PDC-15: Awareness: The Instant lottery Vs the Insurance Premium

PDC-15: Awareness: The Instant lottery Vs the Insurance Premium

 

As patience becomes an extinct virtue, we have become addicted to instant results. As our expectations for instant results kept increasing, the world has adapted; new innovations kept emerging to give us what we needed. One such innovation is the instant lottery. You scratch a lottery and find the results immediately.

 

In addition, as we were taught to prepare for the worst and hope for the best, we want to safeguard ourselves from the unexpected tragedies. This need gave the birth to the multibillion insurance industries. We take insurance as a protection for the unexpected tragedy. We pay a small premium every month. We do not get a pay back immediately for the premiums we pay every month, but we are protected by the promise of a huge pay back if the unexpected happens.

 

Anytime our Achen at St. Gregorios Church Austin talks about prayer, he uses the analogy of the instant lottery and the insurance. He says: prayer is not like an instant lottery. We must not expect immediate results just as you would expect the result by scratching the instant lottery. It has to be like the insurance premium. You have to continuously pray so that you will have the grace of the Holy Father when you need it.

 

The same analogy holds good for charity awareness. Awareness must not be considered as an instant lottery. We must not expect instant results.

 

Let's look at how the instant lottery model would look like in the charity landscape. Consider a new project being launched and assume that the common man has not heard about such a project before. A person from a charitable organization would talk about the project and before the common man takes his next breath, a request for donations is made. The organization needs immediate return of its investment in the form of dollars that it had spent on the persons talk to the group of people.

 

Awareness is like the insurance premiums that we make. It has to be a continuous effort. The organization never knows when it might need it to protect it from the negative influence and frauds of the poorly managed charities.

 

Charity Awareness is a continuous process and must be separated from the collection phase

 

The purpose of awareness is not to convince people to donate dollars; its purpose is to educate people about the need. Regardless of the need for funds, charity projects must heavily invest on awareness. Our people must be in tune with the initiatives. The Awareness about our charity initiatives must pass on from people to people, friends to friends, parents to children, and generations to generations.

 

To be continued…

 

The next two topics:

 

PDC-16: Awareness: The art of reading the mind of the audience

PDC-17: Awareness: The fine line between Awareness and Marketing

 

Thanks,

Rajesh Vargheese

St. Gregorios Orthodox Church, Austin , TX