I’ve written scathingly before about individuals and companies who make substantial charitable donations then pathetically call the media to brag about it. In doing so they plainly have a self-serving motive, be it image promotion, the pursuit of a knighthood, or such-like. They deserve nothing but derision in trying to pass off their payment as altruism.
The latest such to catch my attention was a huge newspaper advertisement on behalf of the Freemasons.
This is an innocuous but utterly infantile men’s movement, attractive to former boy scout types who never grew up and who meet for collegiate purposes wearing funny outfits and engage in secret handshakes and such-like rituals. They’re harmless, albeit sopping wet.
Recently they ran a near half page newspaper advertisement bragging of being the largest private funder of scholarships in New Zealand, specifically $250,000p.a. Doubtless in their spelt-binding ignorance they believe that absurd claim albeit $250,000pa wouldn’t put them in the top fifty, but most donors don’t feel the need to buy advertising to brag about it.
My company alone gives at least five times that annually here and abroad in scholarships, solely to girls, and we’re probably not in the top 20 of such donors in this country.
