International schools and giving to charity?

[beingcharitable]

I would like to get a few ideas as to what other parents do with regards to responding to donation / requests for charity from the school and those affiliated with the school. I am new to the whole international school world and am unsure about all this. For example my child has only been at school for a few weeks and I've had requests from 5 different sources for donations.

I don't want to come across as uncharitable here, in fact, I don't think we as a family give enough to charity. However on the other side I don't think I can be donating 50 bucks every time I get an email asking for donations.

I would like to hear some ideas as to what works for other families? For example I was thinking about setting a budget of S$X per year and once that runs out then that's it? I'd love to hear other, better ideas though.

I am not looking to start an international school bashing thread here. I am actually genuinely concerned about offending someone who directly asks me for a donation.

[scarbowl]

International school kids may be more likely to know what is happening in other countries around the world - their classmates are from some of those countries.  And when something happens - earthquakes, cyclones, etc occur or situations exist - poverty, corruption, etc they are more likely to know and talk about it.

Kids are enthusiastic and they want to contribute to solving some of the world's problems.  While it may be annoying to you to be asked, each one comes from a positive place of wanting to help someone.  And with a hundred or more kids in your child's grade it's no wonder you get more than one of these.  What touches the heart of one is different from another.  And they all want to dow the work that has meaning to them.

My suggestion is to give to those you are interested in and support and not to the others.  But please don't begrudge a child's interest in helping others.  Or that of 5 children or 10 or more.

[Sharity]

5 requests already - wow, that's quite a lot if your child has only just started.  Are they official charities that the school helps or just parents who've set up an aid thing for something going on in their home countries?

Our old school here used to help a Cambodian charity and a couple of local ones and I was happy to give and when the Chilean earthquake happened, some parents from Chile set up a fund and that was well supported, but it was never anything too excessive or frequent.

The school we're in now help a charity in Vietnam which is a good charity and I'm happy to help there most of the time but it depends on what kind fund raising they're doing at a particular time. 

One of the schools did an art auction and they had reserve prices which I thought were a little on the high side so I didn't bother going, but it went quite well and the rich parents all went and forked out megabucks for a couple of stick figure pictures    But if they can afford to do that, then that's great, however I don't think school were ticking off names to see who were the supporters and who weren't. 

There was also a t-shirt thing at one of our old schools once and our kids didn't want one so we didn't get them - the school were a bit sneaky over that one though I thought and announced that Friday was charity t-shirt wearing day and if you had the charity t-shirt you could wear it all day.  Perhaps they were hoping that people would buy them so their kids wouldn't be the odd ones out, but ours still didn't want one and there were quite a few who just wore the normal school top that day, so if that was their plan, it didn't work too well   

But don't ever feel forced to give just because everyone else is.  Whenever we have sponsored swims and things, I just put mine and my husbands names down on the form and perhaps a grandparent or two, sponsor a small amount per lap and then I pay it all myself - we can't be bothered going around knocking on strangers doors for sponsorship so we just keep it in the family.

[lola.e]

we donate about $3K per year.
up to you really however for all these types of school requests we do about $5 each request.
there are a few charity requests at my husbands work, as well as others in general so you would be surprised how it all adds up.

[percentage]

Hi lola.e, rather than giving a figure it might be more helpful to the original poster to express as a percentage of household income. $3k might be a lot for some people, like 10% of income, and peanuts for someone else like 0.1% of income)........

[not so generous!]

The charity thing  at our school continues thru out the year unabated. It drives me mad because although it is suppossed to be voluntary, these events are often tied into something else so that you end up sending money in because your child wants to take part in the event, such as mufti day and so on.

Yes, as one of the above posters said - our kids may well be more aware of global events as the school community is so diverse, however, that does not mean that my family have to donate our hard earned money to all the charities the school wishes to promote.

We donate $5 per request.

[christ]

some people are incredibly tight aren't they...we're not talking loads of bucks here.  my children's school charges a minimum of $2 per mufti day of which last year there were three or four.  and then there were a couple of class chosen ones so all up i think our total contribution was $100.  we also donate to our personally chosen charities but what easier way to teach your children about giving to those less fortunate.  for mufti days, i tell my 6 year old here's the $2 and i'll give more if you match it from your pocket money.  we have a little chat about who's receiving it and how he can afford it etc. 

maybe these requests get more plentiful the older the children get but in that case, just chose the ones that are secretly compulsory (mufti days) and chose not to for the others.

[behind the scenes]

i imagine the International schools in Singapore are run the same way almost as private (vs public/state) schools.

with the private schools back home, i find a lot of the many auctions, fundraising and charity drives look superficially good on the outside .....
but often end up as one-upmanship sessions to show which parents/husbands have more clout. (esp among the leisurely charity ladies  - "shall we do lunch?" crowd)

translates too into some kids getting cut some more slack than others ...
because their mega-bucks sponsorship-contributing parents are way more influential and beneficial to the school and classroom, than the general 'commoners' who may only do the minimum.

with private schools competiting with each other for overall reputation and ranking  ... these successful charity drives also makes them look caringly altruistic.

just drop whatever you are comfortable with, OP. 
you can't change the world. but you don't have to join the game.

[mufti??]

What the hell is a 'mufti day'??

[Muffee]

What the hell is a 'mufti day'??

It's a weird name for a non-school uniform day (or casual clothes day).  God knows where it comes from - down under I think (which is quite apt given what it's called LOL   )

[Here it is]

The meaning of Mufti.  Sure as heck wasn't from "down under"

The word originates from the Middle East and is Arabic - Mufti (مفتي) means an Islamic scholar who is an interpreter or expounder of Islamic law (Sharia), and is the active form of the Arabic afta, meaning "to judge". It has been used by the British army since 1816 and is thought to derive from the vaguely Eastern style dressing gowns and tasseled caps worn by off-duty officers in the early 19th century. Yule and Burnell's Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive (1886) notes that the word was "perhaps originally applied to the attire of dressing-gown, smoking-cap, and slippers, which was like the Oriental dress of the Mufti".[2]

[mufti??]

Thanks for the explanation - you learn something new every day & all that 

[Muffee]

Ah that explains it then - I'd only ever heard it from Australians and New Zealanders since moving here.  In the UK it's often just called a non-uniform day (but I'm sure there are exceptions, perhaps in very old schools), but I've noticed that people from down under do use some old expressions like that, so I suppose while it has long gone out of use for most people in the UK, it's still hanging around in the southern hemisphere.

[civvies]

In my kids' boarding school in the UK non-uniform time was referred to as "civvies" time when kids could wear their own choice of clothes after school or on a non-uniform day. Back to the original question, don't feel pressured to pay for every request. If we are happy to support a particular project, we make a contribution - sometimes large, sometimes small - depends what it is. For other things, I'm happy to ignore them or say we have our own charities we are committed to, which is true. I've been to a few big "do"s here where things are auctioned for charity and some of them are completely over the top, but that's my personal view and I don't feel I have to join in crazy bidding as we can't afford it. There can be pressure from the hosts though, so we avoid stuff like that now.

[to muffee]

Thanks for that very funny post (re. the mufti!) -I am in tears!  ok-I guess I'm immature, easily amused and exhausted but that was hilarious.  I seriously needed a laugh.