As written on an English assignment:

"In schools, various clubs ad organizations sponsor charity drives, asking students to bring in money, food and clothing. Some teachers offer bonus points on tests and final averages as incentives to participate. Some parents believe that this sends a morally wrong message, undermining the value of charity as a selfless act. Is this exchange of donations for grades acceptable?

The practice for offering incentives for charitable acts has become widespread, from school projects to fund drives for organizations such as public television stations, to federal income tax deductions for contributions to charities.

Is it ethical to offer incentives for charitable acts?"

I believe is is NOT fair to let those kids who can bring in a couple of dollars worth of items can raise their GPA over hardworking, assiduous students. Even though I am one who could bring in some canned food or old clothing, I believe those who work hard should reap the benefits. (Lazyness seems almost like a sin to me. If one wants something, work for it. If one doesn't want to work, they must be prepared to face whatever consequences come.)

This is also applied to corporations donating old equipment in return for tax exemptions. Giving away old, dysfunctional, about-to-break-down items shouldn't be worth the ability to dodge tax.

Also, you could go talk about the whole morality issue. Is it really charity if people are benefiting by non-emotional means?

Please try not to get this topic locked.

On one hand, I think that if you can convince more people to give, it'll increase the amount of givers, which it does. On the other hand, it takes away from the "value" of charity.

Which has the most benefits vs deficit? I feel that even if the meaning of charity is lowered, but the amount of charity increases, that's good. So what if people are giving for different reasons? If it produces results, why not? What's it matter if you get a tax break for giving in your old car? It's a win-win scenario, you pay less on taxes and someone else can use your car (or parts from it) to better their life.

I don't, however, condone giving extra credit points to people who bring in canned goods and fully support your opinion on grades being earned. Pizza parties for the class who brings in the most cans (which my school did often) work splendidly and doesn't skew anyone's GPA.

It gives the richer people an advantage, slightly reducing America's social mobility and moving further away from a merit-based education system. At the same time, the amount of charity increases. I disagree with this approach, as I believe that things like these help create more of a self-centered population, who will afterwards regard charity not as a give, but rather a give and take, which could possibly decrease the charity given my those same children when they grow up. Basically, charity should remain charity, and fostering a communal, charitable culture should be the job of the government as it has by far the greatest resources to do this. This amounts to bribery.

Education in itself, is merit. Higher GPA generally means better universities, and better universities generally mean lucrative jobs.
While this isn't immoral in anyway, it does take away the educational value of selfless acts. You can't convince a person to be selfless through incentives. It just doesn't work that way.

I'm on society side this time. The rewards are there for all people, and in that respect do not discriminate. If you can get a boost on grades by bringing in a few cans of soup, why not!?

In Canada you have to do 40 hours community service to graduate. So I did community service so I could graduate, is that ruining charity too? Since I helped raise money for cancer, for free healthcare for kids in need and by helping events such as peewee football or even just cleaning the whole public library?

They do discriminate in favor of the rich. Also, just because the rewards are there for everyone, does that mean that the rewards should exist at all?

Since everyone has to do it to receive what you need to graduate, there's no advantage for anyone. It's not tacking on and reducing the product of hard work.

I don't think it's inethical. To begin with, students should never put themselves into a situation where they need extra credit to pass the class. So if a poor kid fails a class because he didn't show up...is he going to turn around and blame it on not receiving extra credit? Oy, what a joke of a case that would be. I'm sure, based on personal experience, if a kid went up to a teacher and said, "hey, I can't give cans, but is there another way I could help the food drive in exchange for extra credit?" I'm sure something would come up: collecting cans, counting cans, bagging them up...etc. And if you come back with, "but what if the kid doesn't have the time to do that?" then I can only say: then it didn't matter to the kid in the first place.

And what would you have corporations do with old equipment? Toss it? What about old computers? That's a waste of capital. Would you rather they be punished for charitable acts? Isn't it cool that intercity kids who wouldn't get the chance to use computers get to learn about them, even if they hardware is ten years old? Fundamentally, they are similar.

In my opinion, taxes are there to benefit the public, soceity, or at least, that's what they are intended to do. (Whether or not they actually do that is an entirely other topic). So how can you claim it is unethical for a company to choose to give equipment to someone who needs it, in return for tax incentive? Isn't a donation a benefit in itself? You do realize that equipment as claimed on taxes depreciates with time - that means by the time they donate it, they may be able to only claim 5% depreciated value of the equipment for tax exemptions. And for companies that donate money or goods to charities, even if the items donated are worth pennies in comparison to their profit margin, I can't find anything wrong with that. Its like choosing to put your taxes directly where you want them.

Or think about this: you donate a car made in 1992 to an organization like boys and girls club. They turn around and give that to a single mother who had no mode of transportation previously, and as a result had to take her five year old son to a public transportation bus to ride alone to school while she went to work. Now she has the ability to drop him off at school and pick him up, even though the car runs rich and the engine has trouble starting in cold weather. It may not be ideal, but you cannot deny the charitable value in the donation. I guarantee the mother is grateful for it.

You can't trade grades.

You can trade money. You're trading your old crap to the government, rather than the government have to give the charity money, and you're stuck with selling your old crap to that charity.
It doesn't matter where the money comes from, just so long as it gets there.

Marks given in subjects should represent the students' abilities, potential and desire to progress in a specific field. Unless there is a subject in school called 'community involvement/service' and community work results in marks gained only in that subject, I am against this.

Community involvement brings appreciation to teamwork and a sense of well - the community. I'd be hard pressed to find any field of study that doesn't require those two things.

A sense of community isn't created by making people bring in things for grades. This doesn't work for community or charity, it works for a can of soup. A sense of community is something a government can help instill without resorting to programs like this through an areas education system or public events. These grades affect a person's life. No, you shouldn't fail it without the extra credit - but even then, those ten extra points on a test could be all that's separating someone from a good High School/College. Giving it in any school is directly comparable to passing someone in college instead of failing because they donated a can of soup.

I didn't originally see donations for grades as a "pass/fail" device, but a "rich have an advantage over poor" device.

Fire_Kame, I think that companies can still give items to charities without receiving anything in return. You're probably right about the low profit margins, so tax deductions may be more morally righteous.

I wanna see what schools actually give out grades for this kind of stuff, tbh.

And where the grades go.

There is no true charity. Examples:
1.) People give to charity, then tell some one about it.
2.) People give to charity, they don't tell some one about it, but God knows.
3.) People give to charity, they don't feel bad about something.
The result is always self gratification, to feel better about themselves. This is selfish, so the idea of charity and selflessness is down the drain.

Actually Zell has a great point there. Most everyone in the world wants to be recognized in one way or another.
As for incentives to give...such as extra credit and tax deductions as stated earlier, I recognize that may fuel children and companies to provide for the needy when they need it. Most people aren't willing to share without anything in return, albeit a few people. That's just how we, as humans are.
Simply put, without motivation spurring people to give stuff, even if it's "broken, or worn down," the needy would go without.
I am FOR giving incentives to aid the more deprived beings we see nearly everyday.

What if I give my life for someone I love, just because I value their life greater than mine? What if I give my life for my wife, who I love so much that I made a conscious decision to do what is best for her regardless of my own needs, and I ended up giving my life to save hers? Note: I don't actually have a wife.

What if I end my life to just ensure the survival of someone else, all the while being completely agnostic, or atheistic?

Then one is, on some level, deriving some satisfaction from the act for other reasons, such as altruistic urges.
In other words, Zell's post is pointless and has nothing to do with the topic.

since we seem to have wandered away from the topic a bit i'll go abck to it.

I remember in grade school they did this crap from time to time. To me it isn't right to boost some kids grades just because his parents have the money to donate something to charity wether its coats for kids, food drive, ect.

This creates the notion that one can buy anything with enough money. The problem is the government does the same damn thing. If you save reciepts or anything reciept like from donations you have made wether to fund raiser or flat out money donations the government will reinforce you regardless of whatever else is attached.

For example I know a woman that enters a chairitable raffle and if she loses she turns it in for tax deductions. Even if she wins as long as it isn't cash she can write it off. To me our society has lost the perspective on what true charity is.