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Originally Posted by _R$_ /\ When I said world, I meant the people of the world. I know a lot of people, and of those, I would say four of them are good people. The rest of them aren't bad people, but I fail to see why people can't make concious descisions to make the people around them happier, rather than bitching and complaining all of the time.
- Rich You are referring to the "Life/the world/circumstances/people/ the government is unfair and it shouldn't be!" crowd. They have deluded themselves by the false belief that life should be fair and that the world must be the way they think it should be, and that it's awful that it isn't. They love asking "Why me? What did I do to deserve this? Why is life so hard? What's wrong with the world? What did I do wrong? Why was I born so ugly/stupid/poor,.....?"
You can do what I do and ask them that while you agree that it would be better if the world was fairer, what law of the universe dictates that the world must be fair? That if they really actually believe such a law to exist, then the universe would indeed be fair - but since it isn't, then such a law plainly doesn't exist - so why act like it does?
Unfortunately, the latter approach, while self instructive, ultimately leads no where. You just have to be careful of not falling into the trap of thinking "These poor people think and act in such self destructive/negative/depressive ways, it's so sad, and it shouldn't be like that" - as you wind up depressing yourself.
Just convince yourself in your own mind something along the lines of, "It's unfortunate that all these people I know choose to believe the world should be fair, and to bitch/whine/complain continually that it isn't. It would be better if their thinking were otherwise so that they could be happier, but given the way they choose to think, they should be acting exactly as they are, and should be just as miserable as they are, though it would be better if it were not that way. Too bad, I wish things weren't that way, but that's the way things are."
For me, life has gotten a lot simpler and less stressful when I adopted this approach of wishing that things were different rather than demanding they were different.
Renato

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/\ Yep, like I said, I have a good life.
- Rich