Comment on Is it normal that I feel pretty bad for ignoring homeless people begging for money?

• DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Sorry mate you’re kind of embarrassing yourself a little bit here.

  Of course the CEO equivalent exists in government. It’s just a management position. Equivalent services will need equivalent management.

  Do you realize how little a CEO does?

  I’ve sat on hiring committees for CEO’s. Refining their job descriptions and interviewing candidates. I know exactly what CEO’s of non-profits and charities do. I suspect that you do not.

  Do you realize how little the actual money donated to an organization trickles down to the cause?

  Perhaps you didn’t read my comment. I’ve been a treasurer for a number of medium size charities. I know exactly how much money is needed to support the charities objectives.

  In recent years grant funding for charities has been extraordinarily difficult to obtain. Often it’s not indexed. Where grant funding is not indexed for a number of years, it becomes impossible to maintain the same services because wages and other costs are always getting more expensive. I’ve had to have that very difficult conversation with social workers - that their hours need to be reduced and as a result their client numbers will be cut. It’s a ridiculous absurdity to suggest that volunteers like myself would be taking those measures without first seeking to maximise the efficiency of the entire organisation.

  Do you realize that there are multiple charities for the same thing, which just means more and more waste?

  For example?

  In fact in pretty much every instance of a modern government taking over a service, it becomes cheaper and more efficient. That’s why many governments run utilities, and healthcare.

  You’re talking about public vs private institutions. That just doesn’t make any sense applied to charities because they’re already public institutions.

  Look I’m not saying your service is useless, but I am saying it would be more efficient elsewhere.

  Sorry mate, this is just an absurd thought bubble borne of naivety. Get involved in a charity and you’ll understand why it exists. Until then maybe just start with the assumption that the people who are involved have a better understanding of it’s context and it’s objectives and how best to serve those objectives than you do. It’s incredible arrogant to suppose that entire organisations ought not to exist because the people involved just haven’t realised how inefficient they are. Seriously, pull your head out of your ass.

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  • bustrpoindextr@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Of course the CEO equivalent exists in government. It’s just a management position. Equivalent services will need equivalent management.

    A CEO is not a manager. You’re already embarrassing yourself here 😉

    Perhaps you didn’t read my comment. I’ve been a treasurer for a number of medium size charities. I know exactly how much money is needed to support the charities objectives.

    I did read your comment, but I kinda assumed you either were lying or getting really defensive. There’s a lot of waste that wouldn’t exist if they were consolidated into the government.

    Do you realize that there are multiple charities for the same thing, which just means more and more waste?

    For example?

    Yeah sure, since it’s already been brought to. The red cross does blood donations, but they’re only 35% of America’s non profit blood donations, there’s also America’s blood centers and vitalent and more! So much overhead! If they were all one organization, you could eliminate much of the overhead and more effectively coordinate the blood donations.

    Sorry mate, this is just an absurd thought bubble borne of naivety. Get involved in a charity and you’ll understand why it exists.

    Sorry mate, but you’ve got your head up your ass and you’re getting defensive.

    I have been involved in both charities and government.

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    • DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Goodness me. One of us is certainly getting defensive. There’s not much point continuing this. Feel free to have the last word while continuing to assume anyone with a better understanding than you is a liar.

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      • bustrpoindextr@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        I mean you attacked me because you didn’t like a logical, obvious, critique of something. Which again, I never said it was bad, I just said it could be improved. And you said things that I just repeated back at you, and now you can’t handle your own words?

        Goodness me indeed.

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• sab@kbin.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  On the contrary. Many charities benefit from volunteer work hours that simply would not be possible on a normal government contract. The efficiency of some charities simply cannot be matched by State institutions, as people don't want to volunteer working for the state.

  Some volunteer positions could possibly be replaced with well-paying jobs to lower unemployment rates at the benefit of the economy, but people also get a sense of purpose from volunteering. The charitable economy ran by volunteering and donations is an incredible asset for any society, no matter how great the social security net is. And in my experience, a better security net is often correlated with more charity.

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  • bustrpoindextr@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    So first off, you can totally volunteer for government things. I mean, I can volunteer at my local government library for instance, there’s nothing about a government contract that removes the ability to volunteer.

    But I wouldn’t need to have volunteers if the red cross and all competing charities were swallowed up into one thing.

    There are a bunch of organizations that do the same or part of what the red cross does. That’s a lot of wasted time of resources, that would be better spent lumped together as a collective unit.

    Charity is simply one of the places you absolutely don’t want competition/capitalism. You want oversight and efficiency, that’s the government.

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