MEANINGFUL TO DONOR VS MEANINGFUL TO RECIPIENT:
This section is meant to inform you of the affects of fundraising and what it has to offer. This past summer I worked for an organization called "SchoolBox" and our division of it was called "ShoeBox" and what we did was we gathered together soccer equiptment and packaged it up and sent it off to Nicaragua. There were some ups and there were some downs in trying to organize the materials and receive adequate material from the donors. A lot of the time we would receive equiptment that was really old and torn up. Even when we explained what organization we were working for, and how these materials are going to be used to encourage children to attend school and that there donation would be helping all of this, we still got some materials that were clearly given just so that it could be taken off of these people's hands. It was sometimes hard to encourage people to give generously. I found that most of the time we had to explain the benefits that the company would receive if they donated. A lot of the time it wasn't given without some kind of encouragement. But then there were the times that people donated up and beyond our expectations and these were the times that made me see hope again.
Working for ShoeBOX allowed me to understand that there is a certain level of persuasion that needs to occur in certain countries to have the children attend school. It is a hard concept to grasp because one would love to assume that every child values education and is able to receive a proper education. But in certain cases there is not the initiative from a government to ensure the proper education of the countries people. Sometimes our good intentions are not always valued but then there are some cases where they are received up and beyond our expectations.
I must say though, it is important to try not to have high expectations for the reception of what you are doing. Not everyone is going to throw a big party in your honour for all the work that you are doing. What you need to understand is that there is a difference between the meaningfulness from the donor and meaningfulness to the recipient. The work that you do must be separate from your self satisfying level of accomplishments that you are expecting.
You have to realize that the work you are doing is important but you also need to understand that you are doing it for someone else and not yourself.