Pwnager~Black God~

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

President’s Star Charity Show- is there a need for artistes to perform stunts to milk the public’s compassion for more generous donations?

The President’s Star Charity show has been running for quite a long time. It has often been an annual event hosted by charitable organizations to raise funds for the group of underprivileged people they are serving. These people range from the elderly to homeless children or orphans, sometimes even mentally and physically disabled people. The organizations virtue is one that gives the right social treatment to this group of unfortunate people and help them survive in the outside world.
In order to compromise on this need, the organizations need to host annual events for the raising of funds for these people, which requires a large amount of manpower to put up performances, dangerous stunts, etc. The shows would then be broadcasted on television the whole nation to view as an effort to persuade the public to donate money.
This form of alluring audiences with jaw-dropping performances and eye-blogging stunts has its own advantages and disadvantages. Though the amount of labour is really huge to put up such a grandiose performance, the celebrities and workers are stilling willing to sacrifice their time to put up such an event, and that itself is motivational to the public. I think that this shows that most Singaporeans are generally benevolent to help those that are less fortunate than them. These would also benefit both parties as the audience would be more willing to donate money if they are treated to a performance instead of just asking them to just donate without knowing whom the money is going to. The common response from people who are asked to donate when charity shows are on is, “What for donate to these charity shows because I don’t know who are going to benefit directly from them? I might as well, donate to that homeless and destitute guy who’s begging for money at the train station.” The implementation of a performance by artistes would hence promote the organization more and more people would be willing to donate as they are assured that their money would not fall into bad hands.
However, all that glitters is not gold. What people and the charities really want is not a charity show that showcases different talents performing and flaunting their beauty and sexiness, (almost) ‘begging’ for donations and just plain wasting resources during the 2-3hours of broadcast. If one is to sincerely think that helping the less fortunate is an act of virtue, he should not be only tempted to donate only when there is a performance of some sort. Rather, we need transparency and accountability in place before we are thrown off with such entertainment which is in the name of a good cause. People who are all skeptical in nature would want to know how and who the money they donated is going to be used for, and hence they would not easily give up their money.
Before the charity show can begin seeing a spike in donations and overwhelming compassionate response from the public to donate during a 3 hour entertainment show, there’s a need to treat people who part with the money like shareholders of these charities - account for what they are being used for, how and well, who’s benefiting directly from it. For instance, the incident about the Ren Ci hospital monk scandal invoked many controversial arguments, and many people lost faith in the organization itself, and the fund raising event was no longer hosted.
In essence, the motivation to donate to a charity should come from one’s heart itself, if he truely and sincerely wishes to help those in need, and not through watching some fanciful performances.

Pwnager
4:47 PM