Many people today want to be generous with their resources but don't have a lot to give and are afraid their gift will never reach the individual or individuals who have an actual need.
Though their hearts are touched by interminable commercials describing hungry children and abused animals, they're rightly wary of organizations that spend more on overhead than goes to help the actual need.
Similarly, people would love to be of assistance to someone in their immediate vacinity but may not be acquainted with them or know the need that is gnawing at the fabric of their neighbor's mere existence.
And social media-savvy younger people who want to give of what they have are, rightly or wrongly, hesitant about giving to large social service agencies where their gift is properly used but seems to them too impersonal.
The Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga and the Maclellan Foundation, both careful stewards of local donor dollars and thoughtful area investors, believe they have found an online giving community where many of the aforementioned concerns can be alleviated.
The two foundations announced last week a collaboration with Atlanta-based Purposity (think "purposeful generosity"), an online giving community which allows contributors to meet practical, immediate, local needs with the few clicks of a keyboard or dial pad.
The Community Foundation and the Maclellan Foundation initially will work with schools - 20,000 Hamilton County public school students live at or below the poverty line - to identify children in need of uniforms, school supplies and other educational items. School social workers and guidance counselors will vet the needs and add them - together with the individual's brief story - to the Purposity website (Purposity.com).
Lest anyone believe the site is ripe for exploitation, its website assures pledges "there is a submission and approval process to assure all needs meet our strict criteria and come from trusted sources." This, it adds, is in order "to maintain the integrity of our process and assure our supporters that all needs are coming from trusted nonprofits in their community with a history of strong organizational oversight."
In the future, Purposity through the Community Foundation and Maclellan Foundation hopes to expand to help fulfill individual needs of clients of local nonprofit organizations.
Nevertheless, by mid-morning last Wednesday, just days after the local launch, every posted Chattanooga need - 39 were listed - had been met, from "homeless students in need of new uniform pants" to "more educational tools for low-income students" to a 9-year-old who "needs [a] new coat to warm her up."
Willing donors who have signed up on the Purposity website are sent text messages each week listing the new needs, although donors can browse the website at any time to search for needs.
Several simple clicks allow the giver to answer the individual need through online retail giant Amazon, and the specific item or items are automatically delivered to the schools in a few days.
Instead of a request for 53 cents a day or $20 a month or a onetime gift of $327.37, people can select a story with a need that touches their heart and a price that fits their budget and know they have fulfilled a felt need in their community. Until they click to purchase the item through Purposity's Amazon wish list, the needs remain available to everyone. The correct shipping address already has been entered for the item(s), but the giver must choose it at checkout.
The giving portal clearly says on its free-to-use website that it is a for-profit company with a social mission. That status, it says, "keeps us from competing for donations against the organizations we are trying to help. When we make money, we are able to put more resources into building the best solutions to help others."
While we would never suggest Chattanoogans should stop giving to the churches and charities they know are already worthy, we believe this practically real-time fulfillment of needs combines our desire to give as individuals and as a generous city with the immediacy of technology.
We hope many area residents give it a whirl not only for the good it will do for a specific person or persons but also for what giving never fails to do for the giver.
After all, "only by giving," said the late author, entrepreneur and motivational speaker Jim Rohn, "are you able to receive more than you already have."