Faith and Hope in Charity

I have a friend who works at a company specializing in charities. Not in any one particular charity, but in many of them. It's a little bit like Esurance, that website that allows you to pick one of many insurance policy (from, presumably, multiple companies). The idea is pretty simple. You pick the charity you want to give to, and you give to it. They serve as a kind of middleman, providing some Webby widgets that can be attached to a blog or somesuch.

Here's the problem. People don't like giving to charity. I mean, not with the same passion that they want to give to other things, such as food, electronic goods, even presidential candidates.

I suppose the problem with charity is that people want to know it's doing some good, and yet, they don't have so much time to really pay attention to how their money is actually doing. Then, there's the fact that most people prefer things that benefit themselves first before it benefits someone else in some far away country.

People are, however, willing to contribute if it somehow combines something they care about. For example, Dulles Airport sponsored a plane pull. You get a team of twenty to contribute about 20 bucks, and they can all have an opportunity to pull a plane maybe twenty feet.

It's an odd task, but something a team could do, and there's some fun, despite the oppressive heat. And you can say that you are doing all this for charity.

Somehow combining something fun with charity works better than simply giving money to charity. For example, many people like video games. So why not have a competition on the Web (say, Worlds of Warcraft) where you play in a tournament, and part of the proceeds go to charity? Or how about online poker with charity?

For that matter, despite the fact that most charities try to maintain a wholesome image, why not work with the porn industry? People love porn, and spend money like crazy. Is there a way to combine the two? It seems like an odd combination, but why not?

The point is that charity, in and of itself, is not hugely motivating to most people, and that people can be motivated by other things, and then have charity as part of that. It seems like you just need a bit of imagination to make that happen.