This is a risk in my mind too. Those solicitations for more donations might take the form of people knocking at your door or harassing you during daily activities for more money. In worse cases, it may be people threatening you or breaking into your home once they know you have extra money.basuragomi wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 8:59 amThere's also the issue of being notorious as the person with lots of money to give away. May attract unwanted attention. Alternately you could maybe become the Godfather.
Perhaps anonymous giving is a solution here? It’s not always possible to keep things anonymous for all types of donations, but certain things can be done anonymously. Of course if you’re trying to build social capital, anonymous giving won’t help you.
Maybe you could spend the $200 on web design work for the Indian lady so she can improve her business? Or maybe just talk to her and ask what would help her most? I’m not so sure giving piles of money is the best solution. It certainly isn’t a great solution for those who are homeless, drug addicts, in situations where they don’t have control of finances, etc (not saying that is the case with Indian lady, just saying it’s a common occurrence that may ultimately do more harm than good). Maybe there is already grant or support available for local women or minority-owned businesses and it might just be a case of linking her with these organizations?ellarose24 wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 7:21 amSome ideas I've had
-there is an indian lady on Nextdoor that sells wonderful indian food. Her profile is very sad--in broken english it says she has 10 children and her husband passed away and that she is struggling, and then offers homemade indian food. I've sent her a couple hundred and it felt infinitely better that my monthly donations to charities where they send me 10 letters a month to donate more, or tell me how awful the world is (so donate more) and maybe send me a calendar.
Also free donations to people. Instead of trying to make a buck off of thing you don't use, give them away. I made gift boxes of dog toys that had never been used and you'd think I was Oprah throwing out money. Favorite story was a lady picking it up for her neighbor who is an old man and had been isolated since cover and was involve with his dog. This was also fun because one lady sort of bartered without me asking giving me laundry detergent and dryer sheets in exchange, which was useful!
Future plans would be both guerrilla gardening and offering people in my neighborhood free trees for their front yard. I don't have some large trust to buy land with, but why not make the land around me better? We have a large unused park and I am starting a neighborhood committee to talk about how to revamp it, unfortunately most of the people want things such as movie nights and food trucks and said a community garden isn't fair as no one wants a community garden (my original post was on a community garden, people mostly shit on it and then said well lets do something else! Like large concrete and food trucks. UGH). So I plan on just going in and planting trees myself similar to the youtube channel "Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't" (Highly recommend btw). In fact, I bet that's easier than getting the city to do anything themselves.
Is there a local gardening chapter you can partner with? Almost every area has at least some group who likes beautifying the area. You may be able to set up a deal where you fund the money for trees and they provide the volunteers or arborists to plant them. It’s a way of having more control of how the money is used, but will require more time from you.
Edit: Other ideas I have for helping Indian lady would be to order your take out meals from her and spend the $200 on having her cater a gathering of friends or coworkers (which will help her attract new customers).
