Do the Word

There is, of course, that old joke about the flea who rode on the elephant’s back across the bridge. On the other side, the flea shouts, “Wow, we really shook that bridge!”

The Millenial Generation is about to cross the bridge. Technology permits them to choose whether they will be the flea or the elephant.

Meet the (very endearing) flea:

Sites like wearewhatwedo.org and movements like slacktivism claim that (in the words of the We Are What We Do folks):

Small actions x Lots of people = Big change

For slacktivists, “click actions”–signing or forwarding an e-petition, for example, or become a fan of a charitable cause via Facebook–are the small actions of choice. In the words of The Extraordinaries‘ Jacob Colker:

[Millennials] are used to text messaging, MySpace, Facebook, get-in, get-out, instant gratification. For them, going out and cleaning up a park — that’s not necessarily attractive to them…

If you’ve hung with this blog for a while, you know that I am about as big a fan of participation projects as they come. In fact, they’re absolutely foundational to Transformational Giving, and no small amount of our Coach Your Champions book is dedicated to the topic. If it’s short-term, high-touch, high-yield, and understandable without external reference, chances are I’m all over it…

…Almost.

Here’s the rub:

We are on the verge of forgetting the most important characteristic of a great participation project, namely:

The project must never enable participants to find fulfillment within its boundaries but must instead open our eyes to something far grander that, once we see it, we find ourselves completely swept into it.

There must, in other words, be an E (engagement, comprehensively, with the broader cause) in your P (participation project) in order for small actions x lots of people = big change.

To stick with the math theme, P + P + P + P + P just don’t equal E.

In English, that means that lots of people participating in small actions doesn’t equal lots of people comprehensively engaged with the cause on a level capable of generating substantive change. You can text WESHALLOVERCUM to 82232 on your Verizon Wireless cell phone all day long and you’ll still never get a Selma to Montgomery march with police dogs, firehoses, and a whole country rethinking its social compact.

This is apparent on the We Are What We Do site itself, where three columns purport to show the direct relationship between small actions (left column), lots of people (middle column), and big change (right column):

• In the left hand column on the page, Small Actions, you’ll see directives like “Make someone smile”, “Make coffee for someone busier than you”, and “Don’t job someone by the job you do”.
• In the middle column on the page, Lots of People, you’ll actually see the number of people who have done each of the directives. Can’t get any more quantified than that!
• Where the problem comes is the right hand column, Big Change. Even though the left hand column says “Bake something for a friend“, and even though the middle column might note that the action has been completed 21,818 times, the right hand column can’t quite figure out the Big Change that derived from all that baking. Instead the right hand column lists job openings, media coverage of the site, and book releases. That’s because P + P + P + P may result in an awful lot of gingerbread entering our friends’ larders, but it falls well short of reducing lawsuits, curbing world hunger, increasing social capital, or effecting Big Change.

Millenials have latched on to something truly insightful: Participation projects–even “click actions”–can draw new legions into involvement with major social problems for the first time.

But we should never lose sight of the reality that even the best participation projects are fleas riding on the backs of causal elephants. The problem with becoming a Facebook fan or a slacktivist or an Extraordinary is that too often these actions sate our appetites to go deeper, rather than intensifying them.

Sadly, I scored 100% on Charity Navigator’s Back To School Quiz, posted today on the nonprofit watchdog’s website.  Today’s post is my repentance.

Now, let me be clear. I like Charity Navigator in general and the premise of the quiz in particular:

As the new school year gets underway, the first item on every teacher’s agenda is to determine what knowledge his/her students have retained over the summer. This inspired our staff to create a short, 12 question quiz to assess your nonprofit aptitude. Our nonprofit test will reveal whether you’re ready to move to the front of the class or if you could use a refresher course.

The quiz is nicely designed. After you answer each question, you get a little lecture explaining why you were right or wrong. And if you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you know that CN’s biases not infrequently match my own, and I typically defend them against most comers (e.g., see here and here).

My problem came on Question 5 of the Back To School Quiz.

I knew what answer Charity Navigator wanted. And I knew that I could not in good conscience give that answer.

As you might expect, my convictions caved like a tower of Jell-O in the face of my desire just to ace the test.

Ergo, this repentant blog.

Question 5 asks, innocently enough:

The best way to help after a major disaster (like Hurricane Katrina or the Myanmar Cyclone), when people desperately require the basic necessities such as food, water, and clothing is to:

____donate money to a vetted charity

____box up and send your old clothing

____purchase and send nonperishable items like bottled water

The answer Charity Navigator wants you to pick, of course, is the first option: donate money to a vetted charity. And because I have no cajones and still maintain my schoolboy competitiveness, I selected that option and was rewarded with the happy green checkmark and the following explanation:

Correct.

After a hurricane, earthquake, tsunami, tornado, and other natural disasters, we’re often bombarded with images of people in dire need of food and water. [Snide editor’s note: It is of course the vetted charities that bombard us with those images. But I digress. I have no moral standing to make this snide observation, since I cast my principles to the wind and opted for the green checkmark and the ten points.] It is hard to fault anyone who wants to send such items to the afflicted region. But this simple type of philanthropy is not practical or efficient. Right after a disaster, there is no one to receive these goods, much less organize them and distribute them to the victims. Furthermore, charities are often able to partner with companies to acquire in-kind donations such as bottled water and new clothing.

So, instead of  buying things like canned food and diapers, the best way to help is by simply donating money to a highly-rated relief charity. Instead of boxing up and sending your old clothing, have a garage sale and turn your used goods into cash and donate that to a worthy charity. And if possible, make your contribution online so that the charities quickly receive and put your donation to good use.

Oh dear.

In Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working And How There Is A Better Way For Africa, Dambisa Moyo notes:

(N)ine months after the 2004 Asian tsunami, for whatever the reason (bureaucracy, institutional inefficiencies or the absence of suitable organizations on the ground to disburse the monies), the charity World Vision had spent less than a quarter of the US $100 million it had raised.

As regards charities partnering with companies to acquire in-kind donations such as bottled water and new clothing, the phrase reminded me of a great dinner conversation I had a few weeks back with a couple of colleagues who had operated a key warehouse for one of the highly-regarded (vetted) disaster relief charities in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. They told funny-if-they-weren’t-so-sad stories about the literal truckloads of Spanish language romance novels and truck-size pairs of Dickies jeans that came as in-kind donations from corporate partners.

Oops.

So what’s the answer? Boxing up old clothes? Purchasing and mailing bottled water?

According to a report issued last month on the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the answer is a surprising and direct refutation to the Charity Navigator notion that “(r)ight after a disaster, there is no one to receive these goods, much less organize them and distribute them to the victims.”

The conclusion of this year’s Disaster Accountability Project report is that the US remains “dangerously unprepared” for the next catastrophic storm–and not because donors aren’t channeling enough money to highly-regarded, worthy, vetted charities.

Instead, a key reason why is that a major element of disaster response capacity is overlooked; namely, the small, local volunteer-based organizations, from churches to food pantries to community centers to homeless shelters, already on the ground and ready to receive, organize, and distribute–knowledgeably–critical relief supplies to the areas they’ve already been serving for years.

The critical role of local organizations and their ability to reach community members in need cannot be ignored. While these small nonprofits and faith-based organizations do not have the resources for national public service announcements and billion dollar fundraising campaigns, they need access to some of the donated dollars that flow into the coffers of larger organizations able to broadcast commercials across the country. FEMA might consider exploring ways that donated dollars can be split proportionally or that even a small percentage (5-10%) can be used to support the important work of local organizations.

The correct answer to Question 5, in other words, has been crowded off the screen  in exactly the same way the correct answer is crowded out of the disaster relief solution by all the worthy, highly-regarded, vetted relief orgs.

The correct answer is that the future belongs to small, dare I say even unincorporated, ministries sprawling with volunteers connecting with individuals and other small, unincorporated ministries, all discipled to serve in their sphere of influence before, during, and after whatever hurricanes come their way.

I was reading one of my favorite marketing blogs the other day, Seth’s Blog, and as usual, it didn’t disappoint. His observations on “Enormity” dovetailed nicely with a post Eric made a couple weeks ago.

There is no doubt in my mind that enormity is …dare I say it… the biggest problem facing us today. Consider the following:

• Our politicians are able to run up massive debt because of “Enormity.” We stopped talking about real numbers for most of us after $1 million. Our eyes start glassing over once it gets past 9 zeros; we get despondent when faced with the 12 zeroes that make up $1 trillion.  We disengage. “Enormity” wins.

• Look at how we talk about the “Enormity” of AIDS in Africa – “Each day, 6,000 Africans die from AIDS and an additional 11,000 are infected.” {Lester R. Brown, HIV Epidemic Restructuring Africa’s Population, World Watch Issue Alert, 31 October 2000 }. 6,000 each day?! That’s 250 an hour. We don’t even see that many deaths in an entire season of Law and Order – there’s no way the average American can relate.

• We’re told, “15 million children die of hunger each year.” Most of us don’t want to think about a child dying; the stark horror of this fact leaves us feeling impotent. In the end, we often keep the need at arm’s length so we don’t have to deal with it.

As ministries, we fall victim to trying to spread our “vision” by showing people the enormity of need. We reason “If only they understood the need like I do, they’d share my vision, open their wallets and fund my ministry,” and then scratch our heads and wonder what happened as they seem to exhibit cold indifference.

Yes, the facts are accurate, but along the way we overwhelm people with the enormity of the challenge. As a result we don’t just get averted eyes, we get callousness, as Eric rightly pointed out.  And it’s not callousness because people are just cruel or want to be left alone – we’ve given them such a huge problem there is no way they can deal with it. Caring less becomes a coping mechanism almost out of necessity.

But when you break things down into more manageable chunks, suddenly the enormity of the situation doesn’t seem so daunting.

Think about the daunting challenge facing an alcoholic looking to be freed from his addition. He can’t hope to recover it all at once; the enormity of the challenge is best dealt with “one day at a time.”

This is why KIVA is doing well…and why I turn the channel whenever I see Larry Jones or Christian Children’s Fund come on the air.

At KIVA, I have an opportunity to address any number of the enormous problems one small project at a time. I don’t NEED to know exactly how many children die each year from hunger…I’m aware of the need.  What I really want is a way to do whatever I can to make a difference, a way to join the cause. And I want to see that I’m making a difference now, not “someday.”  If I keep hearing that we still have 15 million kids dying each year after I’ve been “doing my part” I will withdraw and try to find a different way to accomplish something.

Thomas Aquinas warned teachers not to dig a ditch in front of a student and fail to fill it in. “To nearly raise doubts, and to ever seek and never find is to be in opposition to education and progress.”  And yet, too often that’s what we do with our donors. We dig a ditch with our facts as we present the need to them, hoping that “Enormity” will make them want cross it and join “the cause.” Is it any wonder why we get averted eyes or “uncaring” people?  We forgotten our responsibility to fill the ditch in by inviting them to participate and own just a little bit of the cause…and make an immediate impact one day at a time.

When you stop and think about it, this is exactly the same steps our Heavenly Father does with us through that amazing process called “Sanctification.” Like Isaiah, I’m overwhelmed – undone – with the enormity of how evil my heart really is when I’m confronted by the Holy One. I can’t ever hope to fix it. And yet God, in His amazing wisdom and grace, doesn’t just save us and then leave us to figure out the process on our own. He proceeds to transform us one day at a time into the likeness of His Son.  And He invites us to join Him in His cause – restoring the human heart, truly the most enormous challenge facing the world. And He does it on a small scale, one person – one heart – one day at a time.

This is a process we can model!

Matt is the Director of Ministry Development for Mission Increase Foundation.