Donation VS Contribution: One of the most debatable points of the difference between the concept of ‘donation’ and ‘contribution’.
The words like charity, donation, contribution, and philanthropy look like similar words but their meaning is actually different if we dig a bit deeper.
Earlier in our articles, we mentioned the difference between the concept of ‘charity & ‘philanthropy’. Where the seemingly same words actually make a lot of difference. Click to read.
We did a small survey to ask the difference between charity and contribution and people said, it’s the same. Guess the percentage? 95% people.
So, we turned towards the single source of information, Google, and found some interesting information, based on which the rest of the article is.
Here’s the difference between donation and contribution:
Please note that we’ve picked content that was contributed by the users on open forums only.
Rithagwar on Wordreference.com wrote:
“If you’re talking about charities, donate is the normal word. So 1 and 3 are better than 2 and 4.
Contribute means to give something – usually money, although it could be something else – to some cause or objective.
Diane was retiring so we all contributed something to buy her a retirement present.
I found Donald’s contribution to the meeting helpful – he said some useful things.”
A user on the stack exchange website wrote this:
Donation – to voluntarily give something away for free as a gift, usually to charity, or for a charitable cause. The giver has not received and does not expect to receive, anything in return for their donation. The “something” donated can be money, an object, or service (i.e. something that has a value to the receiver of the donation).
Contribution – to give something as part of a number of people giving something. As above, this could be money, an object, or a service. A contribution may or may not be voluntary and may or may not be charitable (e.g. contributing to the payment for a group meal in a restaurant, where everyone pays for what they ate).
Rajyashri Tripathi brilliantly wrote on Quora:
Contributions can be monetary or labor and intangible gifts, such as volunteering your time for a nonprofit or a civic organization. You can deduct mileage for going to such places, but not for your time.
The donation can be money (cash, shares, etc.), food, clothing, accessories (shoes, handbags), luggage, linens (nobody accepts mattresses), furniture, furnishings (drapes, lamps, carpets, etc.), household items, artwork, antiques, collectibles (stamp and coin collection, etc.) car, boat, plane, stocks, bonds, etc. tangible things, which can be sold in exchange for money.
Comment below your thoughts about the difference between the word, ‘Charity’ and ‘Donation’.
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