Philanthropy

I learned that philanthropy is different from charity. When I was assigned to figure out how they are different I had no idea just how at the beginning of the year I didn't know the difference between empathy and sympathy. Philanthropy is more like empathy and charity is more like sympathy. This is because charity is like seeing a homeless person on the street, feeling bad for them and then giving them food to fix the problem right then and there. Philanthropy is more of a long term focus or vision. Like donating money to a foundation that is going to benefit the society for the future. Charity definitely seems easier to us because you can just show up and volunteer which still makes a difference but all of the successful philanthropists had millions of dollars to give away. Not everyone has the money to do that with but everyone does have the ability to help like with charity. So if our world has enough of both people with the money to donate and people willing to help then I think it can make a huge difference. It was interesting to see how much the philanthropists gave away, most of them gave well over half of their money away which is such a bold and selfless act. I feel like a lot of people that have tons of money like that don't have the selfless attitude to give away their money which is sad because there's no way they can spend all the money they have so they may as well use it to benefit others and the future. It is really important to think about what we can do to make the future better and help out others whether it be through philanthropy or charity. Without the major philanthropists that I learned about our world today would look a lot different. I never realized the impact that they had.