Abstract

Since antiquity, private persons have voluntarily contributed their resources in order to provide certain goods and services, either to their societies as a whole, or to particular groups with whom they have no immediate or personal ties; for as long, governments, recognizing how such voluntarism could undercut or support their own objectives, have sought either to discourage the donors, or to encourage and guide them. Through various means, governments seek to influence not only the amount and form of the contributions, but also their deployment – the organizations that receive them, the goods and services that are to be provided, and the groups that are to benefit (Carmichael, 2009, 2011). In wielding this influence, they have attempted to strike a balance between protecting options and employing compulsion so as to preserve, but also enlist and direct the underlying voluntarism.