By Scott Davis former Oakland Raiders
The idea of giving is a noble one to be sure. Many well-intended folks start out very excited to begin helping and simply jump in and immediately start focusing on getting help into the hands of the needy as fast as possible. Although the upsides of your efforts are many and the results are profound you must take the time to consider a few potential negative outcomes of giving so openly.
Charities are in the business of gathering donations and growing their member numbers as large as possible to achieve better and better ongoing results. So far so good. No one denies this is what charitable organizations do. But no matter how excited you are to get involved you need to look at all sides of the process and understand what all your options are.
This brings us to your privacy. Since most orgs. clearly want to grow their reach they may many times sell or share their lists of members to other organizations. such lists can include your personal information such as name, address, and possibly additional information you have provided. its quite possible that even if you only provide your name there are a growing number of easily accessible companies in the business of gathering and sell data collected with just your name. we wont get into how they achieve this but it isn't so difficult anymore with the advances in technology. Many of us may not be surprised about such actions in this day of big data along with the fact that we are tracked everyday by data services and consumer brands hoping to get a leg up in marketing to us.
That being said you should always be given the option by your chosen charity to "opt-out" of such information sharing programs. If a charity is on the up-and-up their site should provide a privacy policy for you to review prior to you getting further involved and providing your personal information.
Were not saying that giving your information is good or bad. All were urging you to do is to be aware of what each organizations privacy policy is and then you can determine if it's right for you. If the charity does not provide a privacy policy on their website contact them directly and push to ensure you get something in writing before you proceed.
Scott Davis runs and writes multiple websites and blogs and has several social sites about various topics
The idea of giving is a noble one to be sure. Many well-intended folks start out very excited to begin helping and simply jump in and immediately start focusing on getting help into the hands of the needy as fast as possible. Although the upsides of your efforts are many and the results are profound you must take the time to consider a few potential negative outcomes of giving so openly.
Charities are in the business of gathering donations and growing their member numbers as large as possible to achieve better and better ongoing results. So far so good. No one denies this is what charitable organizations do. But no matter how excited you are to get involved you need to look at all sides of the process and understand what all your options are.
This brings us to your privacy. Since most orgs. clearly want to grow their reach they may many times sell or share their lists of members to other organizations. such lists can include your personal information such as name, address, and possibly additional information you have provided. its quite possible that even if you only provide your name there are a growing number of easily accessible companies in the business of gathering and sell data collected with just your name. we wont get into how they achieve this but it isn't so difficult anymore with the advances in technology. Many of us may not be surprised about such actions in this day of big data along with the fact that we are tracked everyday by data services and consumer brands hoping to get a leg up in marketing to us.
That being said you should always be given the option by your chosen charity to "opt-out" of such information sharing programs. If a charity is on the up-and-up their site should provide a privacy policy for you to review prior to you getting further involved and providing your personal information.
Were not saying that giving your information is good or bad. All were urging you to do is to be aware of what each organizations privacy policy is and then you can determine if it's right for you. If the charity does not provide a privacy policy on their website contact them directly and push to ensure you get something in writing before you proceed.
Scott Davis runs and writes multiple websites and blogs and has several social sites about various topics