I think there is at least one possibility that I haven’t yet seen mentioned here.
If I personally was given the choice between a charity asking for time, and a charity asking for money—I would consider the one asking for time to be more legitimate than the money-only charity.
So many people ask for your money these days and you basically don’t know where it’s all going.. whether it’s effective or not. But if a charity is even set up such that it can take time-donations (even if i don’t actually do it myself), then it feels more legitimate. ie not just another money-sink.
Some charities, on the other hand, make it extremely difficult to give your time to even if you want to. I once got a donation-request from a greenpeace spruiker when I was still young and idealistic… and wanted to actually help (I had very little money at the time)… and they simply didn’t know any way that I could actually take part (they themselves were a paid employee). That totally ruined greenpeace’s reputation for me.
TL;DR I think the difference between the time-request and the money-request is signaling legitimacy of the charity—which gives you more confidence that they are more likely to do something useful with it.. which in turn makes it more likely that you will actually donate (either time or money).
I think there is at least one possibility that I haven’t yet seen mentioned here.
If I personally was given the choice between a charity asking for time, and a charity asking for money—I would consider the one asking for time to be more legitimate than the money-only charity.
So many people ask for your money these days and you basically don’t know where it’s all going.. whether it’s effective or not. But if a charity is even set up such that it can take time-donations (even if i don’t actually do it myself), then it feels more legitimate. ie not just another money-sink.
Some charities, on the other hand, make it extremely difficult to give your time to even if you want to. I once got a donation-request from a greenpeace spruiker when I was still young and idealistic… and wanted to actually help (I had very little money at the time)… and they simply didn’t know any way that I could actually take part (they themselves were a paid employee). That totally ruined greenpeace’s reputation for me.
TL;DR I think the difference between the time-request and the money-request is signaling legitimacy of the charity—which gives you more confidence that they are more likely to do something useful with it.. which in turn makes it more likely that you will actually donate (either time or money).