What do people *think* the pledging concept is?
-wraith808
I see it as an incentive.
-40hz
That's not what *I* see it as, which is maybe why we have a disconnect.
If you walk for the united way, and get pledges towards your miles walked or completing a walk, who is getting anything from that? What's the incentive?
...
That was my thought behind the idea.
-wraith808
It also provides a sense of shared purpose and community for people with a high personal need for affiliation.
Not necessarily a bad thing. But many times it engenders a false sense of "doing" that takes on a life of it's own if you're not careful.
In a city near where I live, there's this big drive to get all the kids under the age of ten photographed annually.
This is for identification purposes in the event one ever got kidnapped. They don't have many kids go missing there. And kidnapping has never been a common crime there either. But it's a hot button topic that caught the imagination of enough people that a non-profit got formed to make the "ID Your Child" thing happen.
They solicit contributions to help keep the service cost down for everybody, and to provide ID photos for people who can't afford it.
But here's the problem. You can't just make a contribution to them. You have to "sponsor" one of their activity participants. When asked, I told them I wasn't interested in supporting their "walk" but that I'd be happy to contribute $20 to their cause. They refused it. I was told you had to sponsor a walker or they couldn't take the contribution.
Apparently, this walk was a big deal thing for them. So much so that they
turned down a cash contribution to their cause because I didn't want to be "incentivized" to make it.
So tell me which was more important: making sure there were current ID photographs of the little kids on file in case (god forbid!) the police ever needed them - or - making sure everybody who donated was on the same page for how contributions should be solicited.
Like I said, these things sometimes take on a life of their own and get in the way of accomplishing the intended goal.
P.S. Ran into the same thing recently with a charitable group that was out selling raffle tickets. If you wouldn't take a ticket, they wouldn't take your money.