Should Charitable Acts & Contributions be Public?

Should Charitable Acts & Contributions be Public? Yesterday, an act of charity I helped to do came to fruition. On mother’s day, I met a woman on Skid Row who is homeless, and does alterations for people in exchange for donations. She also gives sewing lessons, both online and in person. She mentioned that she needed a generator and a resource tent, and I donated some money toward her facebook fundraiser to buy the tent, and then sent tons of messages to different companies with one finally resulting in the donation of a generator with solar panels to help her help others on Skid Row charge their phones, and for her to charge her sewing machine!
I was super excited for this, because it felt great to help someone else.

When we got there to deliver the generator, Stephanie (the main benefactor of this good deed) kept saying “let’s go live!” and I initially didn’t want to. I didn’t want it to seem like I was doing this for attention, or to do some sort of virtue signaling.

We hear great things about how Keanu Reeves secretly donates tons of money to different hospitals… I know firsthand that Pharrell volunteers on Skid Row, but I have never seen him “advertise” it.

But if those gents were more public with their good deeds, would it draw more attention to the causes they care about and perhaps inspire more people to donate or volunteer?

I feel like there’s a really fine line there!

I eventually relented, and we went live, which you can see here…

But it made me wonder – should charitable acts & contributions be public?

I ended up sharing the live video to a few local groups in LA, and someone asked me to share it on twitter, too, so that she could share it. The reason I shared it to the groups is because I had seen some posts of people looking to have alterations done, and I figured if those people were able to feel comfortable being in a non-traditional setting for the alterations, they could take their business to Stephanie!

Anyone who needs alterations in Los Angeles & is ok with a non-traditional setting: Stephanie is a @FIDM grad on Skid Row (SW corner of 5th and San Pedro) and does donation-based alterations! See her here: https://t.co/nN44Rj1AKU #losangeles #seamstress

— Mandie Brice (@MandieBrice) July 3, 2019

If making a live video and sharing it a bit helps her earn more money or inspires others to do good deeds, it was worth it, even though I was a sweaty mess in the video, but I still feel odd about it!

You probably already know that I donate $2 for every sign up (while it is still $19 per person) to a different charity each month for my online makeup course, so this is another way to do it… I just need to reconcile the fine line between inspiring others and being a show-off. I’m telling myself that so much of it depends on intentions, and mine were definitely pure – to do the helping, not to make myself look good!

So, should charitable acts & contributions be public? Let me know what you think in the comments!

xoxo,

Mandie