Human pride is a potent emotion, and I believe that people do tend to appreciate that someone noticed that they donated to benefit an honorable cause. However, incentives to encourage donations no longer distinguish themselves in my definition as a charitable trust. My definition of charity is the act of giving money, goods or time to the unfortunate with no influence from a reward or incentive. This being said, the use of incentives to encourage charity does not ethically appeal in my definition. Quite generally, considerations arise whenever the presentation of a peculiar new practice is offered. The considerations discerned from the use of incentives to encourage donations are: the benefactor’s position in society (wealth), contradiction of charity, and the use of other resolutions to encourage charity.
The poor, particularly widows and orphans, and the sick and disabled, are generally regarded as the proper objects of charity. Most forms of charity are concerned with providing food, water, clothing, and shelter, and tending the ill, but other actions may be performed as charity: visiting the imprisoned or the homebound, dowries for poor women, ransoming captives, educating orphans. Donations to causes that benefit the unfortunate indirectly, such as donations to fund cancer research, are also charity. Knowing this, the individuals that are deemed as the donators are generally those who do not require the reward of the incentive. These incentives serve merely as advertisements encourage the donation to charity; although, it can be said that the use of incentive will be greatly abused.
If this practice could be employed, the logical resolution would be to use these rewards and apply them to the people receiving the donations. These incentives are presented to the wrong audience of individuals and should be directed to the organization in which it supports. This is the contradiction of charity I find presented. Instead of using the rewards for individuals whom do not require it, use it on the individuals whom which you are supporting. This practice of incentive clearly demonstrates that the use of incentive presents a very logical fault in charity which eventually would be argued by the general public. It is the worst possible situation whenever a charitable trust is accounted for as hypocritical.
There is the immediate question in which ask if there is even a need for encouragement to donate. Even in situations in which the encouragement of donations to vital for society, this peculiar resolution can already be seen to present more complications and issues then the initial result to profit from. Even if at the last resort this practice was employed, the “selfless” individuals would still not be able to fill the gap that the encouragements seek to envelop. Countless other more economical and ethical resolutions could be employed in use; such as, the mere strategy of additional advertisements and further availability for the act of donating around specific populated cities can already be predicted as more ethical and economical than the practice of incentives.