1.21.2011
1.20.2011
Critical reflection
I decided to work on the project giving and getting from RSA which is interesting and related to a basic principle of Buddha although I am not a very good Buddhist. In my opinion, that it makes a good sense in terms of living because people should give first before they expect something in return or it would be even better to expect for nothing which is the way of generating generosity and it will make this world a better place even though it sound like doing it for free. However, we are living in the capitalistic world that everything is a transaction and we are familiar to it.
I started the project by searching an internet in a term of generosity that helped me to understand the way people think about it. There are many kinds of generous people in today world. Someone pretended to be for business opportunities, someone did it for being interested and someone did it for their believe in next life but I still believe that some people are genuinely generous person.
My mapping of the project had two alternative ways: one is to change people’s mind to make them believe in doing good things and the other is to follow the trend of giving for something. Then I found out it is not easy to change people’s mind in just one campaign or one print ad, in other words, it will take much more time to convince and create awareness of social concern to them. Therefore, my research has been scoped down to find the alternative solution that could draw people, especially new target audience who have never donated and supported any charity before, to participate with donation.
I tried to find the way to reach the new target audiences through facebook which basically contains a long list of various friends but my experimental project was not successful to convince them. However, it gave me some interesting ideas about their daily lifestyle, that is, most people prefer to spend money for a cup of coffee rather than to donate for charities.
So I came up with the question that why the charity not make something related to people’s lifestyle in order to connect to them easier. Actually, Save the children in London has retail shops and I went to visit and survey some of them for a couple times. I think that the places are not interesting enough to draw an attention from people on the street and the locations are very quiet.
Coffee shop is probably the best solution and is a great chance to gain money from people, furthermore, it is also the best place where many people like to come to talk and discuss to each other. Moreover, fundraisers on the street mostly fail to persuade people to support their campaign as they are in the rush hour and do not have time to speak to.
Nowadays, coffee shop becomes more popular in urban areas and is a good business to invest as well because the fact that it can obtains 300% profit per one cup of coffee. This leads the coffee shop industry to be very tempting for everyone who desires to succeed and make money in business. In addition, most people are incredibly addicted to coffee even though the price is unreasonable but they still need a few cups of coffee everyday. And from my own experience, I always choose to pay for one cup of coffee during a day rather than a meal, if I have limited money.
In conclusion, this opportunity is a long-term campaign that will be sustainable and gain a lot of money to the charity. It can create awareness from people perfectly. And they don’t have to worry about next year budget from the government or any other organizations. It would be great if the charity could live on their business, which means they can achieve success of their campaign easier with their own money.
For the next project, I will pay more attention to people’s insight and other alternative opportunities as much as I can. Especially, in terms of research that I will look for new sources of information and I will try an experimental project for the best solution in the project.
References
Grist, Matt: Steer: Mastering our behaviour through instinct, environment and reason (RSA June 2010)
Mark Tyrell, Creative Director: Uncommon Knowledge on generosity
Pathways through participation: What creates and sustains active citizenship? See specifically Policy Brief No. 10 – testing the effectiveness of pledging and publicity in encouraging charitable donations, also interesting information throughout.
PDA: The Digital Content Blog: Charitable giving including an entry on a British Red Cross online game showing where tsunami donations went (guardian.co.uk 2009)
Mapping the public policy landscape: Charitable Giving and Donor Motivation ESRC Seminar Series
Fritz, Joanne: Charitable Giving by the Generations: What Fundraisers Should Know About Donor Generations (About.com: Non Profit Charitable Orgs)
Anik, Lalin; Aknin, Lara B.; Norton, Michael I.; Dunn, Elizabeth W.: Feeling Good about Giving: The Benefits (and Costs) of Self-Interested Charitable Behavior (Working Paper, Harvard Business School 2009)
Piper, Greg; Schnepf, Sylke V.: Gender Differences in Charitable Giving (IZA Discussion Paper Series 2007):
I started the project by searching an internet in a term of generosity that helped me to understand the way people think about it. There are many kinds of generous people in today world. Someone pretended to be for business opportunities, someone did it for being interested and someone did it for their believe in next life but I still believe that some people are genuinely generous person.
My mapping of the project had two alternative ways: one is to change people’s mind to make them believe in doing good things and the other is to follow the trend of giving for something. Then I found out it is not easy to change people’s mind in just one campaign or one print ad, in other words, it will take much more time to convince and create awareness of social concern to them. Therefore, my research has been scoped down to find the alternative solution that could draw people, especially new target audience who have never donated and supported any charity before, to participate with donation.
I tried to find the way to reach the new target audiences through facebook which basically contains a long list of various friends but my experimental project was not successful to convince them. However, it gave me some interesting ideas about their daily lifestyle, that is, most people prefer to spend money for a cup of coffee rather than to donate for charities.
So I came up with the question that why the charity not make something related to people’s lifestyle in order to connect to them easier. Actually, Save the children in London has retail shops and I went to visit and survey some of them for a couple times. I think that the places are not interesting enough to draw an attention from people on the street and the locations are very quiet.
Coffee shop is probably the best solution and is a great chance to gain money from people, furthermore, it is also the best place where many people like to come to talk and discuss to each other. Moreover, fundraisers on the street mostly fail to persuade people to support their campaign as they are in the rush hour and do not have time to speak to.
Nowadays, coffee shop becomes more popular in urban areas and is a good business to invest as well because the fact that it can obtains 300% profit per one cup of coffee. This leads the coffee shop industry to be very tempting for everyone who desires to succeed and make money in business. In addition, most people are incredibly addicted to coffee even though the price is unreasonable but they still need a few cups of coffee everyday. And from my own experience, I always choose to pay for one cup of coffee during a day rather than a meal, if I have limited money.
In conclusion, this opportunity is a long-term campaign that will be sustainable and gain a lot of money to the charity. It can create awareness from people perfectly. And they don’t have to worry about next year budget from the government or any other organizations. It would be great if the charity could live on their business, which means they can achieve success of their campaign easier with their own money.
For the next project, I will pay more attention to people’s insight and other alternative opportunities as much as I can. Especially, in terms of research that I will look for new sources of information and I will try an experimental project for the best solution in the project.
References
Grist, Matt: Steer: Mastering our behaviour through instinct, environment and reason (RSA June 2010)
Mark Tyrell, Creative Director: Uncommon Knowledge on generosity
Pathways through participation: What creates and sustains active citizenship? See specifically Policy Brief No. 10 – testing the effectiveness of pledging and publicity in encouraging charitable donations, also interesting information throughout.
PDA: The Digital Content Blog: Charitable giving including an entry on a British Red Cross online game showing where tsunami donations went (guardian.co.uk 2009)
Mapping the public policy landscape: Charitable Giving and Donor Motivation ESRC Seminar Series
Fritz, Joanne: Charitable Giving by the Generations: What Fundraisers Should Know About Donor Generations (About.com: Non Profit Charitable Orgs)
Anik, Lalin; Aknin, Lara B.; Norton, Michael I.; Dunn, Elizabeth W.: Feeling Good about Giving: The Benefits (and Costs) of Self-Interested Charitable Behavior (Working Paper, Harvard Business School 2009)
Piper, Greg; Schnepf, Sylke V.: Gender Differences in Charitable Giving (IZA Discussion Paper Series 2007):
1.14.2011
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