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But how in these situations did they know you donated before?

by vl 8y ago

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
"Donating" falls under the broader category of "community involvement". You pick a small thing that you can put a disproportionate amount of money toward and dominate it or you take lead on something that people will remember. Nobody remembers if you donate $100 to a bunch of things. People remember when you foot the entire bill for some thousand or two dollar expense that kids normally would hold bake sales for. You need to keep on top of it ("donate" to something every few years) but the point is that someone at whatever organization you have to deal with recognizes your last name and associates it with whatever good thing you did and you get favorable treatment similar to what you normally need to be extended family to get. The smaller the town/city the less you need to do to be known as "good" For example, when some party gets shut down by the cops the kids of the grocery store owner who donates all the food for some annual police/fire/vfw bbq don't have to worry about getting misdemeanors. When it's time to determine who gets what contracts the company that generously sponsored the boy scout troop that the son of whoever is making the decision will get special consideration (all the blue collar small businesses don't sponsor local stuff because it has a negative ROI).
- civilitty 8y ago
  Exactly. You have to donate money or time in ways that maximize your exposure to the in-group you are targeting, which would be the police officers, teachers, school administrators, etc. If you want deference, you need to get involved in ways that make their lives easier or better because that warm fuzzy feeling they'll have when they see or hear your name is very powerful and subliminal. For example, I live in LA and the 90s were very tough for police all across the state after the Rodney King riots. I was buddies with one of the guys heading up reform in the LAPD after the riots so I "donated" a thousand bucks to have him come out for a weekend and teach the basics of community policing to my underfunded local PD - something that I felt was important anyway because of the wealth inequality in my town. The department didn't have it in their budget to hire him themselves but they did have state money for overtime for police training so not only did every officer get training but they got paid extra to do it. Since my name was dropped multiple times as the sponsor of the training, all of the officers in the department knew who I was and associated my name with someone who supports the department in concrete ways (even if years later, they couldn't remember why!). It also didn't hurt that the training opened their eyes to new strategies at a time when tensions between police and civilians were boiling over. Also, you can actually do this by donating a little bit to a lot of things but it has to be strategic. For example, a few members of the Booster Club and I have an ongoing scholarship at my local high school where we throw in $250 per donor per student for textbooks for anyone whose parents didn't go to college. Since my town is very wealthy, the number of students who qualify for this scholarship is minimal (a few thousand a year split between 4 people) but it is a guaranteed scholarship to anyone who qualifies so every teacher and administrator knows about the scholarship and who the donors are. Since we are explicit about the money going towards textbooks, it also sounds like a lot more than it really is because people think of the scholarship in the narrow context of textbook costs instead of overall graduation cost.
- gleenn 8y ago
  While your honesty is intriguing, suggesting people do this is pretty immoral. Why don't we spend our time online talking about ways to do things fairly, that'd probably do humanity a favor instead of instilling behaviors to the detriment of most of us.

But how in these situations did they know you donated before?

by vl 8y ago

But how in these situations did they know you donated before?

"Donating" falls under the broader category of "community involvement". You pick a small thing that you can put a disproportionate amount of money toward and dominate it or you take lead on something that people will remember. Nobody remembers if you donate $100 to a bunch of things. People remember when you foot the entire bill for some thousand or two dollar expense that kids normally would hold bake sales for. You need to keep on top of it ("donate" to something every few years) but the point is that someone at whatever organization you have to deal with recognizes your last name and associates it with whatever good thing you did and you get favorable treatment similar to what you normally need to be extended family to get. The smaller the town/city the less you need to do to be known as "good" For example, when some party gets shut down by the cops the kids of the grocery store owner who donates all the food for some annual police/fire/vfw bbq don't have to worry about getting misdemeanors. When it's time to determine who gets what contracts the company that generously sponsored the boy scout troop that the son of whoever is making the decision will get special consideration (all the blue collar small businesses don't sponsor local stuff because it has a negative ROI).

civilitty 8y ago
Exactly. You have to donate money or time in ways that maximize your exposure to the in-group you are targeting, which would be the police officers, teachers, school administrators, etc. If you want deference, you need to get involved in ways that make their lives easier or better because that warm fuzzy feeling they'll have when they see or hear your name is very powerful and subliminal. For example, I live in LA and the 90s were very tough for police all across the state after the Rodney King riots. I was buddies with one of the guys heading up reform in the LAPD after the riots so I "donated" a thousand bucks to have him come out for a weekend and teach the basics of community policing to my underfunded local PD - something that I felt was important anyway because of the wealth inequality in my town. The department didn't have it in their budget to hire him themselves but they did have state money for overtime for police training so not only did every officer get training but they got paid extra to do it. Since my name was dropped multiple times as the sponsor of the training, all of the officers in the department knew who I was and associated my name with someone who supports the department in concrete ways (even if years later, they couldn't remember why!). It also didn't hurt that the training opened their eyes to new strategies at a time when tensions between police and civilians were boiling over. Also, you can actually do this by donating a little bit to a lot of things but it has to be strategic. For example, a few members of the Booster Club and I have an ongoing scholarship at my local high school where we throw in $250 per donor per student for textbooks for anyone whose parents didn't go to college. Since my town is very wealthy, the number of students who qualify for this scholarship is minimal (a few thousand a year split between 4 people) but it is a guaranteed scholarship to anyone who qualifies so every teacher and administrator knows about the scholarship and who the donors are. Since we are explicit about the money going towards textbooks, it also sounds like a lot more than it really is because people think of the scholarship in the narrow context of textbook costs instead of overall graduation cost.
gleenn 8y ago
While your honesty is intriguing, suggesting people do this is pretty immoral. Why don't we spend our time online talking about ways to do things fairly, that'd probably do humanity a favor instead of instilling behaviors to the detriment of most of us.