Comments on: Community-based drive - what are typical results?

Question: Community-based drive - what are typical results?

mdpc98 — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 06:57:52 -0800

temporarily-restore-faith-in-humanity-filter: a local tv station happened to scrounge about $1.6 million in ~24 hours for the tsunami relief effort. to me, that seems incredible. is this an anomaly for a community-based drive?

By: SisterHavana

SisterHavana — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 08:06:21 -0800

A whole bunch of broadcast stations in Chicago had a one-day drive yesterday and raised over $1.7 million for the American Red Cross tsunami relief efforts. So no, I don't think it is an anomaly. : )

By: SpecialK

SpecialK — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 08:10:21 -0800

Nope, the stations that are a part of the Nortwest Cable News Network collected about 1.5 million via their websites so far, and they're expecting to add a lot more to that when they do a donation drive.

By: luriete

luriete — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 09:10:07 -0800

A local channel here in Sacramento - a smaller market certainly - raised $1.1 in well under 24 hours.

By: kindall

kindall — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 09:17:09 -0800

$1.6 million in 24 hours isn't really impressive considering the Atlanta metro area has, what, 4 million people? 5 million? That's like a quarter per person on average.

Of course, what's really happening is that a hundred thousand people or so are donating $15 each, which means that something like 98% of your neighbors aren't giving anything at all.

Of course, many of those 98% may have given to other charities besides this one, but on the whole, I'd say yeah, that pretty much matches my expectation of humanity.

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 11:14:29 -0800

$1.6 million in 24 hours isn't really impressive considering the Atlanta metro area has, what, 4 million people? 5 million? That's like a quarter per person on average.

Thats just one local TV station and thats just in 24 hours! So distributing that across the whole population and then making some generalization hardly seems fair and a little cynical.

One thing thats surprised me is all the avenues for giving that have opened up. I just got an email from United airlines right now asking me to give in return for Miles. There are all sorts of organized corporate giving programs, apple and amazon have been pushing me to give everytime I visit their site.

The problem with something like this is that it makes you want to help and yet you dont really know how.

By: Smart Dalek

Smart Dalek — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 11:15:36 -0800

Atlanta's a relatively large, prosperous city, with a business district that's more than capable of offering matching corporate/employee donations.

By: GirlFriday

GirlFriday — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 12:04:56 -0800

Actually, a radio station in Atlanta (I forget which) was bragging last night about their $1.5 million donation to Unicef that was made through public and private donations through the radio station. They said that the money was still flowing in.

By: kindall

kindall — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 14:32:21 -0800

Thats just one local TV station and thats just in 24 hours! So distributing that across the whole population and then making some generalization hardly seems fair and a little cynical.

Okay, so let's say there are a hundred such fund-raising efforts going on in the area and that all of them raise a similar amount of money. $25 a head ain't all that, either. Again, of course, it won't be evenly distributed; you're going to have a smaller number of people who donated "a lot" (probably still less than a car payment, almost certainly less than a house payment) and many who donated little or nothing.

As for the drive being "only" 24 hours long, exactly what would be one's excuse for waiting a whole day to make a donation to this cause?

Not that the amount of money going to tsunami relief isn't a lot by absolute standards. It's certainly more than I'll ever see in one place, and global contributions may end up being more than is needed, which would be great. I'm not knocking the effort. But, really, there are a lot of people in this country and in this world, and the fact that most of them can be cajoled into contributing a buck for people so obviously in need (while a minority will deliver much more) does not really say much for or against human nature. What we do on an ongoing basis is far more important, and the evidence there is not so good.

By: mdpc98

mdpc98 — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 15:22:25 -0800

while i agree with kindall that on-going support is better, i am rather pleased to hear that a number of cities are meeting/beating atl's contribution.

i'll go back to feeling lukewarm about atlanta--and feel a bit better about the u.s. on the whole.

anyone have the skinny on e.u. community efforts?

By: ?!

?! — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 18:36:57 -0800

In addition to the usual United Way charity giving each year Louisville has the Crusade for Children sponsored by one of the TV stations. Over a single weekend each year for the last 51 years the city citizens collect money at traffic stops, door-to-door, etc. In 2004 they raised a near record $6,051,236. They have raised more than $106 million since 1954.

Almost all the costs for raising, managing, and distributing the money are donated. That means almost 100% of the donations go to service organizations.

By: kamikazegopher

kamikazegopher — Sat, 08 Jan 2005 02:41:28 -0800

I was shocked by the fact that my company (aka evil corporate overlords) immediately donated $1 million, in addition to critical medical supplies, which we manufacture. After that, they committed to matching employee donations 2 to 1. Considering a workforce of about 50,000, that's a pretty generous arrangement. The generosity was so much greater than I expected. I'm not surprised to hear about small towns raising that much cash.