Toys for Tots the Charity

Toys for Tots

The charity Toys for Tots and their annual toy drive campaigns are recognizable by nearly everyone living in the U.S. today. The charity, begun in Los Angeles by a small group of Marines frequently stresses the need to offer hope through gifts of toys to needy children all over the U.S. during the holidays. The program unlike a great many other charities prefers donations of "new unwrapped" toys over fund donations, though they do seek these as supplemental to their purpose, to help offset the administrative costs of toy drives and to supplement with additional toy purchases when the needs of the program in any given location are not met by primary toy donations. (Call to Action 2007, NP)

Many charities, today focus on cash donations as a result of the fact that managerial economic assumptions rule such of greater benefit, than in kind donations of goods or labor. Yet, many charities with older traditions still seek donations of goods and time, as a result of the original structure of the organization. Toy-for Tots is a good example of the later.

The charity is divergent, likely because of the nature of the context of giving. Toys and gifts are synonymous with the holiday season, as the biggest reason why children feel joy and hope during the season and receiving donations of toys, possibly given by other children in an act of lessoned civic responsibility are likely to fill the need of the goals of the charity and its original intent, despite the fact that economic donations could fill needs other than toys or allow individual parents to purchase their own gifts for their children, in the name of knowing them. The overall goal of the charity and its desire for toys rather than cash does violate managerial economic assumptions but only as a result of non-quantitative and non-economic assumptions. The reason why it still works, is again due to the context of the focus of the charity. (Call to Action 2007, NP)

Children are the focus of the charity and though parents of these children may have needs that are greater than providing toys for their children or might know their children better than an anonymous donor, their happiness (a completely non-quantifiable aspect of life) is the goal of the charity. If the charity were to seek cash as apposed to toys and then give this cash to parents there would be no assurance that the children would be best served by the donation. In other words, even if the gas bill is in need of payment or the parents would rather buy their children school clothes there would be no assurance, once the money left the hands of the charity that it would not be squandered and fail to give "hope to children" (Call to Action 2007, NP) where giving children toys, an aspect of the holiday which they consider to be universal to children whose lives are not in duress as a result of economics, meets children's emotional needs.

Though it is clear that the development of the program is essential and that the volunteer Marines and Marine Reserves who sponsor and work diligently to volunteer and help make the drives a success, intend to bypass parents' wishes and needs to give directly to the kids. Economically, the decision might also make sense in that the donation of a toy might engender the donor to actually give more, than if they were to donate cash. Marketing of toys and the joy they bring clearly plays to the fact that people will pay more for toys than they would have given in cash, because the toys are a tangible item that also gives joy to the donor, even if the price tag is larger than they estimated in their minds.

An organization in Arizona called "Cops Who Care" on the other hand meets the needs of children by seeking cash donations that they then use to purchase toys for a large group of children every holiday season. The organization likely does so as a result of how the group got started. The original organization developed out of internal fund drives that asked officers to themselves give cash to help and then over the years they expanded to "pass the hat" among the whole community. They officers involved then had the plan and the infrastructure to purchase, wrap and distribute the toys they purchase, (Cops who Care Website) where as the Toy-for-Tots program began by seeking toys rather than cash. The Toys for Tots program utilizes cash to resolve what seems to be a universal problem in toy drives, in that many people when they shop for donated toys see only the faces of young children, and then older children with completely different desires get left out, while the Cops Who Care program resolves to not have to deal with such an issue as it can distribute funds as per known need. (Daniels, December 16, 2007, NP)

It would seem that the development of such programs is often dictated by the original plan and intent of the programs themselves, and are likely to adapt to any wholes that might be left in the program when implementation grows or changes or needs are not met by the plans laid out by founders. This is evidenced by the adaptation of accepting cash donations (by Toys for Tots) to supplement need and pay for the administrative costs of toy drives, that cannot be met solely by volunteer labor. These things that cannot be met by volunteer labor might include the printing and advertising of toy drives and the year long support of websites and/or other materials that help support year long and annual giving. Yet, it is also clear that the importance of not leaving out older children is the main direction of cash donations.