Charity fund

“ Municipalities, churches, boards of trade, real-estate associations, labor unions and merchants' organizations are giving and asking for charity funds. Officials are surrendering a percentage on their salaries, policemen, railroad operatives, the employees of large business establishments, factory hands, and even day laborers, are docking themselves of part of their pay, and trades dinners being given up to swell charity subscriptions. ”

“ The investment in this hospital to date is about $9,000,000.
If we can get away from charity, the funds that now go into charitable enterprises can be turned to furthering production--to making goods cheaply and in great plenty. And then we shall not only be removing the burden of taxes from the community and freeing men but also we can be adding to the general wealth. We leave for private interest too many things we ought to do for ourselves as a collective interest. We need more constructive thinking in public service. ”

“ Setting aside the great saving that could and would be effected in the management by united efforts, a much larger sum might be given to the legitimate object of each charity, and a systematic and efficient check upon each person receiving relief could be accomplished.
The vast sums annually given to established charities and benevolent institutions, form but a small item in the sum total of expenditure for charity. Tradesmen, and indeed individuals of every class, are in the habit of making continual donations to persons unknown, and frequently unworthy. ”

“ There is no point, in which the economy of charity has more improved, than in the present mode of combining many small contributions, for sustaining enlarged and systematic plans of charity. If all the half-dollars, which are now contributed to aid in organized systems of charity, were returned to the donors, to be applied by the agency and discretion of each, thousands and thousands of the treasures, now employed to promote the moral and intellectual wants of mankind, would become entirely useless. ”

“ Neither can we persuade donors, unaccustomed to study the future results of their acts, to abstain from distinctly unwise charity unless we are among them, unless we are ready, too, to consider with them about each human soul, which is to them and to us inexpressibly precious, what is at the moment the wise thing to do. Have most gentlemen any idea how much this work needs doing in the poor districts of London? The Charity Organisation Society came forward now some years ago to try to get the donors of London to meet and consider this question in detail in every district in London. ”

“ It helps to make a distinction between charity and justice – both noble causes worthy of donations. Charity ministers to the immediate, often desperate needs of vulnerable populations. Charities support soup kitchens, clinics, renovate or build educational buildings, add services for the elderly, provide medicines for the poor here and in developing countries, help local school systems under budget restraints, and quickly respond to tragedies with disaster relief here and abroad. ”

“ Private charities can undertake a large expenditure for one family, when a large expenditure will put the family beyond the need of charity; but official relief must always be hampered by the fear of establishing a precedent, and inadequate relief is often the result of this fear. ”

“ To recapitulate, then, let me say that I think the operations of the Charity Organization Society have been wholly beneficial so far, but that it will have to secure more extended personal influence between rich and poor if it is to be permanently successful. As a society it is doing its work; it is contending for justice and order; it has urged us not to corrupt our fellow-citizens; it has instituted inquiries in support of truth; it has responsible officers; it is an upholder of method, and it will help us to be swift, just, and sure in our gifts. ”

“ But, of course, there is much more which might be said as to the distinction between State relief and private charity. Charity means much more than money-giving. It is often more charitable to give no money at all. Charity implies personal endeavour and self-sacrifice, thought and watchfulness, and a thousand conditions which can never be satisfied by monetary payments. Freewill was the basis of the charity of the early Church, the charity of freemen, not the charity of slaves. ”

“ At any rate, it may be said that charities working alongside of the State organizations would become stronger, and State organizations inspired by the charities would become more humane. It costs more, doubtless, to work in co-operation with others, and to subject self-will to the common will as a member of a Board of Guardians, than to be an important member of a charitable committee, but in charity it is cost which counts. ”

“ The grants act as a bounty on the establishment and continuance of charitable institutions, homes for children, hospitals, &c., but not on the expansion of the voluntary charitable funds and efforts that should maintain them; and thus charitable homes exist in which charity in its truer sense may have little part, but in which the chief motive of the administration may be to support sectarian interests by public subsidies. Claimants for relief have little scruple in turning such institutions to their own account ”

“ You are giving to charity; a hundred, a thousand or ten thousand dollars a year. Why not give it to organised charity and then send all the deserving to us? Not a cent is given before a thorough investigation is made by people trained to do the work and who know how. Contribute a regular sum yearly to organised charity. It will save you the annoyance of the outstretched hand and at the same time you will feel that you have done your duty towards the poor of the land. ”

“ When we have shared the benefit of any charitable bequest, more especially when we hold a portion of it in our own hands, that ought to be benefiting others, how can we expect God, or any other philanthropist, to extend to us blessings?
What is the duty of the Saints who have come here by the aid and benefit of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund? It is their duty to pay back the debt they owe immediately. "But," says one, "we cannot pay, we have no means." ”

“ Conversation, newspapers, conferences, all bear witness how very generally it is now recognized that something ought to be done to improve our system of charitable relief, some co-operation secured between Poor-Law and charity, and some efficient means adopted to render alms less pauperizing than they have hitherto been. It is becoming clear to the public that there is a right and a wrong, a wise and an unwise charity. ”

“ I am well aware that now and for some years past there has been both agricultural and commercial depression, but I feel convinced that in the cause of charity—and what greater charity can there be than providing for orphan children?—I shall not appeal in vain to my countrymen to do all in their power as philanthropists to support an institution which has been carried out on the best and most economical principles. ”

“ Perhaps the point which will strike you most, when you have learned what I have to tell you this evening of the charities of Kensington, is the circumstance that, from small sums of money left for purposes of charity, great and ever growing results may spring, fulfilling purposes of good far beyond the most sanguine anticipations in which the original donors could have ever indulged. ”

“ Instead of more or less lavish care of a few families intimately, all cases of relief that come to the notice of charitably minded persons are, through an organized system of relief, referred to the central agency which is expected when it receives thousands of dollars to do marvelous things with them. The very centralization of charity, however, creates the necessity for offices, clerks and stenographers, investigators, perhaps a training school, salaried heads, publications, and the like which consume funds rapidly. ”

“ Indeed it has been estimated that in New York City under the system of the Charity Organization Society, it costs several dollars to distribute every single dollar in relief. The system of charity therefore breaks down of its own weight in time, or is transformed, much of the relief money being used for social workers instead of the poor, and the little money that is left being spread over a larger group of recipients. ”

“ But in their resources and administration the difference is marked. Local endowed charities were constantly founded after Queen Elizabeth’s time till about 1830, and the poor-rate was at first supplementary of the local charities. When corn and fuel were dear and clothes very expensive, what now seem trivial endowments for food, fuel, coal and clothes were important assets in the thrifty management of a parish. But when the poor were recognized as a class of dependants entitled by law to relief from the community, the rate increased out of all proportion to the charities. ”

“ Little by little as the work of associated charities has widened, forces within the very organizations themselves necessitated the expansion of the idea of charity into one with broader implications. The organization of relief and the centralization of funds bring about a greater demand for relief because they abolish much of the personal succor of the old type. ”

“ There are more orphan children being cared for in the private homes of people who love them than in the institutions. There are more old people being sheltered by friends than you can find in the old people's homes. There is more aid by loans from family to family than by the loan societies. That is, human society on a humane basis looks out for itself. It is a grave question how far we ought to countenance the commercialization of the natural instinct of charity.
Professional charity is not only cold but it hurts more than it helps. ”

“ Property of one billion dollars! Annual income of two hundred million dollars! And they "don't keep the necessary financial records and object to making public their private finances."
The number of paupers under the supervision of these "benevolent" institutions is more than two millions. Two out of every hundred people in the United States are in the clutches of organised charity. ”

“ The most important, though the least recognised, is that which has been designated as "natural" charity—the charity, that is to say, of those who know and respect one another. But imagined possibilities of State relief are directly antagonistic to that charity, as we have already seen. We shall be told that it is hard to ask children to support their parents; the real question is whether they should support their own parents or some one else's parents. We shall be told that the rich ought to be made to support the poor. ”

“ But an appeal of a very different kind is made to those who have ample funds at their disposal, who are known to put aside large sums every year for the purposes of Christian charity, but who have never made this Society glad by their benevolence. ”

“ The problem most difficult to solve, and which creates intense anxiety, is how these hundreds of dependents, unable to find employment to which they can adapt themselves, are to be fed during the coming winter. This can only be done with the kind permission of the Red Cross, to draw upon our share of the fund, which that worthy organization is endeavoring to swell through its urgent appeals to the people of the whole State for money donations, added to that furnished by local contributors. ”

“ We have undertaken to feed the hungry who have no money to buy food with. If anybody out of the thousands who will be fed by us is proven to be an undeserving object of our charity I will give one hundred thousand dollars par value in gilt-edged securities to any organized charity approved by Mr. George G. Goodchild, president of the Ketcham National Bank, who, being my prospective father-in-law against his wishes, will be glad to have me lose the money.
Modern methods of efficiency have been applied to charity for the first time. ”

“ There is a society which you all know well enough by name—the Charity Organisation Society—which has set itself to help distributors of alms in two important ways. First, it has offered to examine, free of all charge, carefully, for anyone who wants to learn about them, the circumstances and character of applicants for relief. Donors cannot decide what help it is wise to give until they know all about an applicant; the Society can learn such facts in a far more complete way than donors possibly can. Clearly then, to my mind, donors or distributors of gifts ought to accept this proffered help. ”

“ Many an ambitious politician or social climber finds it profitable to become a patron of some supposedly deserving charity. Recently, some one inquired into the methods of a New York charity organization, and found that the sum paid in salaries to the various officers of the society was more than twice the amount actually expended in charity. ”

“ Studies have shown that Americans give far more to charity than the people of any other industrialized nation—more than twice as much, measured as a share of gross domestic product, than the citizens of Great Britain, and 10 times more than the citizens of France. (5) 7 out of 10 American households donate to charities to support a wide range of religious, educational, cultural, health care, and environmental goals. (6) These charities provide innumerable valuable public services to society’s most vulnerable citizens during difficult economic times. ”