Philanthropy vs. "Giving"
Philanthropy. I don't really care much for that term. I was involved in a conversation a bit ago wherein someone described themselves as a Philanthropist. I can't spell my response. It was more of a sound, something like "eh-he", or a skepitical "uh-huh".
I was playing a game with friends a while back where we had to submit our response to a given question. The one that came up was "If I were to be known to the world, I would like to be known as the world's greatest _____". Several answers came up such as friend, and millionaire (which I thought of myself). My answer was giver. One person then had to guess who had given which response. The guesser stated he thought "Ally" gave the response "giver" because she was "so into philanthropy" and a "philanthropist". My feelings are in no way a reflection on Ally, but I consider the two concepts - giving and philanthropy - worlds apart.
To me, giving is something personal, with attatchments of caring, maybe even sacrifice of some sort, be it money that you don't have in abundance, time, which is valuable. With philanthropy, I think of tax deduction. Or bell ringing/horn tooting ie.."I'm giving to a cause, everyone one notice me giving to a cause now".
Actually, when I look up philanthropy in the wikipedia, it states "By the conventional definition of philanthropy, only a wealthy person can be a philanthropist. Many non-wealthy individuals have dedicated – thus, donated – their lives to charitable causes but are not described as philanthropists". I guess that really states what I mean. Most people, catholic or not, would consider Mother Theresa one of the worlds greatest givers. But probably no one would consider her the worlds greatest philanthropist. The name almost detracts from what she did.
So, if a "giver" is not really a philanthropist, is a philanthropist really a "giver"? In my opinion, no. A philanthropist may give, but is not a "giver". Now, does anybody really care about this? Probably not. It just didn't sit well with me to have what I think of as being a great giver being considered philanthropy and I guess I needed to blog about it.
I was playing a game with friends a while back where we had to submit our response to a given question. The one that came up was "If I were to be known to the world, I would like to be known as the world's greatest _____". Several answers came up such as friend, and millionaire (which I thought of myself). My answer was giver. One person then had to guess who had given which response. The guesser stated he thought "Ally" gave the response "giver" because she was "so into philanthropy" and a "philanthropist". My feelings are in no way a reflection on Ally, but I consider the two concepts - giving and philanthropy - worlds apart.
To me, giving is something personal, with attatchments of caring, maybe even sacrifice of some sort, be it money that you don't have in abundance, time, which is valuable. With philanthropy, I think of tax deduction. Or bell ringing/horn tooting ie.."I'm giving to a cause, everyone one notice me giving to a cause now".
Actually, when I look up philanthropy in the wikipedia, it states "By the conventional definition of philanthropy, only a wealthy person can be a philanthropist. Many non-wealthy individuals have dedicated – thus, donated – their lives to charitable causes but are not described as philanthropists". I guess that really states what I mean. Most people, catholic or not, would consider Mother Theresa one of the worlds greatest givers. But probably no one would consider her the worlds greatest philanthropist. The name almost detracts from what she did.
So, if a "giver" is not really a philanthropist, is a philanthropist really a "giver"? In my opinion, no. A philanthropist may give, but is not a "giver". Now, does anybody really care about this? Probably not. It just didn't sit well with me to have what I think of as being a great giver being considered philanthropy and I guess I needed to blog about it.
posted by SonSon at 10:27 PM
3 Comments:
When I think of a “philanthropist” I picture a very wealthy purpose who donates to a cause in return for having his/her name placed on a building or a special fund.
I never thought about Philanthropy in that context before, but you're so right. Like you, I believe that when someone purposely draws attention to their "good works" they have their reward. A true giver gives not wanting any recognition, just the happiness and good they feel inside.
Thank you for reminding me of that.
I agree, Nick. I think of philanthropists are giving with a non-pure motive.
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