Charles writes in response to the entry In Defense of Scrooge:

I thought I was the only one having difficulty with the way charities conduct themselves. Your posters have made some very accurate statements. Here are my favorites: 

Trudy writes: “It is a national disgrace. Yet millions of dollars each year are willingly donated by a public that thinks they’re helping abused women. All they’re doing is giving feminists jobs, and destroying thousands of families in the process.” 

Yes. Our money empowering liberal administrative types makes one nauseous. 

Fitzgerald writes: “Human needs are vast and ultimately unquenchable with the finite resources at anyone’s disposal.” 

This is painfully accurate. Africa and much of the third world comes to mind. Every year, there is another famine in Africa, or elsewhere. It never stops. The requests for money never stops either. The needs in those places are truly unquenchable. Many of those famines are caused by the policies, greed and selfishness of the local dictator. Zimbabwe is the perfect example – Robert Mugabe’s wealth is incredible. South Africa comes to mind as well. The black led government and their out of control spending and looting of the treasury is destroying the once thriving economy of SA and the suffering has already started. It will eventually reach Zimbabwe proportions if not arrested soon. These third world dictator/Marxist types are worse than Scrooge. They live in luxury while their people are in near starvation conditions. 

However, Sheila C.’s comment strikes the most resonant note with me: “I guess it is the automatic assumption, on the part of the person or organization requesting the donation, that it is my duty to respond and to agree with their mission that so irritates me. I thought charitable giving was just that, silly me. So go ahead and call me Scrooge.” 

I have come to the same conclusion. I remarked recently to my wife that charitable organizations approach me with the attitude that the money in my pocket belongs to them. And, I say this with sadness, the Christian Church, unfortunately, does the same. Several of your readers have suggested giving directly to the individual or families in need. This is the position my family has adopted. 

This past summer I spoke via phone with a representative of a very well known U.S. Christian charity with a highly recognized leader. I asked him, ” How do I know that my gifts are being used effectively.” He said I could go to the website and look at the testimonials of the people they were helping. I pressed harder and said, no, I wanted something more concrete (I was thinking of a balance sheet showing the ratio of admin expenses to actual giving). He raised his voice and said ” I guarantee you sir, we are good stewards of your money.” He offered me nothing else. I told him I was a good steward of my money as well and that was why I was calling. I ended the call. I then promptly exercised good stewardship of my own funds and closed my checkbook to this organization. Once a charitable organization grows into a corporation, their nature changes. They become corporate supermen accountable to no one. Why should anyone question them since their motives are so good? However, it is upon questioning their representatives that their true nature is often exposed.

Lydia Sherman writes:

Outsourcing charity is often the same as outsourcing everything else–from motherhood to education. The best thing to do is see a need yourself, and deliver food and money personally to the needy people. Christians do not need others to do their jobs for them. They need to use their own hands to serve.

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