Leveraging on internet giving and young graduates

INTERNET giving is an innovative way of transferring funds from one party to another in order to help needy and poor people. In this write-up, it is confined to the transfer of funds by donors among young graduates to undergraduate students to help the latter to sustain their wellbeing at universities.

Three questions are in need of answers:

1. What are internet giving benefits?

2. What is the workable model of internet giving, if any, that can a university adapts?

3. What is a potential issue that leads to the proposal of internet giving?

In Malaysia, however, both conventional and Islamic banks are in the right passageway in providing a digital platform for online banking users to perform internet giving to help needy, family members and poor people, financially.

For instance, one who has a Maybank online account can perform internet giving without investing too much on time and financial resources to make a charitable giving, provided the account of needy is accessible and recognized. In all, this may explain that internet giving offers at least three benefits to young graduates, as follows but are not limited to:

Firstly, internet giving offers a quick and fast platform to perform charitable giving, provided the internet connection and wellequipped computer are available and ready to use. This improves donor’s time management to balance his quality of life, between helping himself to find time to donate money and to allow himself to transfer funds speedily to needy, where prosocial behaviour is brought into play.

Secondly, the transaction involving internet giving has minimal charges and those charges are confined to interbank transaction charges. In contrast, however, a traditional mode of charitable giving requires additional cost that makes the overall amount of charitable giving in the currency form is reduced since a small fraction of the fund is used to pay the transportation and logistics costs.

Thirdly, the internet giving technology can humanize online financial transactions through the promotion of altruism and empathy values among users who are donating their money electronically to help needy and poor people.

In the past, internet giving emerged among young graduates to help their family members like in the case of a son who transfers a monthly commitment to his father and mother (acronym: FAMA) via his online account that makes the two quarters are financially connected, and thus the sense of belonging to follow. This practice is quite common among Malaysians out of collectivism. Culturally, one person and his family members are connected together – be it financially or spiritually.

At present, internet giving becomes a new platform for those millennials to perform charitable giving to help needy and their family members to confront with a difficult time that demands extra financial commitment. Internet giving has been proven as a reliable way to conduct a charitable giving by millennials because of time and cost saving, and at the same time it is owing to the convenience factor.

Following the model of financial intermediary, as analogy, at least. Young graduates both alumnus and alumnae are defined as a surplus unit, while a university is defined as an intermediary and the present students are defined as a deficit unit. I propose the following model:

Contributors Trust Account Purposes

In the model, the contributors are those alumnus and alumnae, the funds accumulated are managed, maintained and controlled by a treasurer of a university through the establishment of a trust account. The purposes of the funds received in the account are to uphold the benefits of helping students, include, among others, scholarship, financial assistance (i.e. air flight, fare for needy and poor students), material and infrastructure and students’ activities.

The workable model proposed is a simplified one, in which a holistic model can be thought and produced by a university management at its own convenience through the consideration of all costs and benefits. I bet that it is also timely to introduce E-Alumni Funds (EAF) to facilitate internet giving, where the altruistic behaviour is a focus of deliberation.

Though the idea of internet giving is interesting, its participation by young graduates is still at infancy stage including the culture of implementation by universities. In the contemporary universities campus life, students are not only confronting with a limited financial resource to maintain their life but also they struggle enough to carry out their outdoor activities at the expense of their pocket money. This issue makes students’ life is quite challenging and difficult although universities have provided a sort of financial assistance for maintaining their well-being, but it is still insufficient. To improve further the funding, it is timely to propose the EAF in which it is operationalized by the donations made by young graduates and managed by universities or faculties of universities.

So far, however, their role to contribute financially to universities have been neglected and to a certain extent, it is a missing dimension in the students’ welfare program perhaps the lack of awareness by the quarters involved or else it is treated as a personal agenda. To address these issues, I attempt to explicate three approaches as follows but are not confined to:

Firstly, developing a pool of staff who are dedicated and friendly to interact and persuade with young graduates for a better tie and bond with them and who are responsible to manage internet giving account effectively.

Secondly, developing a culture of altruism to extant students and young graduates can shape a positive response for allowing them to engage in internet giving. This can be made possible by publishing the university’s seriousness about internet giving via online brochures and mobile adverts, to mention some.

Thirdly, developing a specific website that publishes students’ activities and those in need for financial assistance to young graduates. Such a website is also linked to the respective bank to facilitate giving behaviour.

All things considered, the existence of internet giving comes with a blessing through the introduction of internet giving, which is pioneered by breadwinners before online bankers take a formal departure to promote it effectively among online banking users. With effective measures, internet giving can be of a new funding platform for helping needy and poor students to obtain necessary financial assistance accordingly. Importantly, a proper acknowledgement must be established and extended to the donors for an improved notion of sense of belonging, at least.