Donating anonymously moral dilemma

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I’ve always wondered what the good thing to do is when donating? Should one donate anonymously or advertise the fact you are donating?

On one hand there are stories about Pharisees parading their good deeds and the poor woman donating all she had.
On the other hand letting people know you are donating encourages others to donate. Wealthy people who does philanthropy publicly does put pressure on others to follow suit and also serve as an example to follow.
So what should be the balance?

My solution so far is
For ordinary people with small sums perhaps donate anonymously but for rich people with large sums then donate publicly??

Any thoughts/help would be appreciated.
 
I guess there is a middle ground in this situation (which is something that I rarely say when talking about morality).

Use good judgment. Don’t brag about it but don’t hide it. Encourage it by setting an example. Remember to be humble and remember why you are donating in the first place.
 
Will your donation encourage others or will it just be bragging? That is how you choose
 
Ok so I donated a fair amount of money to refurbish the church and wanted to remain anonymous as I’m usually a low profile person. But the parish priest strongly wanted to thank me at mass but I insisted on being anonymous. Should I feel bad?
 
No. You didn’t request to be thanked. This is totally on his initiative. I’d be grateful.
 
It’s better to be anonymous. Any encouragement to others that could be achieved by bragging can be achieved anonymously. As soon as a rich person knows that a ten thousand dollar anonymous donation was made, s/he could conceivably decide to make a similar donation and brag about it.
 
If you’re donating truly out of wanting to donate, and not out of wanting attention for your donation, I don’t think it really matters. Sometimes like you said I want to share the donation on social media because I know other friends of mine will probably want to donate. I don’t want or expect people to tell me how great I am for donating, I want to get my friends to chip in. So in those cases it’s not 100 percent anonymous, although my social media is generally limited to my good friends (people I actually know in person and have spent time with, for the most part).

It’s the mindset that’s important. Many people put a donation in the church collection basket on Sunday. Others see them putting it in. It’s not necessary that they sneak up to the basket and throw in an envelope when no one is looking. However, if they were making a big show of putting in their big donation, then that would be bad.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
It’s not necessary that they sneak up to the basket and throw in an envelope when no one is looking.
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If you didn’t mention I nearly forgot: I always fold the note to a small piece and hide it in my hand for first collection (so that it looks like I could be just donating coins, is this too deceptive?) and then I quickly put it on. Most people are donating coins only in my parish. I really don’t want the attention.
 
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While I can understand the purported rationale of letting people know that you donate, I would rather follow what Jesus said. When you give with the right hand, do not let the left hand knows about it. The Father in heaven would know. (paraphrased).

Advertising our donation will only detract against what Jesus teaches.
 
You have to be sensible. I donate to the food bank at my local supermarket, I wouldn’t wish to go grocery shopping with a bag on my head.
 
You don’t need to be 007 about donating to a charity. Just do it and don’t make a big show of it/deliberately seek praise and attention. If someone notices and thanks you, that’s fine. But it shouldn’t be the motivation.
 
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BoomBoomMancini said:
You don’t need to be 007 about donating to a charity
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Thank you you’ve answered one part of my question which is the easy part (no one should brag about it)
But the question I have difficulty with is : is it wrong or bad or less than ideal to be 007 about it? Or is it ok or acceptable to be 007 about it?
 
Eg as I mentioned above I tried to “deceive” people by making it look as if I’m donating coins but in fact I’m donating notes. Is that bad?
 
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ratio1 said:
Thank you you’ve answered one part of my question which is the easy part (no one should brag about it)

But the question I have difficulty with is : is it wrong or bad or less than ideal to be 007 about it? Or is it ok or acceptable to be 007 about it?
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I think it depends on your motivation. If you are really 007 about it (like, truly going over the top to hide your donation) then it becomes a little ridiculous and almost a form of pride. Like, “Look how pious I am, I only donate to charity at 2 in the morning wearing a disguise!” But if you simply request to remain anonymous, then I think that’s totally fine.

Don’t stress. You gave some money to the church for repairs. You did a good thing. Your request to remain anonymous is perfectly reasonable.
 
Thank you.
Goodness gracious no I would never think about try to act pious. I just don’t want the attention and I really don’t want people to think I’m especially pious or generous.
 
I don’t think I trust much of anything online at times. I use online stuff when I have to, but prefer more old-fashioned means the rest of the time.

I am not big on talking about whether I choose to donate, to who I donate to, and how much. Frankly, I view it as nobody else’s business.

My donations are between myself, God, and the taxman.
 
I was in a similar position a few years ago when, as an ordination anniversary gift to my pastor my family paid to have his chalice and paten restored. Because the parishioners here jump to all kinds of wild conclusions, I asked Father not to tell anyone of our involvement. Overcome with emotion when the vessels returned from the silversmith, he let it slip anyway. Oh well, I tried. No sense in being upset about it once the cat was out of the bag. We moved on. Few people remember it today. It’s all good.

So in short, we attempted to remain anonymous. It failed. We didn’t make a big deal of that failure. Life went on. :+1:t3:
 
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ratio1 said:
I’ve always wondered what the good thing to do is when donating? Should one donate anonymously or advertise the fact you are donating?
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There are different points of view on that, the Scotsman Andrew Carnegie plastered his name on every gift he ever made.

Does that make him better than Swiss German Henry Frick, who never did with any of his philanthropy? (Anything named after HC Frick today was actually donated by his daughter after Frick’s death- not Frick himself.)
 
Same here! I sometimes put a note into the votive candle box to pay ahead, later it looks like I’m lighting candles without paying for them.
 
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