Giving in public

Source A: an original contemporary non-fiction-style account.

Our running group raised money for a local shelter, and I posted the donation total online. The response was encouraging. Several people asked how to contribute, and the public update brought in more money. Then I began choosing photographs in which we looked particularly generous, which was a less comfortable discovery about my motives.

Publicity can help a good cause and flatter the people supporting it at the same time. Pretending only one of those things is true does not improve either. We asked the shelter what information it wanted shared and stopped photographing the people using its services. I still publish fundraising links, but I try to keep the need larger than our performance of meeting it. A useful announcement tells people how to help; it should not require somebody else's difficult circumstances to become the scenery behind our achievement.

Source B: an original letter in a nineteenth-century voice. This is a period-voice simulation, not an archival document.

Sir, I see no reason why the names of subscribers to the relief fund should be printed in order of the sums they have given. A large gift may deserve gratitude, but a list arranged like a race teaches readers to compare donors rather than consider the relief provided. The smaller contribution may have required the greater sacrifice, a fact no column of figures can display.

I do not advocate secrecy where accounts ought to be clear. Let the total received and the uses of the money be published accurately. My objection concerns the conversion of assistance into a public scale of merit. If naming donors encourages further gifts, there may be a practical argument for it; even then, care should be taken not to turn the recipients into exhibits of gratitude. We should be able to show that help has been given without demanding that those helped furnish our reputation in return.

Refer to the whole of both sources. Compare the writers’ perspectives on publicising charitable giving and how they convey those perspectives. Support your comparison with evidence from both sources.