The most valuable/impactful type of charity

In My Humble Opinion
1

Of all the charitable causes out there, which do you think do the most good?

What is good is highly subjective so you’re free to define that aspect of the question. This is an important subject to me & I’d love to hear what all you intelligent folks have to say!

My opinion: International Family Planning

Reasons:

  • Helps on many levels: stops a newborn from growing into miserable poverty, takes some burden off the family & local society, stems population growth in the areas where too much population is a problem, and ultimately helps the environment

  • If estimates are accurate, it’s very cost-efficient. About $20-$70 prevents an unwanted birth internationally. In contrast, I wonder how much aid from other sources a dirt-poor individual would consume over a lifetime, assuming one would even receive anything.

  • Preventing unwanted births seems like an actual cure to the problems of the world’s poor. I used to donate to charities in the health and food categories, but wondered how much these types of charity actually change the world long term. In contrast I think curbing population growth in poor areas should eventually lead to more money spread over less people. I saw a clip about Thailand’s success in this regard with their national birth control programs over the last 30+ years.

I think that some form of education may provide even more utility per dollar, in terms of bettering humanity for the long term, but haven’t been able to bend my mind around what exactly would do so. So this is where my thoughts will end. Eagerly waiting your responses!

2

The problem with family planning is that the correlation between wealth and family planning is not necessarily working in that direction.

It is a fact that as a nations get richer, people move away from agriculture, and education becomes a pre-requisite for jobs, people have fewer children. This happens for a number of reasons. Advanced economies require an educated workforce, which means it makes more senses for a family to invest in educating one or two children up to the tertiary level rather than a whole bunch of kids who who only get past primary school. This also makes having kids more expensive- as does living in a space-limited urban area and buying food rather than growing it. These economies also tend to develop pensions and social safety nets which means that people don’t rely on their kids as their only means of support in old age. Finally, as health improves, people become more secure that their children will live into adulthood, and don’t feel the need to have a couple extra just in case.

The reasons why people in dirt poor situations have a lot of kids is that it makes sense. These people aren’t crazy, or sex fiends, or unable to figure out where to get a condom. Poor agricultural societies need large families to work on their farms, help with household chores, and help in the small enterprises that supplement sustenance farmer’s income. This is one reason, for example, why even in America the children of farmers are exempt from many child labor laws. In order to work, farms need people who are willing to work basically for room and board- like kids. And feeding a kid off of a farm is easy. In the end, large families are an economic benefit. Added to that is that chidren act as your social security and pension. In many places, to grow old childless is a full-on tragedy that will bring untold misery to an individual. And because child mortality rates are high, you need to have quite a few kids to feel secure that you will be taken care of in your old age.

The say children are Africa’s wealth. This isn’t just a metaphor. It is literally true.

Yes, there is unmet need for family planning services. But most of the big poor families you see are big and poor because that’s the best choice that they could make for their own economic security. Plenty of women would LOVE to have less kids, but not until their kids stop dying by the handfuls, start having jobs to go into after high school, and aren’t their only hope for a decent life in old age.

So really, the best way to get birthrates down is to invest in education as well as jobs for those that get educated, and to work on child mortality so that fewer kids die. That’s what made our own societies have fewer children, and it will work elsewhere as well.

3

As for my opinion…I study International Development, and thinking about stuff like this is a big part of my job.

The reality is that there is no one answer. If you spend your life trying to find the root of poverty and suffering, you will make yourself crazy and have nothing to show for it. Poverty and suffering is a system, not a single chain of cause-and-effect. It’s a net, not a rope. So you can’t just go in and cut off one part and expect to have much of an effect on the whole.

Global health, for example, tends to be very solid. The global health approach requires organizations to identify the place where they can have the greatest positive effect (usually measured as years of healthy life saved) the most cost-effectively. There isn’t a lot of room for messing around. We know quite well how to estimate how many quality years of life you can save per a dollar with different programs, and we focus ruthlessly on the most efficient ones. Global health programs are generally well targeted to use the world’s limited public health fund in the way that will save the maximum number of lives.

But the wrench in all the happy numbers and saved babies is that in reality, all global health problems are political problems. There is no biological reason why childhood diarrhea is a major killer in Sub-Saharan Africa and not in, say, Los Angeles. We know perfectly well how to prevent and treat these diseases, and how to make sure they basically aren’t ever a problem. So why does Malawi have these problems and we don’t? Well, in the case of diarrhea it’s because we have safe water systems, good hospitals, and good transportation networks. Malawi has none of these things, and the reasons why are political in nature, not anything to do with germs or genetics.

So you can save a lot of lives with a good public health program, but have you done anything at all? And once you start talking about governance- well, that is a messy can of worms that we know almost nothing about. Why some countries have such crappy governance and how to fix it is as big and complicated a problem as you could hope to ever find.

Thinking about it too hard is like trying to find the end of mobius strip. In the end, the best charity is the one that you give to and are passionate about. The best organizations are the ones that do what they do well, with good organizational processes that allow for learning and refinement of their programming. At some point you have to pick your passion and, keeping your eyes open and your intellectual curiosity always at work, go for it.

4

Thanks for the reply! I think it may make more sense then to donate to a charity that influences public policies. I checked Givewell and Innovations for Poverty Action was recommended by them

5

My personal opinion is that the most effective charity is what has the least middlemen between donor and recipient.

For example, I used to donate directly to a shelter called Debra’s Place in Chicago. This is when the shelter was first starting out. I’d contact them and say “what do you need? What would you like?”. It resulted in things like my delivering a 50 pound sack of potatoes, or a pile of toilet paper, or cleaning supplies, directly to the shelter.

While currently I have few resources, my current “charity” is one of my co-workers, who is currently homeless (she’s in a shelter, so she has a place to sleep, but that’s about it). I gave her a warm blanket. I pick her up to drive her to work and drop her off afterwards. I drove her to a public aid office to help her get food stamps. That’s about the limit of what I can give right now, but I am giving it, and very directly.

Granted, it’s not wiping out malaria or bringing modern sewage systems to Malawi, but getting one of my neighbors back on her feet after a personal disaster is, to me, entirely worthwhile. Me, I’m passionate about keeping my charity dollars local (I do occasionally donate to global causes, but it’s pretty rare). It’s fine to help others on the other side of the planet, but I can’t help but notice there’s need in my own neighborhood as well.

6

I know this isn’t how you meant the question, but for me, the most valuable/impactful type of charity is any work or money which teaches my daughter to be generous to others. Last week it was donating pet food, next week it might be paying for a neighborhood kid to take swimming lessons with her in January. We donate a lot to her school, which is a CPS school with so much parent involvement (and donations) that it actually doesn’t suck. (Cecil even wrote about it once.)

We’ve also been the “needy”, and don’t hesitate to let her know about it. I don’t want her to ever look down on people with fewer resources than she has. So she knows…Mom’s got to go to the food pantry - isn’t it wonderful that people are willing to help us out while I look for a job? When I have a job, we’ll donate food to the same pantry, to help other people like they’re helping us right now. And with my first paycheck, she went with me to the store to buy some non-perishables and drop them off at the pantry. (That’s when she asked if we could get some cat food, too, so the people who go to the pantry because they don’t have money for food can feed their cats.)

As **Broomstick **says, there’s a lot of need right here in my neighborhood, and since 6 year olds are such concrete thinkers, we concentrate on things she can see and understand first or second hand. It may not save the most lives or solve the geopolitical crisis, but I hope teaching a person to be a *good *person has a greater effect long term than anything I can do alone.

7

There are all kinds of good organizations out there that make a difference. Like this one that provides simple but effective water filters in developing countries, where the public water supply is not safe. Or Heifer International, which provides goats for families who would otherwise be in abject poverty.

I agree with even sven about the reducing family size thing. It’s pretty ballsy, IMHO, for Westerners to try to limit the sizes of other populations, when we consume more than our fair share of natural resources while having as many children as we want. It’s better, IMHO, to help to create the factors that foster prosperity and better quality of life. Reduced family size will come naturally when those things are in place.

The OP’s question is a good one, but I’m not sure it’s answerable. The charity umbrella is vast because there are a heap of problems out there. Poverty is just one. A person may believe that trying to fix poverty is a waste since we’ll always have the poor, but they may be excited about helping the mentally ill or the physically disabled in their community. Or funding an after-school program for disadvantaged youth or funding a shelter for battered women.

In other words, I don’t think there is “most valuable” way, in any absolute sense, because there isn’t just one problem in the world that needs to be fixed. If everyone gave to UNICEF, for instance, we’d still have a world full of hurt and tragedy. The starving children halfway across the world and the mentally ill homeless people just down the street both need help. You should give to whomever your heart reasonates the most with.

8

I forgot to add…

Charity doesn’t have to be in the form of money to a faceless group. Helping a few people in a meaningful way is just as admirable as helping a lot of people in a minor way. Because giving is done not just for the receiver, but for the gifter. If people don’t feel inspired to give, they aren’t going to do it continually. So they have to find something that they really want to be a part of, regardless of its global impact.

I was feeling guilty after hearing all the stories about unemployed people being depressed because they couldn’t buy Christmas presents. I felt guilty for having a job and disposable income and not being stressed out, while other people aren’t so lucky. But there was a toy drive at work and I wasn’t inspired in the least to buy a present. I kept thinking: Why does everyone think of only the kids at Christmastime? Kids are less aware of how fucked up things are anyway. Adults are the ones stressing out, trying to find jobs that can’t be had, trying to put on a brave face when they are crying inside.

So I painted about fifty pieces of glassware and left them on the busy street where I normally sell. I put up a sign urging people to take and then went home. When I returned an hour later, everything on the table–including the tablecloth–was gone.

I didn’t donate a dime to charity this year, nor did I work at a soup kitchen or take disadvantaged youths to dinner. I know I didn’t do anything to elevate someone out of poverty. But I did something to nip away at the suffering. Really, finding a way to encourage people to do something is probably one of the most valuable things you can do.

9

Local. Always local. There was a Slate article about international giving awhile back and it really stuck with me…and yet…my responsibility is my neighbor.

And my students. I am always giving to my students.

10

Thanks for sharing. I agree with what monstro said.

11

A recent issue of Forbes magazine had an article on Bill Gates and his work on vaccinating children in third world countries. Once people realize their existing children aren’t going to get sick and die, they figure out how to avoid having more.

No Bill Gates fan here, but I am objective enough to see his plan is working.

12

I would say MSF, known in the US as Doctors without Borders. Whenever disaster strikes, as recently in Japan and Haiti, that’s where I send my donation. They relieve so much death and misery and have ongoing clinics all over the third world where they treat TB, cholera, etc. They won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999.

13

I was impressed by President Carters malaria control drive.

Malaria keeps people in poverty, and countries in poverty - who can work when they’re struck down by malarial fevers regularly?

14

I have such mixed feelings about Western medical workers in second and third world countries. I know, I know, who couldn’t love doctors saving babies from malaria, right?

My dad’s been living part or most time in Guatemala for about 10 years now. When he first went there, there was a local pharmacist. He didn’t have the most cutting edge medicines, and they weren’t affordable to everyone, but he was running a business which allowed him to support his family and to hire a staff of five who supported their families. He got orders fulfilled once a month, which brought a truck from the big city into their small village, and the truck also brought food, clothing, batteries and other Stuff for sale.

Then a charitable medical group moved into the area. They have antibiotics for free, and some antimalarials and IV saline for emergencies. So now everyone goes to the clinic. Sure, more people are getting medical treatment because it’s free, but what’s happened to the pharmacist? He’s out of a job. His pharmacy is closed, so his staff lost their jobs. That’s 6 local families who now have no means of supporting themselves or spending money locally. The truck doesn’t come to town every month any more, so when your batteries run out, you may have to wait 6 months for more.

What was once a fairly prosperous 2nd world village has turned into a 3rd world hovel in less than 10 years. Not because of geopolitical turmoil (they’re pretty far from the violence in Guatemala), but because of some very well meaning people who came into the village and disrupted the local economy.

So I’d be very cautious before donating to such entities. Do some research; how do they make sure things like this don’t happen? Are their efforts resulting in net good? It’s not as simple as counting the lives saved.

15

A lot of thoughtful and info-rich posts above.

Because I am a localist I pretty much only give to local organizations, of which there are many worthy. Favorite: Second Harvest Food Bank, which because of its size and deftness of strategy, can turn a dollar into about 4 meals. It distributes millions of pounds of food to the poor in our small county every year. I also give to a local Catholic soup kitchen which feeds nearly 200 homeless people a hot meal every day, and provides hot showers and donated clothing.

Foreign charity: I wish that instead of short-term, uncoordinated, charitable ventures with typically unforeseen negative side effects, first-world countries would cease to sell arms to various sides in a conflict, stop deposing democratically elected heads of state whose politics our governments don’t like, refuse to allow importation of products created via child and slave labor – I could go on. Poor countries are not political islands.

In this country, real and massive job creation, access to medical care for all, and free and compassionate institutional care for the mentally ill would eliminate a huge amount of the suffering that charities seek to address.

– Pessimism-R-Us

16

I’m for things like Heifer.org. With your donation, a woman, in a third world country, is given a breeding pair, (goats, ducks, sheep, cows, etc.), she is also schooled in animal husbandry.

By choosing women the assets cannot be as easily gambled or bartered away. With the income, she feeds her family a better diet, brings in income, sends her children to school.

Part of the arrangement, when she gets her breeding pair, is that once she has established a herd, she is obligated to provide a breeding pair and animal husbandry education to another woman in her community.

I think, it’s a small thing, from the donation end, and so, accessible to many people. And the effect multiplies geometrically. Big impact, little organization or red tape for the recipients. Self replicating. I likey!

17

My preferred charity is helping people I know, or people in my community. I figure that 20 bucks is relatively nothing to a huge international nonprofit, and a decent portion of it goes to overhead, and I can’t see the results. But 20 bucks to a person or family is the opposite of all those things, and so it feels more meaningful.

Whether my preference is the most valuable or impactful, well, I’m not equipped to make that call.

18

And when those well meaning people leave, the village will be worse off than when they showed up.

19

I received a gift from my church this year for teaching choir, and it was a donation in my name to an organization (not this one) that will provide one family with enough bed netting for a year in Ethiopia. I was incredibly touched by it, and am going to do the same for friends instead of giving each other more stuff.

As far as supporting charities, I work for a large health non-profit, and I do give back because I support our mission. Yes, we are quite huge, so of course our administrative costs are different than a small, local NFP, but they are among the lowest in comparable organizations. We save lives and that’s what’s important to me - everyone will have admin costs, so it’s not the size of the organization, it’s the percentage of admin costs vs. what’s raised. I refuse to donate to certain organizations because of ridiculously high admin costs, especially when those costs don’t seem to be going to employee salaries or benefits (and if you work for a non-profit, it’s expected that we make an average of 20% lower than our corporate counterparts.) I also look at what the CEOs make - that’s always pretty informative.

Locally, we support the local animal shelter where we adopted our younger cat (which is an awesome place), and I’ve been the local Relay For Life event chair for the last two years (resigned this year). We’ve supported other local organizations, but not on a regular basis. My son knows that my work helps people who are sick, and he has volunteered with me, but I’d definitely like to get more involved with him locally. I want him to grow up knowing that community involvement is just a regular thing, not something you do once a year to feel good.

20

Good Girl!