Week 10

Hello everyone, welcome back to my blog

I’ve spent most of this week working on my project’s final presentation. Because of time constraints, I’ve decided not to pursue interviews with local nonprofits. Though I had wanted to use interviews as a means of testing the effectiveness and applications of the strategies I’ve identified, because of the time constraints I’m satisfied to leave determining the applications of the identified strategies as an avenue for further research. 

At the suggestion of a member of the Brooklyn College Foundation staff, I have recently picked up Herman Melville’s The Confidence Man. I’m about a quarter of the way through the book, but some of the ideas being communicated so far are that charitable giving is based on a system of confidence between two individuals, a general distaste for a culture that discourages asking for and receiving aid, and the way that suspicion can so easily seep into a collective conscience and poison one’s decision making. These ideas build off of one another to define the current system of charitable giving as somewhat fragile, since an organization based on trust can’t survive in a setting so geared towards the breeding of suspicion. While certainly relevant to the time in which Melville was writing, as I learn more about what factors drive individuals to make charitable contributions, I can’t help but feel that the impact of suspicion is marginally less applicable in the modern day. As the charitable giving scene moves towards giving towards organizations as opposed to individuals, the equation for building trust shifts to one of organizational confidence. In the world The Confidence Man describes, philanthropists give for giving’s sake. After learning what I have from my senior project, I’ve found that in reality, the picture isn’t so clear cut. 

See you all next week.