PDC-21: Awareness: Information at our Finger Tips: The Criteria’s

PDC-21: Awareness: Information at our Finger Tips: The Criteria's

In the previous article, we saw that the distance equation between the
probable helper and the probable needy. We learned that it could be as
far as the two sides of the globe. In order to ensure the true voice
of the needy are heard by the potential Good Samaritan, information
must reach long distances.

Let's consider an orphanage in a remote place. How do people in far
away places become aware of such an initiative?

The traditional method of awareness has been word-of-mouth by
thirumeni's and others from the organizations. In addition, printed
hard copies have been sources of information.

While both these approaches are good approaches, they lack in certain
aspects. Getting a thirumeni across the globe is a costly proposition.
Consider a visit from Kerala to US. The travel expenses are not cheap.
Even if people donated 20 times the amount of the airfare during a
thirumeni's visit, the overhead is considerable. While people might
argue that the cost of the travel is handled by somebody else, we must
account for all expenses.

Printed hard copies lack the mobility and easy access. Only a limited
set of books are printed and hence only a limited set of people get
access to it. Also there are delays in the availability of the
information to the common man since the printed matter has to be
physically transported to its destination. The cost of delivery can
add up if we attempt to make this book accessible to all people across
the world.

We learnt earlier that our awareness campaign should be cost
effective. With the traditional approaches, we are constrained by two
opposite factors: either spend the money and create awareness OR save
the money and limit awareness.

It is clear that the traditional approaches limit the scope of
awareness. The ideal awareness must provide everyone access to
information at the fingertips at the lowest overhead.

Now the question arises. What is the best media to achieve the dream
of 'information at our finger tips' with the constraints on overhead?

To select the ideal media, let's first consider the criteria's that we
want to use as bench marks for comparing different mediums. Few of
them are

1. The relationship between the sender (source) and the receiver
(destination) [One-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-many]
2. The availability of the information at the convenience of the receiver
3. The cost of information transfer between the source and destination
4. The quickness of sharing information from the sender to the receiver
5. The easiness of forwarding information to a person that is not a
direct destination
6. The information accessibility or coverage area
7. The ability to provide follow-up updates seamlessly
8. The loss of information in the medium
9. The direction of finding information [Destination trying to find
the source (Ex. searching on the web and finding information) Vs
source trying to reach the destination]
10. The ability to link information from multiple locations

In the next article, we will use our criteria's to compare three types
of mediums for information transfer: postal, radio and the internet.

To be continued…

The next two topics:

PDC-22: Awareness: Information at our Finger Tips: The Mediums
PDC-23: Awareness: The Challenges Recap

Thanks,
Rajesh Vargheese
http://www.stgregoriosaustin.org/

PDC-20: Awareness: Bridging the Long Distance Ends

PDC-20: Awareness: Bridging the Long Distance Ends

The resources of the world were never uniformly distributed. While the
Middle East was blessed with the oil resources, Africa was blessed
with the minerals and North America was blessed with the advancements
of technology and human resources.

The boom in economies has attracted people from various places to
these lands of opportunities and has created pockets of financially
sound communities. The investments by these people in their hometowns
have played a major role in the development of the local communities.

The vagaries and the uncertainty of Mother Nature have shattered the
dreams of many in places that have relied on agriculture and
traditional small-scale industries. These areas haven't seen the light
of the development and have been the center of famine and poverty.
These reasons and the lack of opportunity have prevented certain
places from crossing the poverty barrier.

Let's look at a real-world example. Consider a place like Thiruvalla.
The Middle East boom has attracted many people from Thiruvalla. These
people invested their savings in their local communities and as a
result, more opportunities were created, the kids got well educated,
got good jobs and all this led to more economically sound families.

On the other hand, let's consider a place like Heliburia, Idduki: This
place has been traditionally agriculture and plantation based economy
and has been dependent on the Mother Nature for a good harvest.
Certain years when Mother Nature has been less cooperative, making the
ends meet has been a real challenge of life. Lack of schools,
inability to fund the kid's education, lack of job opportunities have
resulted in the backwardness of such places.

In this case study, a probable needy could be located in Heliburia
Idduki. A probable Good Samaritan could be in Thiruvalla or Middle
East.

The distance between the needy and the financially sound people
doesnot always has to be far, but there is a good chance that holds
true. Assuming that they are far away, the needs of the people from
these poor places have to be communicated to the people in the more
fortunate societies that are far away.

The long-distance brings many challenges. Just as the law of
transmission dictates the loss of energy as distance increases, there
is a potential that information, credibility and truthfulness can be
lost as information travels larger distances. It's hard for someone
sitting across the globe to understand the genuineness of the
particular needy. Without networking and team work, a manipulator can
take advantage of the compassion of a Good Samaritan.

Understanding the difference in cultures and local challenges,
ensuring the genuineness of the requester, avoidance of fraud,
maintaining the credibility, the challenges of information transfer
are just a few.

How do we overcome these challenges? Awareness has to be the glue that
connects the two ends and provide the means for overcoming the
challenges of long-distance. To accomplish this, the awareness about
the needs must travel into the four quarters of the world. It plays a
great role in ensuring the sanity of the transactions. Awareness works
to pass on the need of the true needy and prevents the manipulator
from misusing the compassion of the Good Samaritan. Its awareness that
bridges the long distance ends.

To be continued…

The next two topics:

PDC-21: Awareness: Information at our Finger Tips
PDC-22: Awareness: The Challenges Recap

Thanks,
Rajesh Vargheese
http://www.stgregoriosaustin.org/

PDC-19: The Transformational Effect of Awareness: Rearranging the Puzzle

PDC-19: The Transformational Effect of Awareness: Rearranging the Puzzle

Continuation of http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianOrthodox/message/16222

Let's pick up the pieces of the CHAIROS puzzle and let's rearrange the puzzle.

Assume following order for the articles.

1. Article 6 appears as the first article
[http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianOrthodox/message/12615 ]

2. Article 1 appears next (after article 6)
[http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianOrthodox/message/12565 ]

Now let's take a pop quiz!

Q1. With this sequence of the articles, would articles 2-5 appear?
Even if it appears, would it be so strongly worded?

A calculated guess would be: Probably not!

CHAIROS apartment project is a deviation from the traditional
approaches we have taken. This warrants that the awareness campaign
for such a project should have focused on educating the people about
the reasons why such a deviation is needed. While the article 6 was a
great start, much more needs to be done to gain the confidence of the
common man.

Facts about the decision-making process must be made available to the
masses. The inability to raise funds in the traditional way, the
success stories of such self-sustaining projects, the criteria behind
the selection of the construction company, the math behind the
percentage benefit for the CHAIROS center from the apartments, the
planned openness of the project execution and much more must have been
discussed in the forum for weeks if not months before the 'booking'
announcement starts.

People have the right to have their personal opinions and lot depends
on the project. We must not use the power of awareness to convince
people about an inconvincible project. (That does not fall in line
with our values)

My point is not to convince that CHAIROS is a great project, I just
picked it as an example to show that awareness has an influence. Even
though we do not expect everyone to be convinced with the project, we
at least know that there was one person who would have felt better if
article 6 appeared before article 1.

The information content, timing and the sequence is extremely
important in the creation of successful charitable projects. People
must be given the time to digest the concept and the details of the
project. The responses of people during this phase are valuable
lessons and must be analyzed carefully and the necessary changes must
be made.

As part of the awareness campaign, time and effort must be spent for
carefully creating the content, crafting the sequence and presenting
the facts to the common man.

To be continued…

The next two topics:

PDC-20: Awareness: Bridging the Long Distance Ends
PDC-21: Awareness: Information at our Finger Tips

Thanks,
Rajesh Vargheese
http://www.stgregoriosaustin.org/

PDC-18: The Transformational Effect of Awareness: Information and Timing

PDC-18: The Transformational Effect of Awareness: Information and Timing

Making people aware about a project with the right amount of
information at the right time, and in the right sequence has a
transformational effect in the way the common man perceives a project.

To make this point, let's go back to the ICON digests related to the
CHAIROS project. I will specify the dates so that we can understand
the timing aspect.

[Note: Let me make it clear that we are talking about the sequence of
the articles as part of the introduction of the project in this forum
and not about the involvement of the spiritual leaders in the
frontline of it. The second part is a very sensitive topic and my
personal opinion is that their grace must not be misused and our
spiritual leaders have better things to do in their dioceses than to
be involved in frontline of such projects. The consequence of such
involvement is that it overshadows the many other wonderful projects
that these spiritual leaders undertake]

Article 1 [Mar 31, 2006]
The first article on the CHAIROS apartment project was posted. I am
sure the person who posted had nothing to do with the CHAIROS
apartment project and would have posted based on someone else's
request. He was just a messenger, so let's not shoot the messenger :)

Ref: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianOrthodox/message/12565

The one-liner synopsis of the article was that the booking has started
for the CHAIROS apartments.

Articles 2, 3, 4, 5 [Apr 3, 2006]
After the first article was posted, we saw a series of strongly worded
articles criticizing the project.

Ref: Articles 12581, 12582, 12612, 12614

Article 6 [Apr 6, 2006]
Prof. Joseph Alexander goes the extra mile to create the awareness
among people about the project, why such a decision was taken, who
were behind the decisions, how it will be done, why the name of a
spiritual leader is listed on the web site and so on.

Ref: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianOrthodox/message/12615

Article 7 [Apr 8, 2006]
An article from Vinny Easo appears on this subject

Ref: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianOrthodox/message/12640

I want to quote the first sentence of the article by Vinny Easo. Quote
"Initially I was also not happy reading about MGOCSM Chairos project
but after reading the clarifications from Prof: Joseph Alexander I
feel better about this whole idea."

From this article, it is clearly evident that Vinny Easo was feeling
something closer to the authors of Articles 2-5 on Apr 5, 2006.

What has changed between Mar 31, 2006 and Apr 6, 2006?

Nothing has changed on the CHAIROS project. What really had changed
was that people were made more aware of why such a project was needed.
The transformation in the thought process of Vinny Easo was the effect
of the awareness that was created by Prof. Joseph Alexander.

To be continued...

The next two topics:

PDC-19: The transformational effect of Awareness: Rearranging the puzzle
PDC-20: Awareness: Bridging the long distance ends

Thanks,
Rajesh Vargheese
http://www.stgregoriosaustin.org/

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

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

 

Is charity awareness the same as marketing? Though it might sound similar, it is not. To understand the differences between the two, let's keep interchanging our hats of marketing and awareness and analyze how each of them would approach the same scenarios.

 

Marketing, as we know is the forerunner of the sales process. Before a product is launched, an aggressive marketing campaign is launched.   The effectiveness of marketing is indicated by the sales numbers. Marketing expects immediate results in the form of sales. As the product matures, the marketing campaign tapers.

 

Awareness on the other hand is a continuous initiative and does not expect immediate results. As described earlier, the purpose of awareness is not to make people donate. Hence, it is not launched when we need donations. Its purpose is to make people passionate about a cause. The dollars that the charity gets should not be the criteria used to measure the effectiveness of awareness.

 

I am sure everyone would have at least seen one of the ads in which a movie star tries to market pan masala or a brand of alcohol. Regardless of the effects of the products, marketing tries to hypnotize the common man with the sugar coating of celebrities to make the common man believe that the product is best for him or her.

Marketing tries to convince the common man that he is getting a value product in return for his money.

 

Awareness tries to portray a cause that needs attention. It merely presents the facts about the needy and does not force anyone to participate. It helps the common man to understand that he has the power to make a difference in the lives of the needy. The transactions do not follow a sale model and hence does not have to involve money.  

 

The cost of such ads with the celebrities cost a fortune. Marketing can afford it because a big piece of the sales revenue pie is spent on marketing.

 

Can charity afford the same?  Absolutely not! Awareness for charity has to be extremely cost-effective. The charity pie is for the poor and the needy. Though it might be extremely difficult not to pick a small piece of the pie for the purpose of overheads, an ideal charity would try its level best to ensure that the piece is the smallest possible.

 

Awareness cannot rely on the glamour of the stars. Awareness relies on the selfless volunteers, who have the power to make a difference at the cost of nothing.

 

Marketing is a fixed-price concept. For example, if an iPOD costs $300, marketing for iPOD is interested in the target audience that is willing to pay $300. It is not interested in a target audience that is willing to pay $100.

 

Awareness is an open ended concept. Awareness tries to encourage any form of help. For example, the help does not have to be the dollars, it could be the prayers for the needy, it could be your time in volunteering, and it could be your talents in furthering the cause. Even if it was the dollars, there is no fixed price concept, every cent counts. The target audience is not restricted. It is everyone and it spans across boundaries.

 

All in all, charity awareness must not be undertaken like a marketing campaign. It must be a cost effective information sharing protocol that uses the potential of the volunteers to the limits.

 

To be continued…

The next two topics:

 

PDC-18: The transformational effect of Awareness: Information and Timing

PDC-19: The transformational effect of Awareness: Rearranging the puzzle

 

Thanks,

Rajesh Vargheese

http://www.stgregoriosaustin.org/

PDC-16: Awareness: The Art of Reading the Minds of the Audience

PDC-16: Charity Awareness: The Art of Reading the Minds of the Audience

 

When a charitable project is mentioned, there are many questions that arise in the minds of the common man. An effective awareness program tries to read the minds of the audience and provides the answers as a part of the information being present in the awareness phase. It must go the extra mile to provide additional information to gain the confidence of the masses.

 

Having openness in the organization for all of its accounts, helps the awareness pitch. Every charity project must envision the common questions that the common man would have been trying to provide answers to it and the awareness phase. An FAQ must be created for different categories; for example for volunteers, for applicants, and so on.

 

When a question arises in the minds of the common man and he gets the answer from the information circulated as part of the awareness, he/she knows that the organization has done its homework in thinking through all these scenarios.

 

Our leaders and elders must fully make use of the opportunities to pass on the awareness about our initiatives to audiences whenever they visit churches and other gatherings. If it is the celebration of important days, awareness must be spread on the importance of the day. One such example of making use of the opportunity to create awareness that I came across in the ICON forum was in an article by Dr. Vinu Mathews summarizing the thoughts of His Grace Philippose Mor Eusebius during HG's visit to their parish.

 

Ref: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianOrthodox/message/12661

 

No doubt that the factional litigation has a very negative influence on the charity initiatives of the church. One of the funds that are greatly affected by the factional litigation is the Catholicate day collection (IMHO). Later in the series, we will spend more time on the discussion about this fund. Even though a major part of this fund is used for charity initiatives (grants to mission board, orphanages, social welfare, etc…), there are quite a number of people who think that this fund is a straight pass-through into the pockets of Nariman.

 

While appreciating thirumeni for creating the awareness about the fund, it would have been great if we could have gone the extra mile towards reading the minds of the audience and present more facts to reduce the negative influence of the litigation. Let's focus on one sentence in the article of Dr. Vinu Mathews quoting HGs words

 

"Every penny collected as Catholicate day cover collection from members of Church is exclusively used for sustenance and developmental activities of the Church. 'Not even one naya paise is used for conductance of factional litigation in the Church'."

 

Say, if one of the listeners in that room had a pre notion that the Catholicate day cover collection is the cover collection for Nariman , could the person after listening to HGs comments be thinking "Ok, if it does not go from the Catholicate day cover collection, where does the money come for paying Nariman a fortune?"

 

If HG had made one more sentence that would answer this question, we would have mastered the art of reading the minds of the audience.

 

It's key to the success of a charitable project to spend the time and effort to analyze the minds of the audience and prepare information to answer the questions in the minds of the common man.

 

To be continued…

The next two topics:

 

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

PDC-18: The transformational effect of Awareness: Information and Timing

 

Thanks,

Rajesh Vargheese

St. Gregorios Orthodox Church, Austin , TX

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

PDC-14: Awareness: The Differentiator and the Value Builder

Dear friends,

 

We will continue were we left the topics on the PDC. We will start in detail with each phase. We will keep the planning phase for the last. We will start with the charity Awareness Phase. For a continuation, here are the links to PDC-12 and PDC-13.

 

PDC-12 :: Traditional Charity Life cycle [ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianOrthodox/message/14878 ]

 

PDC-13 :: PDC Life Cycle [ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianOrthodox/message/15012 ]

 

 

PDC-14: Awareness: The Differentiator and the Value Builder

 

In a planet, where good, bad and the ugly coexist, the bad and the ugly typically tend to overshadow the good in every walk of life. This fact is no different in the charity landscape. The fraudulent actions of the bad and the ugly charitable organizations plants the seeds of doubt and suspicious in the minds of the common man. Hence in spite of the incredible service rendered to society, the impact of the bad and the ugly organizations tends to tarnish the good charitable organizations and makes its existence a challenge.

 

How do the good organizations survive the smoke fumes of the negative influence caused by the bad and the ugly?

 

Now let’s assume an organization was tagged as good charity, and was trying to launch a new project.

 

What if the common man had heard of a project that had a similar profile, but was a blacklisted fraudulent charity project? Would he be confused by the other project?

 

All of the above questions lead to a common answer: Awareness.

 

Awareness among people is undoubtedly the starting point in the marathon towards the goal of becoming an ideal charitable organization.

 

The banner of a good, bad, ugly is tagged by the common man based on the information that he or she has about the organization. If an organization does things right, and provides the supporting information, the common man typically tags it as a good organization.

 

Awareness helps people to understand the ‘why’ of charity. Awareness is the value and the perspective builder. Awareness presents the background and the facts about the need. It addresses why such a project is needed, and communicates to the people how the project will make a difference in the lives of the needy.

 

An ideal Awareness program tries to help the common man find the answers to the commonly asked questions. It tries to address the similarity to other projects, differences from the other projects that people are aware of. It tries to provide people with the enough information that can help them to clearly understand the project.

 

An ideal awareness program will focus on the mission, the priorities of the project, the scope, the details about the planning, resources, opportunities, impact of the project and much more.

 

The right mix of the information that is part of the awareness campaign can encourage people to become passionate about the cause.

 

To be continued...

 

The next two topics:

 

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

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

 

Thanks,

Rajesh Vargheese

St. Gregorios Orthodox Church, Austin, TX

 

PDC-13: The PDC Life Cycle

PDC-13: The PDC Life Cycle

 

In the previous article, we looked at the traditional charity life cycle. When we say the traditional life cycle, it doesn't imply that every charity follows these. These would be the typical cycle that the ideal charities could follow.

 

Even if a charity follows the traditional ideal charity life cycle, it is interesting to note that there is room for perfection by involving people in every step. Such a model would constitute the people driven charity. 

 

The PDC takes a nontraditional approach in looking at the charity life cycle. It merges the two cycles (the life cycle of the organization and the life cycle of the people supporting it) to form a single life cycle. The people are the ones who do everything. The increased level of transparency and volunteerism fades the line between the people running the organization and the people supporting the organization.

 

PDC strongly invests in all phases of the lifecycle and follows the best practices of the charity landscape. It views charity as a long term process rather than a short term goal of fund raising. Educating the people and making them aware of the needs are the central focus of PDC. The most energy is spent on creating the awareness among people and making them realize that they can make a difference in the lives of others. Another major difference is the use of the common man to operate all the stages of the life cycle. The awareness is spread among people by the people.

 

While fund raising is important to any charity, PDC doesn't believe in collecting a single penny from a person until the person is fully convinced about the cause. In addition, there is a time gap between educating the people and requesting for their support. The time gap helps people to learn more and to be convinced about the project.

 

PDC focuses on the fisher man than the fish. PDC embarks on the potential of the volunteers than the donations they make. PDC clearly sees the value of the 2 cents of the widow than the millions of the rich man.

 

Another difference is how PDC approaches the typical 'million dollar question of charity'.

"If you need a million dollar, would you prefer to get

1. $1 million from 1 person
2. $1 from a million people"

A traditional charity would probably opt for option 1, but PDC without doubts would opt for option2.

 

PDC would invest heavily on follow-up to keep the people informed of the impact they made and can make for the needy. PDC uses people and hence will keep the costs low in all the phases. PDC would focus on efficiency in all phases and tries to squeeze the dollars to reach out to as many people as possible.

 

In short, PDC will try to leverage the potential of the common man and use the best practices of the charity landscape to reach out to the wider angle of the needy.

 

In the next few articles, we will discuss the best practices and the other aspects of each of the phases in the charity cycle. We will begin with Charity Awareness. We will hold off on the Planning phase towards the end so that we can clearly understand the needs. Stay tuned.

 

To be continued...

 

The next two topics:

 

PDC-14: Awareness: The Differentiator and the Value Builder

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

 

Thanks,

Rajesh Vargheese

St. Gregorios Orthodox Church, Austin, TX

PDC-12: The Traditional Charity Life Cycle

PDC-12: The Traditional Charity Life Cycle

Any continuous process has a life cycle. Similarly, an ideal charity project has a life cycle and it consists of many phases. Each phase has its own set of activities and objectives. An ideal charity life cycle will concentrate on each phase to fully live its life. The investment in certain phases of the lifecycle can help the common man understand the difference between 'good' and the 'not so good' charity.

 

If we look at the lifecycle of a traditional charity, we can clearly see two separate lifecycles

1. A lifecycle for the charitable organizations that runs the project.
2. A lifecycle for the people who support the charity

Let's look at the different phases of the lifecycle of the charitable organizations that run the project. This may be defined maybe 5 C's of charity. We will go through each of the phases in depth in the coming articles.

1. Conception and Planning: In this phase, the needs are analyzed thoroughly. Based on the needs, the objectives and the plans are created. The phase becomes the input to other phases. We will hold off the discussion at the end after glancing through the other phases.

2. Communication and Awareness: Once the plan has been created, the objectives must be communicated to the masses. This phase tries to answer all the questions that that people would have in their mind about the differentiation and commonality of the project with other projects. The details of the project is clearly communicated to the masses.

3. Collection and fund Raising: Most projects incur expenses to operate. Many organizations solely rely on the donations of people. In this phase, the organization tries to raise money for the projects.

4. Coordination and Execution: In this phase, the organization uses the money that it raised from people towards the benefit of the poor and the needy.

 
5. Correspondence and Follow-up: In this phase the organization tries to communicate the details of what has been accomplished and tries to maintain the confidence of the people by communicating the impact that their donations have made in the lives of the needy.

 

The lifecycle of the people who support the charity can be described by the 3 C's of charity. They are broadly classified into

A. Compassion and consideration: Once people come to know about a need or a charity project, they become compassionate and they would consider their support to help the needy.

 
B. Cooperation and contribution: Once we become compassionate, we cooperate and support the charity by volunteering our time, resources and talents.

C. Complimenting and continuous support: Once we become compassionate and the organization wins our confidence, we not only provide the one time support, but continuously support the charity by being the ambassador of the good work they do and spread the word to others and enable more and more people to reach out.

 

If our charities invest in all these phases (1-5), one can be sure that the common man would have no second thoughts in investing in his phases (A-C)

 

To be continued...

 

The next two topics:

 

PDC-13: The PDC Life Cycle

PDC-14: Awareness: The Differentiator and the Value Builder

 

Thanks,

Rajesh Vargheese

St. Gregorios Orthodox Church, Austin, TX

PDC-11: Why not a Good Levite?

PDC-11: Why not a Good Levite?

 

In the previous article, we saw that the Samaritan was transformed into the Good Samaritan as a result of his compassion towards the wounded man.

 

For a second, lets ask us a question. " Why not a Good Levite?" or in other words "Why didn't the Levite help the wounded man?"

 

The obvious answer is that he did not have a compassionate heart.

 

God created us in his image. That creation surely had inherited at least a part of HIS compassion. In the journey of mankind, where did the Levite loose his compassion?

 

The story did not explicitly say that the Levite did not have compassion. It is our calculated guess and hence we cannot be 100% sure of it.

 

Since we do not know for sure, let's give the benefit of doubt to the Levite. Could there be different reason why the Levite did not help the man? Was the Levite once upon a time a compassionate man? Could any of his previous experiences been the cause for him to be less compassionate? Could he have tried to help a similar person (a thief acting as a victim) who mugged and hurt the Levite previously?

 

How does previous experiences affect our response to the calls for charity in today's world?

 

Let's look at such an angle in today's world. When a tragedy strikes, we wholeheartedly open our hearts and valets. We volunteer, we pray for the victims, the organizations working to help them. After few days, we hear a report that the money we donated has been misused and fraud hit its peak and the real victims rarely got any of your help.

 

Our morale and our charity spirit sinks to the rock bottom, our eyes tend to close to the real need, our compassion fades out.

 

The next time a need comes, our past experiences haunt us and we keep moving miles away from charity.

 

It would not be an understatement if someone said, "Charity has many road blocks?" What do we do when we face roadblocks: Give up or Attempt to overcome it.

 

The gift of eternal life went only to the neighbor that helped the wounded man. It did not consider the reason for not helping the wounded man. 

 

On one hand we must not give up, on the other hand the organizations have a duty to do everything to ensure that charity spirit is kept alive.

 

Before we look at the roadblocks, we will look at the phases of charity. In the next few articles, we will look at how charity projects and organizations can help build the charity spirit in us. These steps can rule out the possibility that the modern day Levite lost the gift of eternal life not because of the hard lessons he learned from his previous experiences. This makes the lack of a compassionate heart the only reason why the Levite did not help the wounded man and ending up loosing the gift of eternal life.

 

To be continued...

 

The next two topics:

 

PDC-12: The Traditional Charity Life Cycle

PDC-13: The PDC Life Cycle

 

Thanks,

Rajesh Vargheese

St. Gregorios Orthodox Church, Austin, TX

(Currently from Kottayam, Kerala)

PDC-9: The Samaritan to the Good Samaritan

PDC-9: The Samaritan to the Good Samaritan

 

Let's continue to look at the things that the Samaritan did that were different from the previous two travelers on the way to Jericho. These were the actions that probably transformed the 'Samaritan' to the 'Good Samaritan'.

 

For the actions 1-5, please visit http://www.peopledrivencharity.blogspot.com/ or the ICON archives. (PDC-8)

 

6. The Samaritan sacrificed his comfort for serving the wounded man. The Samaritan was probably traveling by using donkey as his vehicle. He used his donkey to transport the wounded man. It's highly likely that Samaritan would have walked till the inn supporting the wounded man since both cannot travel on the donkey.

 

7. The Samaritan provided the mid term support for the wounded man. He not only helped the man with his immediate need, but also found a place for the wounded person. He entrusted the wounded man with the innkeeper. He provided the needed resources to the innkeeper to take care of the wounded man.

 

8. The Samaritan pledges his continuous support by telling the innkeeper that he will reimburse any expense that he incurs in addition to the initial expense. This amounts to the long-term support to the wounded man.

 

9. The Samaritan entrusted the wounded man (after taking care of him) and went on his travel. He did not give up because he could not take care of the wounded person full-time. He provides what he could, and gets the help of others. (Like the innkeeper)

 

10. The Samaritan had a genuine service mentality. He did not do good to show off. He was away from his hometown. There was no one in that place for him to impress. He did not know the wounded man, yet he invested money, time and his resources to serve the stranger.

 

The Good Samaritan reminds us not to close our eyes to the needs. He reminds us to help any person, not just the people we know. His actions remind us of the Christian within us. He was more of Christian than the priest who was probably running to offer sacrifice in the church.

In any situation, we have many choices. Each of these characters made their own choice. The Samaritan made the choice to be the 'Good Samaritan'. How do we join hands with?

 

To be continued...

 

The next two topics:

 

PDC-10: The Good Samaritan: The inheritor of the Eternal Life

PDC-11: Why not a Good Levite?

 

Thanks,

Rajesh Vargheese

St. Gregorios Orthodox Church, Austin, TX

(Currently from Kottayam, Kerala)

PDC-8: En route Jerusalem to Jericho

PDC-8: En route Jerusalem to Jericho

The Holy Bible, the source of divine wisdom is also the first book that introduced us to the compassionate heart of the common man. 

One of the best passages that portray the compassionate heart of the common man is the passage of the Good Samaritan. (St. Luke 10: 25-37)

St. Luke 10:30 "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead."

The scene is a man lying on the ground and hoping for some one to help him.

A priest passed by and saw the wounded man. The priest ignored the man and walked on the other side of the road.

Later, a Levite passed by and saw the wounded man and he also ignored the cry of the wounded man.

Later, a Samaritan passed by and saw the wounded man. He took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.

Let's closely look at the things (10 points) that the Samaritan did that was different from the previous two travelers.

1. The Samaritan did not ignore the cry of the helpless man. He faced the unexpected situation.

2. The Samaritan was on a travel. He took a break from his travel to help a stranger in an unknown place. This break, would have delayed him reaching his destination. The notion of being delayed for his trip did not prevent him from doing well to the wounded man. He invested his time to serve the wounded man.

3. The Samaritan empathized with the wounded man. He had pity and compassion for the wounded man. He transformed his compassion into action of helping the man.

4. The Samaritan unconditionally volunteered to help the wounded man by going to the wounded man and bandaged his wounds. Nobody had asked him to do it.

5. The Samaritan provided short-term relief by pouring oil and wine on the wounds of the man. The Samaritan shared his resources with the person in need. The Samaritan was on a travel, and hence he definitely had a purpose for the oil and wine he was carrying with him, but he realized that there was a greater purpose and need for it to be used to save a dying soul. The notion of running out of resources during the trip did not prevent him from doing well to the wounded man.

6-10. In the next article 'The Samaritan to the Good Samaritan'

To be continued...

 

The next two topics:
PDC-09: The Samaritan to the Good Samaritan
PDC-10: The Good Samaritan: The inheritor of the Eternal Life

 

Thanks,
Rajesh Vargheese
St. Gregorios Orthodox Church, Austin, TX
(Currently from Kottayam, Kerala)

PDC-7: The Boundaries and the Disclaimers

PDC-7: The Boundaries and the Disclaimers

Every time, even at the slightest sense of the word 'review' or 'change', we start to think: One more rebel is born. Attack him... :)

Before we dive into the detailed discussions, let us define the boundaries of this exercise.

The sole purpose of this exercise is to focus our energies to help our charitable organizations on its march towards being an ideal charitable organization in spite of the distractions. Any comments that are made must be looked at from this perspective. Our victory is not in our ability to cover up our inequities, but rather in confronting and making the needed changes.

This series will use references of previous ICON postings. We are not interested in ridiculing neither any person nor any initiative, and any references made would be to help us understand the current state of affairs and to enlist your suggestions.

I by no means am an expert in this subject and hence feel free to correct me all along.

The next question many of you might have is: Is this Almayavedhi Version 2? Definitely not. While I sincerely appreciate some of the efforts and initiatives of Almayavedhi in bringing up openness in our church structure, I personally disagree with the wordings and the language they use to present the facts. In my opinion the words they use to express the dissatisfaction with our bishops are too harsh and disrespectful. We might disagree with certain actions of our bishops, but at the end of the day, they are our much respected bishops. Their one action must not degrade our respect for them and must not nullify their sacrifices for us. I believe we can express our feelings in better words than those used by Almayavedhi.

As part of this exercise, we want to ensure that we do not use any derogatory personal attacks on our clergy/bishops. We can always (and we will) provide constructive feedback to our leaders about their actions in a much better language. If I ever break this rule, please forgive me and point it out to me since it is surely not intentional. 
 
We do not endorse or represent any specific charity as part of this series.

The usage 'compassionate common man' is a generic usage and includes the compassionate women as well :)

To be continued...

The next two topics:
PDC-08: En route Jerusalem to Jericho
PDC-09: The Samaritan to the Good Samaritan

Thanks,
Rajesh Vargheese
St. Gregorios Orthodox Church, Austin, TX

(Currently from Kottayam, Kerala)

PDC-6: The PDC Series: The Bird's Eye View - 2

PDC-6: The PDC Series: The Bird's Eye View – 2

 

Continuation of the list of topics we plan to discuss as part of PDC.

 

PDC-36: Giving: The Widows Two Cents
PDC-37: Giving: Can I make a difference: Ryans Well
PDC-38: Giving: Can I make a difference: Ryans Foundation
PDC-39: Giving: Can I make a difference: Hattie May Wiatt
PDC-40: Giving: Can I make a difference: The Infant
PDC-41: Giving: The Micro need: The $27 Nobel Prize
PDC-42: Giving: The Spectrum of Dreams
PDC-43: Giving: 10c + 10c +...+ 10c = $1.5 million
PDC-44: Giving: The Science of Giving for the Donor's soul
PDC-45: Giving: Beyond the Local Boundaries
PDC-46: Giving: How much Charity would the Next Generation do?
PDC-47: Giving: Church-Practicing the Preaching
PDC-48: Giving: Even the Leftovers count
PDC-49: Giving: To Accept or Not: The Modern Day Prodigal Son
PDC-50: Giving: Encouraging Giving: The Positive Outlook
PDC-51: Volunteering: The Power of Volunteerism
PDC-52: Volunteering: The Professional Call
PDC-53: Volunteering: Bringing the best of all the worlds
PDC-54: Volunteering: Building up the volunteers
PDC-55: Volunteering: Nurturing the volunteering spirit
PDC-56: Volunteering: The Global Networking
PDC-57: Volunteering: The Value added Channel Partners
PDC-58: Volunteering: Church as a value added Channel Partner
PDC-59: Volunteering: The Misunderstood Middle man
PDC-60: Volunteering: To serve, not to be served
PDC-61: Volunteering: The Neglected Bangalore Youth
PDC-62: Volunteering: The Volunteer Profile
PDC-63: Volunteering: Masking the unsung heroes: Mr. Photogenic
PDC-64: Execution: Charitable Organizations as an enterprise
PDC-65: Execution: Efficiency-Maximizing Output
PDC-66: Execution: Efficiency-Minimizing Cost
PDC-67: Execution: Keeping Informed
PDC-68: Execution: The Healing Style: 2000 Years Later
PDC-69: Follow-up: The Credibility Maintainer
PDC-70: Follow-up: Is it a Choice? Never!
PDC-71: Follow-up: Was it a Genuine Errors OR a Fraud
PDC-72: Follow-up: Location Independence
PDC-73: Follow-up: Rumors @ the speed of light
PDC-74: Follow-up: The Differentiating factors
PDC-75: Follow-up: The Golden rule of the markets
PDC-76: Follow-up: The Trail of your donations
PDC-77: Follow-up: The Push model
PDC-78: Follow-up: The Pull model
PDC-79: Openness: The Transparent Accounting
PDC-80: Openness: Alienating the fraudulent
PDC-81: Receiving: The Abroad effect: The Unfair Expectation
PDC-82: Receiving: The Value in the 2 Cents
PDC-83: Planning: Part of the puzzle
PDC-84: Planning: Reinventing the wheel
PDC-85: Planning: Learning from others
PDC-86: IOC Charity Initiatives: Kudos to the Visionaries
PDC-87: IOC Charity Initiatives: A SWOT Analysis
PDC-88: Catholicate Fund: The Most Misunderstood fund
PDC-89: Catholicate Fund: The Reality Check
PDC-90: Mission Sunday Fund: The Rs.1 per person fund
PDC-91: Mission Sunday Fund: Am I under the umbrella?
PDC-92: Mission Sunday Fund: Regaining the confidence of the masses
PDC-93: Our Spiritual Organizations: Budding the charity spirit
PDC-94: Our Spiritual Organizations: Transforming Faith into action
PDC-95: Our Higher Education Institutions: Charity, What?
PDC-96: IOC Charity Initiatives: The Openness in Process
PDC-97: IOC Charity: Maintaining the untainted credibility legacy
PDC-98: IOC Charities: Raising the bars
PDC-99: Regaining the Lost Value of Charity
PDC-100: Through the Eyes of the Saint of the Gutters
PDC-101: Thanks: We surely can make a Difference in our own ways!

 

To be continued...

 

The next two topics:
PDC-7: The Boundaries and the Disclaimers
PDC-8: En route Jerusalem to Jericho

 

Thanks,
Rajesh Vargheese
St. Gregorios Orthodox Church, Austin, TX

PDC-5: The PDC Series: The Bird's Eye View - 1

PDC-5: The PDC Series: The Bird's Eye View - 1

 

Before we start with the discussion of the topics, it might be useful to introduce you to the topics that we plan to discuss. We believe this would help you to pitch in the right topic that you have firsthand experience. This series is still a work in progress, and hence changes might be made.

 

Although the charitable organizations of our church if the focus, we need to have a clear understanding of the metrics and best practices of an ideal charity before we look at our charitable initiatives.

 

In the beginning of the series, we will spend the time in analyzing the best practices followed by the ideal charitable institutions. We will look at factors that the common man expects from the charities that will ultimately gain his confidence and encourage him to be actively involved in reaching out to others. We will also focus on the ways the common man can use his talents to influence the charity space.

 

Towards the end of the series, we will try to feel the common man's pulse about our church's charitable initiatives. We will try to analyze our church's current charitable initiatives from its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats perspective. We will look at the current involvement of the people in its decisions, and the factors driving it to understand if it is a truly a people driven initiative?

 

Once we have discussed the two, we will look at the delta (if any) between the two (the ideal and ours). We will elicit your suggestions on the scope of improvements and the facelifts that our charitable initiatives might need to eliminate the delta. Here are the topics we plan to discuss.

 

PDC-01: Charity: A Tribute to Parumala thirumeni
PDC-02: The People Driven Charity: A series
PDC-03: The Evolution of the Fish Curry for the Common Man
PDC-04: The empowered compassionate common man
PDC-05: The PDC Series: The Bird’s Eye View – Part 1
PDC-06: The PDC Series: The Bird’s Eye View – Part 2
PDC-07: The PDC Series: The Boundaries and the disclaimers
PDC-08: En route Jerusalem to Jericho
PDC-09: The Samaritan to the Good Samaritan
PDC-10: The Good Samaritan: The inheritor of the Eternal Life
PDC-11: Why not a Good Levite?
PDC-12: The Traditional Charity Life Cycle
PDC-13: The People Driven Charity Life Cycle
PDC-14: Awareness: The Differentiator and the Value Builder
PDC-15: Awareness: The art of reading the mind of the audience
PDC-16: Awareness: Instant Lottery model Vs Insurance model
PDC-17: Awareness: The fine line between Awareness and Marketing
PDC-18: The transformational effect of Awareness: Information and Timing
PDC-19: The transformational effect of Awareness: Rearranging the puzzle
PDC-20: Awareness: Bridging the long distance ends
PDC-21: Awareness: Information at our finger tips
PDC-22: Awareness: The Challenges recap
PDC-23: Achieving the Awareness dream: The Missionaries’ hat 
PDC-24: Awareness: His right, His responsibility, Our right, ___
PDC-25: Awareness: Why we don't write
PDC-26: Awareness: Charity begins at home
PDC-27: Giving: Why Do We Give?
PDC-28: Giving: Donor Profiles: The Compassionate Careful Giver
PDC-29: Giving: Donor Profiles: The Investor
PDC-30: Giving: Donor Profiles: The Converter
PDC-31: Giving: The Face Value Vs the Cause value
PDC-32: Giving: Why We Don't Give?
PDC-33: Giving: The Donor Fatigue
PDC-34: Giving: Is there an Upper Limit of Charity?
PDC-35: Giving: Dealing with Donor Fatigue: The Third Habit

 

To be continued...

 

The next two topics:
PDC-6: The PDC Series: The Bird's Eye View - 2
PDC-7: The Boundaries and the Disclaimers

 

Thanks,
Rajesh Vargheese
St. Gregorios Orthodox Church, Austin, TX