Artists and charity

Artists have always been involved in charity and it has always been a controversial topic. Most of the famous people that do charity are musicians. It seems to be a contradiction that very rich people, many millionaires can have the poorest and weakest in their agenda. Many people inquire if they really help because they see the need or just as a marketing strategy.

A distinction among artists has to be made in order to put tags about honest and not honest. There are artists that use their fame, influence and their fans to help organizations and artists who want to help to be tagged as “generous” and win more fans.

The commonest way of helping is by organizing a concert or releasing a single or album and giving away the proceeds to charity or non governmental organizations.  They give the money to the government, and the doubt if the people in need really receive this financial aid  exists. There also exist the doubts about organizations that do not give clear numbers or where there are not clear objectives of areas in which they want to help.

Whatever we want to tag artists, I liked the way the New Zealander singer, songwriter and musician Brooke Fraser helped a wonderful organization called ‘Charity Water’. They build sustainable water projects in Africa for the people to have access to drinkable water. She made a campaign for her birthday and she asked her fans as a gift to donate and reach the goal of U$S 50.000 for Charity Water. She included the link of donations in her website and social network. In the period of one month, she reached the asked amount of money, which she personally gave to local communities in Africa, where Charity Water located the most urgent need. Together with the organization, they documented the donation with pictures, videos and in one year, they will upload to the Internet the documents and the satellite location coordinates of the new water projects.  In my opinion, an original and clear way to help charities and a clever way of not to be tagged as ‘an artist who wants to appear as generous’.