AthenaSurrenders
Posts: 3582
Joined: 3/15/2012
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Forgive my ignorance, I know nothing about the US tax system, but is there anything in place where the charity has to sign something to confirm they accepted the donation?
Because I'm wondering why somebody didn't say 'no' to the sex toys. As in 'no, not an appropriate donation, we can't accept this and therefore you can't write it off as a deduction?'
Any way I look at it, I can't picture that gesture as anything other than supremely selfish. It seems unfair that someone can essentially dump any old crap and be rewarded for it, even as it costs the aid workers in time and transport which should be spent doing helpful things.
I think part of the problem of asking for specific donations is that these drives often happen far away from the disaster and so it takes time and a widespread network of people to get it to the place where it's needed - like the example of blankets for Japan in the article. By the time people have got enough to send off it may be too late (and conversely they probably continue to get trickles of donations for a long time afterwards). Drives asking for stuff donations probably work best for local ongoing projects like food banks, animal shelters etc.
And I'm sure even if the list were just 'water, non-perishable food and blankets' some people would donate inappropriately - dirty things, expired foods - because some people have an attitude of 'well they have nothing, so they won't be fussy'.
On a smaller note, we did the shoebox appeal every year when I was at school (you know, fill a shoebox with small toys, toiletries, stationary etc to be send overseas for children). We still do. We put a ton of effort in trying to get as much variety into the box as possible, I buy stuff way in advance and we usually do 4 boxes and cram stuff into every gap - because if it's the only gift a child might get for a whole year, I think they deserve it to be amazing. Anyway, you leave the boxes un-sealed so they can check for aerosols etc. One year a colleague wanted to do one and send it in via us. We get it and she's wrapped it completely closed to we have to open and re-wrap it. Inside there is nothing but paper. Just an entire shoebox of paper. Regular old printer paper, a couple of lined blocks and a few exercise books (some of which had been scribbled on by her kids).
Now granted, paper is amongst the suggested items, but how disappointing for a child to get a box of paper when your friends are getting gloves, sweets, sunglasses, marbles, stickers etc. It made me so sad because we always found filling the boxes a pleasurable thing and she obviously saw it as a way to dump unwanted stuff. We ended up unpacking it and mixing some of our goodies in to improve it, and I'd like to think the people checking the boxes at the depot would have done something similar. But sheesh lady.
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