Saturday, February 13, 2016
How Much is Too Much?
When Phill Ginter from United Way came to talk to the class about his work, one thing he said that resignated with me was that it is not always the most pressing issue with which we can make the most impact. As it did with me, what he said must've come as a shock to all of you considering one of the most asked questions to him was "what issue area is the most important here in Broome County?". Yes, we may hear a lot about hunger, poverty, drug use, etc, but as meaningful philanthropists, we want to be the catalyst for change and to do this we must make the most impact with the money we have.
On a larger scale, if you could donate our money to one continent in the world, which would it be? Correct me if I'm wrong, but probably 95% of whoever reads this article answered with Africa. Before I watched the Ted Talk by Andrew Mwenda "Aid for Africa? No Thanks."(https://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_mwenda_takes_a_new_look_at_africa#t-88496), I would've agreed with you wholeheartedly. What made me change my mind, you ask? I want to make a difference. The media seems to be playing as a positive attractor in helping different organizations such as the Red Cross, Action in Africa, etc. help gather funds to donate to Africa. If we are following effective altruism as described Peter Singer, when we see these commercials portraying war, poverty, and disease in Africa, we should spend money towards helping them. Seems simple. But why does Africa remain as the poorest and most underdeveloped continent in the world? After all, according to Mwenda, a whopping 13-15% of an African country's GDP is received in foreign aid. This is because the media doesn't tell the whole truth. I think that in this case, media plays as a negative attractor, pushing non-profits away from their goals of helping end these problems in Africa. I know a lot of you may disagree, especially after watching the video in Julie's blog post concerning effective altruism. However, I believe that too much money and resources are being given to Africa. As Mwenda says, people have good intentions when giving resources such as medicine and money to Africans, but this does not create wealth for them. Africa cannot take these opportunities and create them into something that is an advantage to them because they don't have the internal capacity. Rather in investing in these short-term resources, we need to invest in research and businesses, which are the keys to Africa's development in the future. As Phill said, a series of small changes create an additive effect, which is ultimately how you achieve success. This correlates well with the issues we talked about in class. Although we are not increasing a continent's political effectiveness in order to make an impact, we do need to take a similar approach when choosing what nonprofit to donate to. Which small area can the most impact not only now, but also for years to come? No matter if it's poverty, health, environmental sustainability, most of the groups said that this comes down to education. With education, you are not only putting money into curing the cause of an issue at hand, you are also fostering the development of ideas, organizations, etc that will hopefully decrease the issue in the long term. This is why I believe that when the day comes in the grant-giving process, I hope we give money to help fund the education concerning our issue area because the future is in the hands of the generations to come.
Obviously, if you have any moral backbone, effective altruism seems like the logical answer to all questions concerning philanthropy. But when you look deeper, if you want to make the greatest impact you need to take a holistic approach when looking where and how to donate, also known as scanning. I ask you to reflect on not only this video, but also the variety of issue areas we discussed in class. Here are some questions to help you with this.
1. Do you believe that education would be a good investment for our money, regardless of issue area? Why?
2. Do you believe that media can play as a negative influence on other issue areas? Does it even play this role in the context of helping Africans?
3. Analyze the pros/cons of effective altruism. Overall, do you think it is bad or good?
4. What would you do to help Africa? Can you somehow reflect this to how we can help the Broome County Area (especially since public health, poverty, and education seem to be areas of concern)?
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Jill, this is a well written post and your ideas are expressed clearly. The idea of giving to the right areas and being a catalyst for change makes sense. There are many issues in the world that need to be addressed and as a class we can only directly affect two of them. However, many people only want to help in the areas that mean most to their inner beliefs. I think that education can be a good area for the money because education needs help. Any help we do is good. Also it is a good area because just a little more education in life can help in so many ways down the road. Maybe the education help will help a member of the community get a job, be able to manage his/hers money better, eat healthier, or just live a better overall life.I do not think the media can be a negative attractor because any press is good press. The spreading of awareness is beneficial for every cause. If I were to help Africa I would go to Africa myself and help build a school or help teach at a school.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to just touch on something that this post mentioned in passing, which was the media as a positive or negative attractor. I think that it is very important to think about how we value media attention in philanthropic efforts. I personally believe that the media is a sort of separate outlier, and can never really be categorized as negative or positive (in most cases, obviously there are outliers in various instances).
ReplyDeleteMedia outlets themselves are primarily self-serving institutions. That is not meant with negative connotation, more just as a statement of fact. Media corporations are businesses, not nonprofits, and are after their own success from a structural side, and providing good coverage for important issues from a mission standpoint. They work for the most part independently of an organization that they cover. They aren’t so much a positive or negative attractor, as an opportunity for publicity as long as a story is garnering interest.
Some may argue that publicity for a nonprofit or social cause is good, in that it brings attention to the issue at hand. But just as easily as a spotlight can shine on an issue, it can also fade long before the problem is solved. When the issue is no longer trending, the media will move on. While initially, the attention was positive, the absence of coverage can fabricate a sense of solution among the uninformed majority which then results negatively.
Not to ramble, but my main point here is really that the media can be a welcome asset or a disposable and lacking source for publicity, but it should never be used as a tool intentionally for or against an organization or cause. It is it’s own separate entity that operates as such, and therefore should be regarded as circumstantial.
Today countries in Africa have received more money from foreign countries and non profits then 30 years ago. As a result, trillions of dollars have come into the continent. The question is why is the continent of Africa worse off today than it was 30 years ago? Multiple countries have seen their GDP decrease. Two reasons play into this factor; one relates to the corruption in the government. The other corresponds to non profits seeking money from donors when their missions are too lofty. For example, non profits are seeking money for curing a disease or preventing hunger; however, these goals, in the short term, are not realistic especially under circumstances that the country currently faces. There are so many of these people, and non profits and donors like to think big and help on these massive campaigns. However, these goals are not possible since people are thinking way to optimistically especially with a corrupt government. These organizations should promote smaller goals, such as paving the roads, so that it would be easier for people to get to school and to work. Alternatively, organizations can work to provide people with shoes, so that people’s feet will not attract diseases.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/10/13/why-trying-to-help-poor-countries-might-actually-hurt-them/ This article explains why giving foreign aid to poor countries actually hurts rather than helps. I think it is important to give money to people who are vulnerable however, if the money is not going to make an impact, then it might be time to re- examine our goal.
Jill, your post was very insightful as it brings up many issues that we must address before we decide which organizations will receive our grants. One of the most common themes in class is the idea of effective giving and how to give effectively. In order to give effectively, I think that we cannot just blindly give our money to an organization because of emotion, we must analyze where and how we can make the greatest difference. Mwenda displayed the how part perfectly when he claimed that most of the aid given to Africa was only “treating the symptoms, not the causes,” this means that in order to effect change in Africa, Mwenda says that aid must be given to get to the root of the problem. For Africa, this means that aid should be given to support business, investment, and research institutions to create wealth.
ReplyDeleteEducation would certainly be a good investment for our money for numerous reasons. Education would do more than solve a short term problem like giving food to someone. It can catapult people out of poverty because it will give them the ability to get a higher paying job. Therefore, education would also help food insecurity and homelessness, two of the largest issues in class, because the more education that someone has, the less likely that they will be homeless or not have enough food because they will have a better job. So, education would treat the cause instead of the symptom. Also, Mwenda expressed the idea that if people are given opportunity, but do not have the “internal capacity” they cannot take advantage of the opportunity. Education would give people the ability to take advantage of every opportunity given to them. I do believe that the media can be a negative attractor if it does not effectively show what is happening, but in Africa’s case, the media is playing a positive role because as Mike said, “any press is good press.” Even though the media may not be responsibly showing the situations in Africa, it is helping Africa get aid which in some instances helps builds roads and hospitals. Personally, to help Africa, I would give money to organizations that will help in the development of new technologies to help the people of Africa receive clean water for a lower price. In addition, I would like to somehow help lessen the aids epidemic in Africa by donation to organizations like the Aids Healthcare Foundation that freely distribute condoms. Finally, education reform in Africa must take place so that people can eventually learn how to help themselves without the aid of others and this could also be applied to Broome County to help impoverished people get out from under the burden of poverty.
I want to start off by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed reading your blog post. Not only did it open my mind to other levels of thinking, but it reaffirmed my interest in donating our class money to fund education programs/organizations. Prior to entering this Philanthropy & Civil Society class, I already had a strong desire to donate the class money to something education related. However, I never attempted to discover why I felt this way or questioned my core values. I just decided education would be the best investment for our money that could also inadvertently work to address other issue areas such as poverty, hunger, and homelessness. After several class sessions, reading several articles, and reviewing these blog posts, I am certain that donating to organizations/programs that support education reforms can really make the greatest impact in bettering society overall.
ReplyDeleteIndeed people are quick to attempt to only address the issues that affect Broome County in the greatest magnitude. However, if we want our money to have the greatest impact in the long run, we must discover which issue area will have the greatest return once we put our investments into it. Would providing money to an organization that helps build homes for people who are homeless have the greatest effect in improving someone's life in the long run? Or would enrolling students in educational enrichment programs help them in the long run? In my opinion, investing dollars in educational programs to enrich the learning and development of the youth would have a greater positive impact because not only does it help students to learn better but by educating children, they will be set up for a better future so that his/her chances of becoming homeless in the future will be decreased to some extent. This way of thinking can be tied in with your Africa example. Although 13-15% of Africa's GDP is received from foreign aid, it begs that question of why Africa still remains to be one of the poorest nations in the world. The funds that donors are giving to address hunger, poverty, and etc. are clearly not as effective as people hope that it would be. One major issue is that the money only works to address short term issues. If people do not teach the Africans how to stay out of poverty, how to acquire a skill/job, then all this money is not being used as effectively as it should be. As a class, I think that we should reflect on the example of Africa and use it as a case study to reflect on how we can donate our money to have the greatest long term impact for the people of Broome County.
Jill, I found your post and the Ted Talk you presented us with both very relevant to our class discussions and also very eye-opening. In class we've discussed how media can be both a positive and negative attractor, and I think that that issue was present in the Ted Talk as Mwenda explains that the media appeals to "pity...sympathy...charity" when portraying Africa. While issues of hunger, poverty, and civil war are prevalent in Africa, they are often super sized by the media and drown out other issues that could benefit from foreign aid in Africa. Largely as the result of this disproportionate media attention, most of the foreign aid goes to alleviating short term needs such as medicine or food. However, Mwenda explains that in the scheme of things this charity is "treating symptoms not causes" of the larger problem facing Africa: lack of economic prosperity. I think that this problem is something that we have been torn about in class when considering where our money will do the most good. We recognize a need for short term solutions, such as providing food to places such as CHOW or Food Bank of the Southern Tier, but also see that we need to aid in supporting a longer term solution that will help people to escape the cycle of poverty or get a good job so they can provide healthy food for their families. As we look at our issues in class, it's important that we consider the societal roots of our issue areas and find an area that we can effectively give to in order to exact lasting results. One thing that Mwenda talked about that stayed with me was when he talked about giving as a "challenge of hope" that aimed to help people or countries reach their potential. He said that many African countries had the potential to prosper economically, but needed investments in internal institutions that would help the country take advantage of opportunities given to them by foreign aid. In the long term, helping to strengthen Africa's infrastructures for economic development will ultimately help Africans to lift themselves out of poverty, ameliorating other issues such as food insecurity, access to water, etc. While we are dealing with a much smaller scale in Broome County, the principles Mwenda detailed still apply, and I think that overall, investing in infrastructure in the form of education is ultimately the way to effect long term change that will also eventually fix short term needs.
ReplyDeleteAlthough right now I am leaning towards wanting our class to help the cause of homelessness, I do see the value in education as a lasting impact. I think whichever issue area we choose, it should have some kind of impact that will last beyond the immediate result.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that giving aid to Africa can in fact be detrimental when the people there don't have the resources to become independent. An example of an organization that is creating lasting change in the developing world is Pencils of Promise. Founded by Adam Braun, it has built 331 schools in four developing countries since 2009, and seen an 85% literacy increase. These schools are built with the help of the locals, which really creates a sense of community and purpose for them. Teacher support is also provided, so that the schools can remain self-sufficient.
As a side note, Adam Braun believes in the merging of non profits and businesses, similar to the Coca Cola approach. The organization is a good example of how a non-profit can benefit from marketing techniques. On their website you can see all the companies/businesses they have partnered with.
In addition, Braun has come up with the term "for purpose" to replace the traditional "non-profit." He believes part of the ineffectiveness of some non-profits stems from the distinct separation of the non-profit and business space, and his "for-purpose" model is a mixture of the two.