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As a blogger, you could give yourself a real attack of the guilts. Every day, no-fail, at the moment at least one email appears in my blog inbox from a well-known charity asking me to blog about them and to help raise awareness of their very worthy cause. Boy, how I would love to help them all, I am an avid believer in helping those in need and those less fortunate than me but truth be told if I blogged about them all I would have nothing else on my blog other than charitable posts and let's be honest, would you come back and keep reading if all I ever wrote about was appeal after appeal? I think not. We do not need constant reminder after reminder of just how broken our world is and how much help is needed.
I have started to email back to explain that I am an avid supporter of many charities but that the ones I choose to blog about are Save the Children, Compassion and Operation Christmas Child in the main. These are all charities that I support in effort and money as well as blogging about them and therefore it feels right. If I blog about any other charity it will be because it is on my heart at that time rather than because they have a current campaign.
I was watching an episode of the Secret Millionaire the other day (I love that programme) and it really surprised me to watch this millionaire go into the deprived area that he would live in and seek out a charity for stray dogs, he then proceeded to give them thousands of pounds to continue their good work. My instant thoughts about this were why was he not giving the money to a homeless charity or some ill people? Why dogs? This was when I realised just how personal the choice of charity to support is. What makes sense to someone else and is the best cause to support seems alien to me. Take my post last week about Operation Christmas Child and how I feel it is important to bring short-term joy to children as well as long term medical care and food supplies and some other people thought I was bonkers. Each to their own, how true this is.
For some people, I realise they do not even want to get involved in what they see as charity. The number of times I have heard the phrase 'charity starts at home', 'we are broke', 'I can't afford to give my money away' yadda, yadda, yadda. Yes, some people in the UK are on the poverty line and cannot afford to give anything but that does not go for the majority of us. If you have a takeaway meal once in a month then you can afford to give something but yes it is your choice and I am very happy for you to make a choice but just be honest with yourself and admit you choose not to give to charity.
Sorry got a bit ranty there, like I said charity is such a personal thing. We all do what is right for us and the only person we are answerable to is God, so as long as you are happy then that works for me.
Tell me your thoughts, how do you feel when those emails drop into your inbox? Or what is your gut reaction when you see a charity post on a blog? I'd genuinely love to hear...