I have a similar line of thinking. I'm a musician, so if I was filthy rich I might want to donate money to a school's music department. If the school is one fiscal entity, I would have to put that as a stipulation to ensure they gave the money to that department, not divert it to something overfunded or just padding the board's pocket as bonuses for "a job well done"

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/15/494134464/-1-million-of-frugal-librarians-bequest-to-n-h-school-goes-to-football-scoreboar

The only association between the librarian and the football program that was mentioned by the university was the observation that Morin had spent the past 15 months of his life in an assisted living center — and that there, "he started watching football games on television, mastering the rules and names of the players and teams."

Yeah that sounds like a load of bull from the administrators to justify an extravagant purchase 🙄

That was such a weird story! On one hand, he has been a big supporter of the football program at the school and the scoreboard didn't seem totally unreasonable. But as a former university librarian, the salary is generally under $60k for non-mangers, so saving that $1 million was an amazing feat of savings and the scoreboard seemed like a weird choice by the school.

I donate regularly to a charity and don’t try to dictate how they spend that money, because I have faith that they’ll responsibly use my donations.

I gave someone from high-school I hadn't spoken too in 15 years 2 grand so she didn't get evicted from her apartment and end up homeless. Never told her. Sometimes people just do nice things bcz it's the right thing to do.

Nobody should be homeless over hospital bills.

Removing these biases is the whole point of public funding for things. Everyone shares the same resources and people who have more wealth give more. The fact that major institutions that perform public functions rely on private donations is the problem.

Maybe that person hates books and likes seeing them locked away in book prison?

It's the giving a public institution money only if they do a certain thing that can be compared to a bribe, the morality of said "thing" being irrelevant.

I think it boils down to who has the power: if they start a collection for money to expand their building to have more space and you chose to participate then it's not you dictating what they do with the money, as all you did was see a cause that you found worthy and contribute to it - the power was entirelly in their hands since they could've chosen to collect for a different purpose and you were just a passive agent - whilst if you give them money with the proviso that you get to dictate how it gets used, then the power is in your hands not theirs: the former is more akin to charity and the latter to bribing.

That said, "bribe" is indeed an imperfect metaphor.

I'm fairly certain it is only anonymous "on paper". Behind closed doors, they know where it came from and what is expected in return.