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Nancy Gibson to Present at
Cultural Anthropology Conference
Interdisciplinary Studies student Nancy Gibson will present her paper on trust-based giving at the 2008 Society for Cultural Anthropology Conference on May 9 in Long Beach, Calif.
Nancy's paper, Junk for Jesus: Towards Trust-Based Gifting, was selected for presentation at the conference. This year's conference theme is Ethics, Aesthetics, Politics.
Abstract
Junk for Jesus: Towards Trust-Based Gifting - Changing the Paradigm
With the change in politics to increased reliance on private sector non-profit agencies for social services, this paper explores the communication style of non-profit and charitable organizations when soliciting money or commodity donations from the general public and corporations. The current methods of solicitation utilize traditional models of emotional manipulation techniques to prompt the average person to give out of personal fear, fear for others, exclusivity, pity, tax benefits and/or guilt. This type of advertising results in the phenomenon of "Junk for Jesus," gifts donated to non-profits and charitable organizations which are inappropriate. A portion of these "gifts" present ethical dilemmas for disposal particularly when they contain electronic waste. The result is that this type of "gift" hinders these non-profit and charitable organizations' efforts to provide needed disaster relief, and humanitarian and medical services to the developing world. The proposed paradigm shift is for these agencies to move to an advertising model which is based on creating a culture of trust with their current and potential donors. The proposed communication model consists of: transparency, awareness, familiarity, accountability and stability/sustainability. The non-profit/charitable organization, the recipients of the non-profit donation, and their donor/prospective donor have the mutual responsibility to participate in the new communication model in order to create a trust based giving culture.