My Musings on Life, Poetry and Short Stories

Have you ever wondered what impact the act of charity produces on the beneficiary. Well if you haven’t, then you are missing something. I have been making my little bit of contributions to deserving charities, like children’s home, destitutes home etc. While I was making one such donation I had an unforgettable experience. I was waiting for the caretaker of the Children’s Home, that housed about 200 kids, and I saw some young kids playing there. One of them got curious and came over to see who was standing at the office. Spotting me, the kid enquired what I had come for. I just said I was paying some money to the Home to defray their expenses. The kid started running towards his friend shouting “Hey Ramu, I told you na, the Home will not be closed. See here is an Uncle who takes care of our needs.” This really shook me because the fear of losing the support of the Home, was so deeply buried in their hearts.

Another issue that crops up is the need for organized collection and distribution mechanism which ensures that the donations reach the ultimate beneficiaries as intended by the donors. It is in this aspect that GiveIndia scores exceedingly well. Their fool proof system of screening deserving NGO’s which include checking Governace,Operations, Management, Human resources, Accountability and transparency. Exhaustive indeed! They also get an independent assessment from sister organisations about the NGO’s prior to induction. When I wanted to ensure personally about the background of GiveIndia I checked their website and would like to share just one example of their “conditions” for enrolling an organization. It says, I quote,

“The organisation must disclose in its annual report the total cost of international travel by all its personnel (including volunteers) - segregating those incurred on organisational expense and those that were sponsored, along with the name and designation of the person(s) who traveled, and the purpose(s) of travel.”

Well you cant ask for more!


SELECTION OF BENEFICIARY

The choices of beneficiaries that you would like to help are also neatly categorized into causes, like Children, Disabled, education, elderly, employment etc which makes your decision simpler. There is a saying in Tamil regarding Charity. Translated into English, it says, “Check the beneficiary prior to making your charity”. GiveIndia takes adequate care to do precisely that and one need not have any inhibitions to donate under their Aegis. Conceived by Shri.Venkat Krishnan, an IIM-A Graduate and supported by a team of dedicated professionals ,the organization is said to have involved over 75000 donors to impact over a million lives through 200+ organisations . Amazing indeed.

Yes, Indeed. In a country like India, despite the fact that a good majority are below the poverty line, there is no denial of the fact that lot of people have enough money at their disposal over and above their needs. You just visit a Jeweler’s shop and you will be amazed to see the crowd that is clamoring to purchase Gold. The crowd comprises of all stratas of society and not necessarily from the affluent alone. While marginal Tax incentives, like current I.Tax provisions, may induce them to make some donations because of the Tax saving, it will not bring the desired effect of making people give substantial sums as donation. In my opinion, the Act should provide for “Weighted Deductions” (like what we used to have for Export Promotions etc..earlier) that would give twice the amount of donations made as the deduction from taxable Income. This I am sure would result in greater quantum of Donations. The Government can think of introducing some recognitions like “Golden Heart Donor” plaques, for people who make donations exceeding certain amount and publish their names on a “Govt. Roll of Homour”along with "Padma" awardees!

To visit the site of GiveIndia, clik this link: http://www.giveindia.org/t-abtus_whatwedo.aspx and open up your hearts and make that donation you always wanted to give.