An Ideal Charity Organization

This is probably the first post in this blog specifically eulogizing a person or organization. However, I cannot resist myself from doing this, because it is exemplary. I want to bring to attention two incidents here.

This happened sometime in the late 1990s or so. I had been visiting the Ramakrishna Math in Ulsoor off and on.

A few years earlier, I had lent some money to a person to start a business. He was not very successful. He passed away in a heart-attack. His family struggled with his son just starting to earn. His father was an old retired ordinance factory employee living on pension. I knew his father more than him. I had forgotten about the money and written it off. Over the years, I had lost much touch with the family. One of my close friends continued to be in touch with the father. One day I got a call from my friend that the father is slowly repaying all the loans that his son had taken and I got my money back. I never wanted this back, but I wanted to respect the father, who himself was a great saint with many disciples and devotees. He lived a very simple life with nothing more than the bare necessities, in spite of several disciples and devotees.

Now, I wanted to donate this money somewhere because I had already mentally written it off. I went to the Ramakrishna Math in Ulsoor. I wanted to donate it. It was Rs.30,000, a reasonable amount at that time. When I told the amount to the volunteer managing the desk, he said, “It is a big amount. So, you should talk to the monk who is the manager.” I was taken to the manager’s desk. He told me straight, “We do not take big amounts from unknown people.” I had to explain to him, “I have been visiting the place for a few months on and off. I have taken mantra diksha in the Order when I was living in Chennai. I have been visiting different centers in Chennai and Bangalore over the past few years.” After confirming that I am not a stranger, he asked me, “Why are you donating such a big amount?” I told him the full story. Then he asked me, “When did you decided to donate?” He explained, “If it is a sudden decision, we cannot take it. Often people make a momentary decision to donate and later regret that they had made a wrong decision. We do not want such donations.” I told him, “I have thought over it for the past two weeks and I am sure to donate this amount.” Finally, he asked me to give it as a cheque dated a month later. He said, “You can leave the cheque with the Math office. You can take back the cheque anytime without any hesitation. After a month, you can get back to us to confirm or take it back. We will not deposit the cheque without another confirmation from you.” I gave the cheque and after a month I went again and confirmed. Only then it was deposited in the bank.

Another, thing about Ramakrishna Math is that each account is a water-tight compartment. If some amount is donated for a specific purpose like “medical service”, “rural education”, “urban education”, “disaster relief”, “building construction”, etc. to a particular center, it will never be used for anything else. They are very strict about this. In case of sudden natural calamities, they actually create a “loan” account with some seed funding from a general pool to mitigate the situation and then refill it back by collecting specific donations. Everything is managed meticulously and transparently with recognized and reputed auditing firms checking it.

Last week, I got an email from Haripad, one of the centers in Kerala to which I have been sending a monthly donation. It is a very poor center with very less sources of funds. They have been doing very good service in that locality, but being in an area dominated by other political and religious groups, they don’t have much donations. Their buildings were dilapidated and in very bad condition. They wanted to have some basic infrastructure to carry out their service activities. So they were collecting funds. I was impressed by their work and started giving a monthly amount. I have been giving for the past several months. The buildings are coming up fine. The details of the progress of the work has been regularly published with pictures from the field in their monthly magazines like Vedanta Kesari and Ramakrishna Vijayam. Last week, I got a message from the center saying, “The building work for which you have been donating will get completed in the next 6 months. We are thankful for your regular donation. We will not be needing the amount from 6 months later. So, we will not be taking the amount from you from then on. We want to inform you in advance so that you can plan accordingly.” I am stunned at the honesty, transparency and ethics of this organization.

The Ramakrishna Math and Mission is basically a spiritual organization with the highest standards of ethics. They do social service as a spiritual exercise. Whatever work they do, it is of the highest quality and of the highest ethical standards. They are the gold standard for all other Charity organizations. My salutations and admiration to them.