Word: aide
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...giving is also problematic in that it tracks very closely with news coverage. An initial flurry of donations follows the initial reports of a disaster, as donors click on links embedded in news stories. But as the stories move off the front page, online donations dry up, even though aid is often still needed. Add to that the issue of some mobile donations not reaching the aid organization for months, and growing electronic donations may cause further distortion to the temporal pattern of relief aid...
Increasing the quantity of individual donations through technological means is unquestionably a positive good. Even the most cynical scrooge would admit that domestic charities make our cities more livable and that foreign aid boosts our country’s reputation abroad. However, the shift to online forms of charity will lead not only to more aid dollars but also to fundamental changes to how the aid is administered...
...instance, online donors may be less particular about their choice of charity. This is not necessarily a bad thing, because niche or religious charities can sometimes impose irrelevant political or cultural values on foreign aid, such as religious organizations restricting condoms in regions devastated by AIDS. Yet the reality is that web legitimacy is easy to fake, and certain charities that accept online donations may simply be frauds. The FBI warned donors last month to ignore unsolicited emails, avoid sending personal information via e-mail, and be wary of people claiming to be surviving victims, which is a testament...
...runs the risk of devaluing charity by making it routine or even trivial. If future generations come to believe that charitable donation merely means typing “HAITI” on a Blackberry keyboard as a knee-jerk response to sappy news coverage, it may become harder for aid organizations to recruit dedicated employees and volunteers who are willing to devote their life to a cause...
...nothing else, the fact that online donations track so closely with media coverage means that the newspapers and broadcasters may soon have even more control over which relief efforts receive aid dollars. This puts an even greater burden of responsibility on media outlets to cover the regions that need the most help...