Charity and technology

Ike Señeres /

CHARITY is God’s love. Charity comes from God as expressed by believers. Knowledge in general and technology in particular also comes from God, and common sense should tell us that the benefits of technology should also be expressed or delivered by believers in one form or another, in the best possible way as much as possible. Although these might be broad and general statements, we could name so many specific examples as to how these could be made possible. Obviously, technologies in its many forms are just lifeless and inanimate objects. Being such, these could not be used without the actions or interventions of believers. The bottom line here is that without love or God’s love, people would not do anything to use any of the technologies.

Generally speaking, it could be said that mankind in general and believers in particular have been unable to use old technologies in order to express or deliver charity. These technologies would include telephones, television, radio, fax and even telex. Fast forward to the present times, we now have the internet and mobile phones, but it is still not very apparent how these new media tools could be used for the purpose of expressing or delivering acts of charity. Actually, the combination of these media forms could already be considered as multimedia, meaning to say that it is already the combination of any media forms, in a process that is also considered as convergence.

In fairness, there are already many groups or communities in social media sites and mail groups that are focused on charitable services, but still I would say that these tools have not been maximized. Despite these shortcomings, it could still be said that there are many non-profit groups that are doing some kind of charity work one way or the other, except that they are not coordinating or talking to each other. Going back to basics, a social networking site (SNS) is precisely for that purpose, to “network socially”, which is just another way to put it. All told, it is a good thing that there are charitable groups that are actively working, with or without the use of technologies.

From the perspective of the corporate world, the whole process of servicing customers or members is called Customer Relations Management (CRM). For all intents and purposes, it could actually be said that CRM is now an “old science”, because CRM has now been upgraded to what is now known as “user experience” or UX. Despite the change of terminology however, the basic concept is the same, and that is to make customers satisfied and happy. It appears however that Customer Engagement (CE) is the best approach towards the best UX. Roughly translated, it could be said that customer satisfaction is actually directly related to a “happiness index”, a subjective concept that could actually be translated into objective measures.

It is worthwhile to note that one country, Bhutan has already adopted “Gross National Happiness” (GNH) as a measure of their success or failure as a country, instead of “Gross National Product” (GNP) as a national measure of success or failure. One way or another, directly or indirectly, it seems to me that this dichotomy is somewhat related to the difference between “Intelligence Quotient” (IQ) and “Emotional Quotient” (EQ). I am saying that because in my opinion, IQ comes from the mind, but EQ comes from the heart. One way or the other, it is the heart or it is what the heart feels that makes one happy or not, feelings that could be the result of satisfaction.

In a manner of speaking, it could be said that the behavior of church organizations could be similar to the behavior of corporate organizations. If corporate organizations could use CRM or UX, there is no reason why church organizations could not do the same. To stress my point on this matter, I would say that if corporate organizations could use call centers, then there is no reason why church organizations would also use call centers. Aside from taking voice calls however, corporate call centers are now receiving more than just voice calls, because they are also now receiving “non-voice” messages in the form of text, chat, email and instant messenger.

Again in a manner of speaking, it could be said that church members who are in need of charitable supports are just like customers who would need service supports in one form or another. The common denominators between these two are the tools that could be used to contact the service providers, either in voice or non-voice means. In the case of corporate organizations, the reward is no other than profit. In the case of church organizations however, there is no reward except the pleasure of serving God by performing acts of charity. To be sure, it could not be said that the reward for charitable works is a place in heaven, because it is up to the Lord what pleases Him.

E-mail: iseneres@yahoo.com