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May 16, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
The Stabroek News has written a nasty editorial describing as vulgar a recent fundraising event purportedly organised by the Office of the First Lady. The reason for this characterisation is because the editorialist felt that the cover charge for the hosting of the all-white party was higher than the current minimum wage.
This is a spurious ground for criticising the charitable event. There is nothing either vulgar or irregular about having high-priced admissions for fundraising events. Some local political parties usually host fundraising dinners at a price per plate that is staggering.
Poor people do contribute to charitable causes but without the large donations a great many of the charitable causes in the world would flop.
In 1985, Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson wrote a song entitled, “We are the World.” A start-studded cast of some of the world’s top singers came together for the recording. The sales of that production netted more than US$50M to help end hunger in Africa.
Bob Geldof was involved in launching a number of concerts for the same cause. Those concerts raised a total of US$150M.
A refugee crisis developed following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In just two weeks following the Ukraine crisis, private businesses and philanthropists donated US$200M to the UNHCR. The Stabroek News did not find these donations as being vulgar.
Raising funds locally can be a challenge. At present, funds are being sought to support the training for a young Guyanese swimmer. The response has been disappointing so far, to say the least.
On the other hand, there were floods in Guyana last year, which caused substantial losses. A grouping calling itself Friends of Guyana for Democracy and Freedom was able to raise more than US$40,000 from a mere 281 donations. There were a few big donors, which tipped the scales.
It is hoped that the Friends of Guyana for Democracy and Freedom would make public how those funds which they raised on a GofundMe page were utilised. It always helps to encourage persons to continue to give when they are provided with a public account of how their contributions were utilised.
Many years ago, the most successful attempt at raising funds was done by the publisher of this newspaper, Mr. Glenn Lall. He was able to raise millions of dollars for various causes. He also put a great deal of his own money into every fundraising event. The name of every donor was made public and when the funds were disbursed, these were also made public.
The PPP/C got envious and decided that Lall should not be raising funds. And so they resorted to some archaic colonial law requiring persons soliciting house-to-house donations to first obtain permission. The intent was obvious, and Lall decided that he would no longer be part of any such activity even though he still gives generously to persons in need.
When you look at the profile of the donations for the fundraisers organised in the past by Lall, it was clear that without the big donations, the total sums raised would not have been as significant. It is the big donations, which matter the most.
The political parties know this all too well. The small donations by the average supporters cannot finance the campaign expenses of political parties. Without the large multi-million-dollar donations from the business class, the political parties would be in the red after election campaigns.
In fact, for many years when it contested elections, the WPA ended up being almost bankrupted and having to always move its headquarters to new places because of its debt. The PNC/R after 2011 was forced to sell some of its lands adjacent to its headquarters to finance, what is believed to be, its campaign debt.
David Granger had an initiative to provide buses, boats and bicycles to schoolchildren to help them get to school. But had not the big donors intervened, the initiative would have flopped. Without the support of businesses and those with plenty of money, the initiative would have died a natural death.
The Stabroek News therefore can lament all it wishes about the ‘vulgarity” of hosting an all-white party on a barge with an admission fee higher than the national minimum wage. But that event would have most likely raised more money than three or four traditional fund-raising activities put together.
The average church fair raises less than 2 million dollars and almost everything is donated. The average raffle, to which those on minimum wage contribute, barely scrapes in a few hundred thousand dollars.
There is nothing vulgar about asking the rich to contribute to the plight of the poor. Indeed, when the rich give back to the poor, they are effectively giving back what they would have taken from the poor.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)
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