Sunday, January 24, 2010

Why you won't see a Haiti listing in my Etsy Shop

A lot of Etsy sellers are proclaiming that if you buy something from them, they'll donate a portion of the sale to help the situation in Haiti. I don't think that's too efficient. If you were to buy something from me for $50 and I gave $25 to charity it would dilute your donation. You can give your entire $50 to the Red Cross or one of the other legitimate orgainizaitons directly. And you will get the tax benefit, not me. I don't need to be the middle man just to move some jewelry along. Plus, I'd never want to be accused of personal enrichment by way of this disaster, like Wyclef Jean's Yele Haiti Foundation has.  Etsy sellers can proclaim to donate part of their sales, but there's no way to track it, and I won't use the poor suffering people of Haiti just to boost my online sales.  No matter how much I would like to help the people of Haiti, I want you to be sure that your donations will get to those that need it. So if you want to buy jewelry, buy jewelry. If you want to donate to charity (and I hope you do!), then there are plenty of organizations that will gladly take your money and put it to good use.  Do what feels good in your heart, as I have, and let's not confuse the two.

1 comment:

Lora Hart said...

Perhaps your pragmatic proclamations will prove to be a perceptive prescription and set a positive precedent for me to put a preemptive period on my pitious pratlings of powerlessness.