Pandora's Kharis

I wanted to share here a new Facebook group/charity initiative: Pandora's Kharis. The purpose is for the members to all donate an amount of money, collecting it in one place, and then on the Noumēnia donate the money to an earlier decided upon charity or other good cause. Feel free to join :-) ATM the group is still figuring out the details, like what would be the best way to collect the money in one place, and how to decide each month upon a charity.

Why not just cut out the middle man and donate directly to charitable causes on one's own?

Not to be a downer, but this seems a little guileless, and intentionally complicating an originally simple process.

I would have the following critiques/concerns:

#1. the safety and security of  giving money via a Facebook group

#2. the safety and/or possibility of deciding on someone to control the 'purse strings' so to speak. That raises major red flags for me.

#3. whether its reasonable to expect people to agree on a recipient

#4. is there a draft of the Legal Terms and Conditions/bylaws? If other peoples' money is going to be involved, it is crucial to understand what the laws are and what the procedures would be if something should go wrong or of some sort of quarrel might break out to prevent someone from getting sued or accused of fraud or money laundering (especially if there may be international money transfers involved). There should probably be some sort of a contract involved in this particular situation due to the circumstances.

#5. whether or not there is an intention to seek legal status as a bona fide charitable organization (and if so, where?)

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Idealism can be a good motivator for projects like this, but, to be the bearer of unpleasant news, this is still the real world of arguments, disagreements, legal issues, dishonesty, misinformation, and lawsuits, and the two biggest things that feed the above list of issues are religion, and, most of all, money — and both come into play in this instance.

On another note, I'm curious as to the rationale for naming a charitable drive after a figure mythologically responsible for unleashing every sort of pain, suffering and misfortune upon humanity?    

It seems to me a bit like having a 'King Herod's Childcare Service' . . .

The name is simply because of it's meaning Pandora "All-gifted". As for donations, no-one is required to give the money to a common "pot" before it gets donated, it's ok to just donate directly to the charity the group chooses - and you're not even absolutely required to give to a charity that gets chosen each month either. The point is mainly to donate some money - however little - each month. The purpose is to help with communal bonding by working towards something together, as well as off course picking out "worthy" charities to donate to. If you want you can join the FB-group and raise your concerns there

The name is simply because of it's meaning Pandora "All-gifted".

That might make sense for someone who knows Greek — but I imagine the first association that would come to mind for the vast majority of ears is the Pandora who ruined hopes for a happy existence for humanity — of 'Pandora's Box' fame.

The purpose is to help with communal bonding by working towards something together, as well as off course picking out "worthy" charities to donate to. If you want you can join the FB-group and raise your concerns there

Aside from maintaining an account so that my friends can continue to use Facebook's event/invite feature, I swore off Facebook back in the spring and removed it from my desktop — and I couldn't be happier with my decision. I wasn't even aware how much of a time-parasite Facebook was until I quit and realized how much more time I then had for more valuable pursuits. Moreover, though not quite so bad as YouTube, Facebook is a den of nescience, trolls, and attention-wh0res. If discussion hadn't degenerated into flame wars not even related to the topic at hand, it was irrelevant small-talk, or, at best, discussions of relevant inconsequentialities, combined with the 'let's have a discussion to plan when we'll have our next discussion'.

Plus, it was like a soap-opera over there, dealing with all the complicated interpersonal quibbles and WWI-esque alliance webs. I was tearing my hair out almost daily back when I was active over there — and that was without money being involved.

I am certainly not condemning charity, not at all. But adding money to what was already a simultaneously volatile and/or inept situation last I was privy to it, well, just does not strike me as ending well.

Finally, depending on the privacy level of the group, if it is public, it will rapidly be overrun by blockheaded New-Age clowns, modern nationalists, or, heaven forbid, both.  

Well, even if you don't want to be part of the group in any way, you can still donate a little bit of money each Noumenia on your own accord