this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2024
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It's not a donation if they get to dictate what the organization does - it's a bribe.
There was a librarian who saved his whole life and when he passed donated I think 1 million dollars to his old university. That university then spent the money on a new score board for the football field. I bet if he saw that he would have wished he put some stipulations on his donation.
I have a similar line of thinking. I'm a musician, so if I was filthy rich I might want to donate money to a school's music department. If the school is one fiscal entity, I would have to put that as a stipulation to ensure they gave the money to that department, not divert it to something overfunded or just padding the board's pocket as bonuses for "a job well done"
If you get filthy rich let's go party together
Can I come too? 😳
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/15/494134464/-1-million-of-frugal-librarians-bequest-to-n-h-school-goes-to-football-scoreboar
Yeah that sounds like a load of bull from the administrators to justify an extravagant purchase 🙄
That was such a weird story! On one hand, he has been a big supporter of the football program at the school and the scoreboard didn't seem totally unreasonable. But as a former university librarian, the salary is generally under $60k for non-mangers, so saving that $1 million was an amazing feat of savings and the scoreboard seemed like a weird choice by the school.
Literally every donation to any organization anywhere comes with strings attached. Nobody just gives money blindly and says "Here, somebody else use this."
You drop money in the collection plate, it's because you want your faith to be shared and your church to prosper. You drop your change in the box at the convenience store, it's because you don't want to be walking around with three pounds of garbage money jingling in your pockets like Santa's nutsack. There's always a motive for giving.
I donate regularly to a charity and don’t try to dictate how they spend that money, because I have faith that they’ll responsibly use my donations.
Sure, but not just generally "charity." You pick and choose who you donste to, and you donate to charitable organizations that you think do good work. If they started smelting orphans, you'd probably stop writing checks.
Haven't heard that one before. Had a hearty chuckle.
And so you should.
Orphans should never be smelted: it's far wiser to use them down at the mines or for chimney sweeping!
I think in the context of the OP, not all donations have strings attached in the sense of trying to exert control. Maybe smelting orphans is undesirable but for donations previously received there's nothing the donor can do about that other. And picking and choosing who you donate to isn't a form of exerting control either.
Whereas large university donations do usually have agreements signed that could drastically change school policy. These are "donations" to exert control in some form or another
Donations can't be clawed back, but ongoing donations can be stopped. And you're right that bigger donors exert more influence, and usually get something in return like naming rights for a building or changes to school policies. And that should be transparent, I don't oppose requiring large donations be made public. My point was just that it's always give and take. If the school changes the policy the big donor liked, they will shut off the money faucet. If the school does something most alumni don't like, many of them will stop giving. Recipients of donations always want to keep donors happy, the difference is a matter of scale. How far are they willing to go to keep a donor happy depends on how big the donation is.
I gave someone from high-school I hadn't spoken too in 15 years 2 grand so she didn't get evicted from her apartment and end up homeless. Never told her. Sometimes people just do nice things bcz it's the right thing to do.
Nobody should be homeless over hospital bills.
Well, if you ever find yourself in Portland, OR I’ll buy you a beer. Nice of you to do that without any credit. Truly the lord’s work.
I think it was their own work
Removing these biases is the whole point of public funding for things. Everyone shares the same resources and people who have more wealth give more. The fact that major institutions that perform public functions rely on private donations is the problem.
So someone donates money to their city's library with the specific purpose that they can expand their building to have more space that's a bribe?
Maybe that person hates books and likes seeing them locked away in book prison?
It's the giving a public institution money only if they do a certain thing that can be compared to a bribe, the morality of said "thing" being irrelevant.
I think it boils down to who has the power: if they start a collection for money to expand their building to have more space and you chose to participate then it's not you dictating what they do with the money, as all you did was see a cause that you found worthy and contribute to it - the power was entirelly in their hands since they could've chosen to collect for a different purpose and you were just a passive agent - whilst if you give them money with the proviso that you get to dictate how it gets used, then the power is in your hands not theirs: the former is more akin to charity and the latter to bribing.
That said, "bribe" is indeed an imperfect metaphor.
The question is; does this give the anonymous donor that ability? Being anonymous implies not.
I'm fairly certain it is only anonymous "on paper". Behind closed doors, they know where it came from and what is expected in return.
It wouldn't be anonymous, then, but rather undisclosed.
Perhaps if this was a legal document, but it's screenshot of... a twitter post I guess. It might not even be real. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯