Kiwis giving more
March 13th, 2009 at 7:45 am by David FarrarA nice story in the Herald:
People who still have jobs are reaching deeper into their pockets to help those who are being made redundant.
Churches and social agencies say individual giving is rising in the recession, even though some trusts have been forced to cut back donations.
Auckland City Mission fundraiser Alexis Sawyers said more people were giving to the mission, and some long-term donors who normally gave $50 were now giving $100.
It is going to be very tough for a lot of the families over the next couple of years at least. Nice to see people stepping up to the challenge.
Related posts:
- Payroll Giving
- It’s only good when we do it
- No Right Turn on tax deductible donations
- Clark making excuses
March 13th, 2009 at 8:36 am
Nice to see people stepping up to the challenge, because the Government isn’t.
Vote:March 13th, 2009 at 8:53 am
Think Less – Give More
The slogan for our times.
Vote:March 13th, 2009 at 9:20 am
Mike, justify please.
Vote:March 13th, 2009 at 9:25 am
Correct. I’m a trustee of a charitable organisation. We have a 7 figure sum invested and as the various terms mature we’re having to lock in lower rates while making slightly higher provision for capital reinvestment due to increased inflation. Despite this we are seeing increased donations from church members which largely neutralises any impact on our grant rounds.
Vote:March 13th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Sounds like Tory charity getstaffed.
Vote:March 13th, 2009 at 9:34 am
A corolorary is seeing an anecdotal increase in dual redundancy families.
Vote:March 13th, 2009 at 9:41 am
murray – correct. but then the needy don’t really care where the help comes from. we provide grants and/or loans, and these are usually accompanied with some budgeting assistance. i’m gob smacked at how many people don’t budget!
Vote:March 13th, 2009 at 9:43 am
So noted on all points.
I don’t budget myself because there is nothing to budget with. Money comes in, I give it to the people who I give it to that provide roof and food and the rest is all mine and the cats. About $15/week by the time the cats happy.
Vote:March 13th, 2009 at 9:48 am
I guess the point is with people who dont realise how much they spend on rubbish, is that what you mean getstaffed?
Vote:March 13th, 2009 at 9:51 am
There’d be a lot more such charity if it wasn’t for the socialists and their thieving and their compulsion.
Vote:March 13th, 2009 at 9:51 am
More Tory Charity helping people out in their time of need? Will that be Phil-in’s daily whinge?
Vote:March 13th, 2009 at 9:53 am
Monty who cares when the blonde chick from Hi-5 has better public recognition than him?
Vote:March 13th, 2009 at 10:25 am
“The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.”
- Grover Cleveland
Vote:March 13th, 2009 at 10:29 am
“Charity and the Next President.”
“Taxation,” said Oliver Wendell Holmes, “is the price we pay for civilization.” But a much better case can be made that taxation is actually the price we pay for the lack of civilization. If people took better care of themselves, their families, and those in need around them, government would shrink and society would be stronger as a result.
The triumph of persuasion over force, people helping people because they want to and not because government tells them they have to, is the sign of a civilized people and a civil society. For all people interested in the advancement and enrichment of our culture, this is a crucial observation with far-reaching implications. Cultural progress should not be defined as politicians taking more and more of what other people have earned and spending it on the people’s alleged behalf. Genuine cultural progress occurs when individuals solve problems without resorting to politics or politicians.
The next president of the United States should not busy himself with intricate plans to spend public money for charitable causes or to direct private benevolence through carrots or sticks from Washington. If he were to depart from the custom of recent decades—the custom of championing federal assistance over private initiative—he would help immeasurably to rebuild American civil society.
When the French social commentator Alexis de Tocqueville visited a young, bustling America in the 1830s, he cited the vibrancy of civil society as one of this country’s greatest assets. He was amazed that Americans were constantly forming “associations” to advance the arts, build libraries and hospitals, and meet social needs of every kind. If something good needed to be done, it rarely occurred to our forebears to expect politicians and bureaucrats, who were distant in both space and spirit, to do it for them. “Among the laws that rule human societies,” wrote Tocqueville in Democracy in America, “there is one which seems to be more precise and clear than all others. If men are to remain civilized or to become so, the art of associating together must grow and improve. …”
A half-century after Tocqueville’s visit, President Grover Cleveland vetoed a bill that would have appropriated $10,000 in federal aid to assist drought-stricken farmers in Texas. As was his habit, he used the occasion to educate, to reinvigorate the principles that made America the greatest and most generous nation in history. He stated in his veto message that “. . . the lesson should be constantly enforced that though the people support the Government the Government should not support the people. The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune. . . . Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.”
Cleveland rallied the nation and in due course, Texas farmers received ten times in voluntary assistance what the vetoed bill would have given them in public money. That’s the role I advise the next president to assume—the lofty role of a leader who persuades and inspires, not the ignoble role of a headline-grabbing redistributionist who launders other people’s money through a federal bureaucracy and takes credit for passing out what’s left.
It ought to be obvious today, with government at all levels consuming a whopping 41 percent of personal income, that many Americans don’t think, act, and vote the way most of their ancestors did in Tocqueville’s day or even in Cleveland’s day. So how can we restore and strengthen the attitudes and institutions that formed the charitable foundations of American civil society?
Certainly, we can never do so by blindly embracing government programs that crowd out private initiatives or by impugning the motives of those who raise legitimate questions about those government programs. We cannot restore civil society if we have no confidence in ourselves and believe that government has a monopoly on compassion. We’ll never get there if we tax away nearly half of people’s earnings and then, like children who never learned their arithmetic, complain that people can’t afford to meet certain needs.
We can advance civil society only when people get serious about replacing government programs with private initiative, when discussion gets beyond such infantile reasoning as, “If you want to cut government subsidies for Meals on Wheels, you must be in favor of starving the elderly.” Civil society will blossom when we understand that “hiring” the expensive middleman of government is not the best way to “do good,” that it often breaks the connection between people in need and caring people who want to help. We’ll make progress when the “government is the answer” cure is recognized for what it is—false charity, a cop-out, a simplistic non-answer that doesn’t get the job done well, even though it makes its advocates smug with self-righteous satisfaction……”
http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=4561
Vote:March 13th, 2009 at 10:34 am
expat – yes. regardless of how much one earns expenses always rise to meet income. and in the case of easy credit, deferred payments etc is continues to rise beyond income. having said that, the +ve impact of [somehow] stopping lotto, ciggies and pub nights for the low/no waged is huge in terms of getting them a plan to get their lives under control. it takes discipline, which people will apply when the personl cost of not doing so is huge. when the personal cost is another almost no-strings attached hardship grant application to MSD then that’s often what is done. and the cycle repeats.
Vote:March 13th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
New Zealand is on the main a giving society and it’s one of our strengths.
Ironically, socialism is against a caring society due to people having spending discretion.
The socialists have acquired the lesson of General Cameron during the land wars. He came to the conclusion that the only way to beat the Maori was to stop their generosity. He turned them from givers to receivers and that is how they are until today.
The spirit of poverty is feeling impoverished no matter your wealth. This attitude is being ingrained into the kiwi pysche and culture to cause major schisms and division in society.
As long as we are a people who still say sorry when some one else walks into us – a trend foreigners immediately notice and comment on- we have every reason to remain Kiwi identities; the very identity klark and Kullen were trying to suppress.
As with all beaureaucracy, culture is redlined and expunged. Labour thought they could do it and proved themselves totally traitorous in the process, which is why we can see they took away the treason laws originally.
The question is, if a people are givers by nature, can that nature be corrupted?
Vote:March 13th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Wikiriwhi’s Business, sometimes you sound like Tim Wikiriwhi and sometimes you don’t.
But the karma givers did not like the essay I posted excerpts out of, regarding the subject of Welfare State versus charity. Pity help us and our society.
Vote:March 13th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Sorry Phil, I missed that gem.
I can definitely tell you I am not Tim.
Have interviewed him and most Hamilton MP’s.
Totally impressed by David Bennett. He’s not only political, he has an empathy for his country and not many pollies can convey that about themselves sincerely.
Umm, I take it sounding like Tim is a good thing
Vote:March 14th, 2009 at 12:19 am
lotsa backs being
Vote:slapped here, i take it that we
all give till it hurts
March 14th, 2009 at 8:20 am
wiki
“New Zealand is on the main a giving society and it’s one of our strengths.”
You are dead right, the problem we face though is nine years of Labour raping the middle class, while things were good the middle class donated to the charities of their choice and charities not of their choice (the Dole and the DPB) as you say Kiwi’s are a decent people who want to see others given a fair crack however now that times are tough those same kiwi’s are beginning to look at the philu’s of this world and say “enough is enough”
I do fear that when the financial crisis is over a new much harder and less generous Kiwi will emerge, one who does not have any time for nor one that will tolerate bludgers, racism dressed up as PC or those low life Sheila’s who continue to breed and live on the DPB.
I just hope that the good charities survive.
Vote:March 14th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
“I do fear that when the financial crisis is over a new much harder and less generous Kiwi will emerge..”
In other words we’ll become Americans taking their motto of ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch’
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