Do the Word

JoNel Aleccia, health writer at msnbc.com, pens a piece cataloging the well-intentioned but foolish efforts of those who would seek to do anything other than send a check to a reputable international NGO in response to the earthquake in Haiti.

It’s a recurring theme in many posts these days–the idea that writing a check to a highly-rated international disaster relief agency is the only logical course of the hour, and to try to attempt anything else could actually be harmful.

A different but equally pressing problem is the flood of ill-advised donations that aid agencies already are facing, organizers said. A handful of “Help Haiti” food and clothing drives across the country are inspiring cringes among some workers, said Diana Rothe-Smith, executive director of the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, a coalition of agencies….

“I guarantee you someone is going to send a winter coat or high-heeled shoes,” Brooks said.

Let me grant willingly and without hesitation the following points:

1. Disasters like this one bring scammers out of the woodwork; giving to telemarketers raising money for charities you’ve never heard of is obviously not the best way to help those in Haiti.
2. Collecting supplies to send to Haiti makes no sense if no one in Haiti has requested your supplies.
3. Someone is probably going to send a winter coat or high-heeled shoes.

Still, I categorically and emphatically resist two of the implied premises of the article, namely:

1. The idea that highly-rated disaster relief charities constitute an unmitigated good who know what they’re doing because, after all, they’re highly-rated disaster relief charities.
2. The idea that any kind of donor involvement outside of a cash donation to a highly-rated disaster relief charity constitutes an inferior form of help.

As to the first point, Tracy Kidder notes:

In the arena of international aid, a great many efforts, past and present, appear to have been doomed from the start. There are the many projects that seem designed to serve not impoverished Haitians but the interests of the people administering the projects. Most important, a lot of organizations seem to be unable — and some appear to be unwilling — to create partnerships with each other or, and this is crucial, with the public sector of the society they’re supposed to serve.

The usual excuse, that a government like Haiti’s is weak and suffers from corruption, doesn’t hold — all the more reason, indeed, to work with the government. The ultimate goal of all aid to Haiti ought to be the strengthening of Haitian institutions, infrastructure and expertise.

Hearkening back to the lessons we could have and should have learned from the tsunami (but didn’t), David Frum adds:

Initially, aid organizations had to base their relief distributions on informed guesses — overwhelmed by logistics, they lacked the time to undertake detailed assessments or consultations with affected people. The situation on the hardest-hit west coast [of the Indonesian island of Aceh] remained the big unknown. ‘We were taking steps in the dark,’ said one aid worker.

Although international agencies were right in guessing that water, food and shelter would be survivors’ initial needs, they were wrong to assume these needs would not be covered, at least partially, by Indonesians themselves. Agencies did little to suppress the myth of disaster victims dependent on external aid to survive. …

As dramatic stories of suffering hit the headlines, more agencies poured in, expecting the worst. But aid workers arriving at Meulaboh, dubbed ‘ground zero’ of the western coast, on 4 January were surprised to find survivors being well cared for by the Indonesian army and authorities. A scramble for beneficiaries began. Some agencies jealously guarded their information to ensure their ‘niche.’ Within weeks, the ‘humanitarian space’ had become too small for all these actors.

Coordination became difficult. Out of 200 agencies present in late January, only 46 submitted reports to U.N. coordinators. Joint needs assessments were rare. Language proved problematic, with U.N. meetings held in English and government meetings in Indonesian. Without knowing who was doing what and where, some communities were overwhelmed with aid while others were neglected.

At the root of coordination problems was one key factor: too much money. Nearly everyone could hire a helicopter or boat, make their own needs assessments and distributions, and ‘fly the flag’…

Frum contends that “[d]isaster relief is first and foremost a military relief operation. No one else has the reach and the lift”:

In the first half week after the quake, the U.S. military distributed 600,000 packaged meals and installed water purification systems that can pump 100,000 liters per day. Army helicopters deliver food inland, bypassing the miserable Haitian roads; the Navy has already converted the little port of Cap Haitien to receive modern containers.

The notion of NGOs as disaster relief experts beyond reproach dies hard. But what dies even harder is the idea that a donor can be anything but a dunderhead when he or she gives something other than cash to a highly-rated disaster relief NGO.

I’d love to do a list of reputable charities who are receiving non-cash relief supplies for distribution to Haiti, and/or who have opportunities for concerned individuals to volunteer in meaningful capacities. This is not to disparage the giving of cash but rather to recognize that being shaped in the image of Christ sometimes means responding to disasters by doing more than writing a check.

My own list would start with UMCOR, which not only has a long history of respectful partnership with Haitian churches and agencies but which also lost its Executive Director Samuel Dixon in the quake. Note that Dixon was there during the earthquake, which says something about UMCOR’s ongoing commitment to Haiti that goes beyond simply responding to a disaster.

UMCOR (which, incidentally, is acknowledged as a four-star charity by Charity Navigator) has robust programs for Haiti relief supply donation and volunteering.

Why does UMCOR do this? Do they not know that it is far more efficient for people to write checks so highly-rated disaster relief agencies can buy wholesale instead of donors wastefully dropping by the grocery store on the way to work and paying retail for relief supplies?

• Just perhaps UMCOR is training its champions how to respond to disasters wherever and whenever they occur, whether in Haiti, halfway around the world, or in a house down the block.
• Perhaps they want to help their champions understand why winter coats and high-heeled shoes aren’t helpful so that the next time a disaster happens, those champions will know how to respond more thoughtfully.
• Perhaps becoming personally involved–by, say, dropping by the grocery store to pay retail–changes the kind of people we are, makes us spend more than five minutes thinking about the situation and the people who are impacted, helps us to involve our children in such a way that the generation that follows us will not only be more compassionate than we are but more able to respond personally and knowledgeably in the face of disaster.

Rest in peace, Samuel Dixon. Thank you for believing that Christians could–and should–always be more than human ATM machines, and that aid that connects our hand, heart, and head has an impact not only on the immediate disaster at hand but upon the way we think about and pray about and respond to all of the disasters that follow.

Three weeks have now passed since a magnitude 7.0 earthquake swallowed Haiti.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported that through last Wednesday, the first fifteen days post-quake, donors had so far given $528 million to US nonprofits.  (You can see which organizations received how much here.)

Katya Andresen notes how quickly donors are losing interest in Haiti, a fact attested to by the almost total absence of posts being done on Haiti by the usual fundraising and nonprofit blogger suspects I regularly quote on these pages (though Nathaniel Whittemore hit up with a first-rate relief-to-recovery Haiti post this morning at Change.org).

Sum it up and say: Another disaster come and gone from the news, and it’s not immediately apparent that we’ve been transformed by our initial giving in the process.

From a nonprofit standpoint, a familiar question is making the rounds, one typically asked at roughly this spot in the timeline during previous large-scale disasters:

Did that $528 million include money that would normally have come to my nonprofit?

In other words: Are donors diverting their money from your nonprofit/cause to Haiti?

Incomprehensibly little research has been done to date on this question in relation to previous disasters, leaving us pontificators to pontificate with impunity and without the niggling constraints of, say, actual data.

My own reply to the question takes the form of a simple thought experiment:

• Most nonprofit fundraising, especially mass fundraising, actually follows the form of disaster fundraising. That is, when a nonprofit executive director or ad agency sits down to write an appeal letter, he or she or they ask, “What is the most urgent, compelling, heart-tugging need we can muster at this moment?” And they write the appeal letter as a kind of “micro-disaster”, i.e., “We need your help today! This is a tragedy! Please respond with the most generous gift you can! Run, don’t walk, to your mailbox. Better yet, give online!”
• As a result, we train donors to give to disasters. Urgency, it seems, sells even better than “complimentary” address labels.
• When a big disaster like Haiti hits, donors trained (by us) to give to disasters give to the big disaster.
• As they do so, they sometimes leave out giving to the monthly “micro-disaster” letter from the charities whose “micro-disasters” they respond to intermittently…at least until we can convince them that our “micro-disaster” is once again more disastrous than what’s happening in the big disaster to which they previously diverted their giving.

There are three typical responses that normally crop up among nonprofits seeking to raise money for their cause in the midst of a disaster.

1. For a brief time, tell your donors to give to Haiti instead of giving to you. For the Haiti version of this, please refer to Haslam, Bill.
2. Try to explain your cause in terms of Haiti, working on the idea that if donors gave to Haiti, you can build on that by describing your own cause as similar to what’s happening there. No less a luminary than Bill Gates tried this one in his annual Gates Foundation letter.
3. Open with a compassionate mention of Haiti and then, as tactfully as possible, note that your organization still has needs, too, and would sure appreciate you remembering our light bill in your monthly giving. This is a variant on the strategy that nonprofits have been employing throughout the recession, i.e., “I know a lot of you reading this letter are out of work, and I want you to know that we’re praying for you: praying that you don’t cut us out of your monthly budget even if it means sending in money from your unemployment check.”

The problem with all three approaches is that they turn on two basic premises, both of which are fallacious, namely:

1. Money is scarce.
2. The only way donors give is if the need is urgent.

In other words, because money is scarce I should instruct you not to give to me so that you can give to Haiti. Because donors only give when the need is urgent, I need to prove to you that my need is significant, too. And because money is scarce and my need is significant, too, it’s not in bad taste for me to sigh for a minute about Haiti before putting the full court press on you to remember how badly we need your money in our corner of the world, too.

So if you are a nonprofit and you suspect your donations are down due to the Haiti disaster, what should you do?

1. Don’t–just don’t–write your donors and draw comparisons between the disaster in Haiti and the disaster your cause addresses. Never ever contemplate writing a letter that says, “It is a terrible tragedy that 200,000 people may be dead in Haiti due to the earthquake, but did you know that that number pales in comparison to the number of people who will die this year because of [insert your cause here] unless we do something today?” Even if that approach doesn’t backfire on you, it should. The deaths of 200,000 human beings should never be invoked as a means to any end.
2. Do accept the drop in your donation income as a sign that one sows what one reaps. If one motivates one’s donors through a micro-disaster-of-the-month-club approach, one must accept that when a bigger disaster comes along, your micro-disaster will be trumped that month.
3. Commit to a fundraising approach that recognizes that donors can–and should–be giving to a comprehensive range of causes. Encourage that with more than lip service. Provide resources (like Alan Gotthardt’s Eternity Portfolio) that enable your donors to learn to grow in their giving maturity, not just in their gross giving to your cause.
4. Don’t focus on sharing the desperate needs of your organization with your donors. Organizational desperation doesn’t motivate donors any more; in fact, if they smell death, they will move on and away from you as discretely as possible. Instead, continue to provide donors with meaningful opportunities for involvement with the cause about which both you and they care. Settle in your own mind that people can and do (and should) care about more than one cause, and reaffirming the comparative importance of the one you’re involved in is far less important (and dignified) than continuing to provide customized, personalized opportunities for donors to build on the important work they’ve already begun with you.
5. Convey your genuine interest in Haiti by being genuinely knowledgeable about the subject and transparent in your own response to the disaster. (You did respond…didn’t you?) If you are comprehensively involved in a wide range of causes other than your own (which you should be), your care and compassion will come across as a whole lot more compelling than if you have no idea what’s going on in Haiti and didn’t respond to the disaster at all. The best picture your donors will ever get of being appropriately involved in more than one cause…is you.

This won’t immediately refill your nonprofit’s coffers, but sometimes that’s good. Even more important than full coffers today is a fundraising strategy that is mature and steady and sustainable over time…one that enables your donors and you to care about all the causes about which we as human beings should care…not just the one we get paid to care about.

Kudos to the Los Angeles Mission for their video, 5 Ways To Help The Homeless. It’s a great example of how nonprofit ministries and missionaries can and should use video to coach champions in the cause rather than promoting their own ministry through tear jerking videos.

I encourage you to take a minute to watch the video. Here’s what I think is particularly well done:

1. The video doesn’t take place at the mission. It doesn’t feature sad, exaggerated images of homeless people that portray them as objects of pity. Rather, it shows homeless people where champions normally encounter them in LA, namely, on freeway offramps and panhandling on the street. It is so essential in champion coaching videos to depict where champions normally encounter the cause…not where you do (i.e., your building).
2. The video depicts other champions talking about the cause–their questions, insights, and experiences. Other champions are rarely seen in most nonprofit/missionary videos. Instead, what we get are shots of “the need”, “the solution”, “the testimony”, etc.
3. The video positions the champion as the actor (i.e., the one responsible to help the homeless) and the mission as an optional platform for collective action for interested champions. That is, the video doesn’t say that to help the homeless you should support the mission. Instead, it shows how you, the champion, can help the homeless through your own direct action, which can be enhanced by drawing on the mission’s experience, location, and resources. In the video, the mission is resourcing you, whether or not you choose to resource it.
4. The video gives champions something to do other than pray ‘n’ give, that classic pair. Pleasantly, when praying and giving are mentioned, the mission is not depicted as the recipient of either but rather as the platform for you to impact the cause directly. Note, for example, that you are given suggestions about how to pray for homeless people.
5. There is a homeless person in the video who is portrayed as an authority, rather than as an object of pity. Praise God. Rarely do I see nonprofit/missionary videos where the intended recipients of help are portrayed as wise, knowledgeable authorities worth listening to.

There are a few things the video lacks that would be nice additions, most particularly mention of what the Bible calls Christians (or, should the mission be seeking to reach a broader audience, people of faith in general) to do relative to the poor. A list of scriptures for further study would be great, as would an explicit invitation for champions to email their questions about helping the homeless.

I watched the other six videos the Los Angeles Mission has posted on their Vimeo site. Disappointingly, they’re all examples of traditional transactional fundraising rather than coaching champions. I hope the mission will make more videos like 5 Ways and less like their year-end message, which could be a traditional transactional fundraising year-end message for any charity with a little cut-and-paste action to change the organization’s name and swap in different tear-jerking footage.