Giving Shouldn’t Be Seen as Painless

To the Editor:

The March 23 Technology column profiled Web sites that allow users to generate donations for an organization just by clicking and viewing the site. Quoted in the article is Howard Lake, who questioned whether the new sites are sending the right message: “Do they really want to give donors the impression that giving is both painless and can cost them nothing?”

The want of a way to support something that is both painless and costs nothing is what drives the continued forwarding of e-mail “petitions” in support of the National Endowment for the Arts, National Public Radio, oppressed women in Afghanistan, some child somewhere collecting postcards to get into the Guinness Book of Records, and so forth.

Of course, these petitions do no good, as those being petitioned would never take them seriously (e-mail petitions are easily forged and there’s no one willing to verify the “signatures”). But still these petitions continue, with senders thinking they’ve done some good just by forwarding an e-mail.

Successful, meaningful online advocacy and virtual volunteering take real time, real effort, and real standards. Maybe instead of trying to make it all easier to do, we should concentrate on educating potential donors of time or money about what long-term, effective, meaningful support of our causes looks like.

Jayne Cravens
Manager
Virtual Volunteering Project
University of Texas at Austin