World Hunger and Poverty

The Problem

It’s very easy to confuse philanthropy with ‘giving away stuff you don’t want.’ This is so much the case that it’s become something of a comedy staple. There’s an early South Park episode called ‘Starvin’ Marvin’ where the boys have to donate to a pledge drive for starving children in Africa, the whole enterprise fails pretty quickly as the only thing that arrives at school to be air freighted over is a small stack of creamed corn, a food that pretty much no-one in their right mind would want to eat and so processed and nutritionally bereft that it would almost certainly do as least as much harm as good. This type of thinking is present when you robotically dump your change into whatever charity coinbox is present at the counter, without checking to see which cause you’re donating to. This isn’t the worst crime in the world but it is a particular symptom of Western privilege – that compassion is only afforded when it is eminently affordable, when it is in fact costs the giver nothing at all. You might argue that “at least I’m giving something. Every little donation helps, right?” Well, yes and no. Sure the small change unthinkingly given by one hundred people will help a cancer charity, but it depends entirely on the quality of their annual reporting and accounts management as to specifically where that money goes. If a charity is poor at handling its accounts, your donation could be paying for stationary. Or somebody’s bonus. And that’s fine, but don’t expect to be called a philanthropist because of it. This is the moment where your money becomes creamed corn – it exists but it is utterly insubstantial, it feeds but it cannot sustain. And with just a little forethought, we can all do better.

So how do you give mindfully?

Giving meaningfully to charitable causes boils down to three key principles:

• Identifying need

• Giving Smart

• Evaluation

 Identifying Need

The first step is to give up mindless giving. Pledge that you will not reach into your pocket or dusty food cupboard purely in order to dispel guilt. Instead, know that you’re going to give something, be it money, time or goods to a charity which you believe in and concentrate your resources on finding the causes that you’re passionate about. This is an ideal opportunity to support smaller charities who don’t have the promotional resources of behemoths like Amnesty International or Oxfam. An important part of identifying need is also to evaluate what kind of help would most benefit your chosen cause.

 Giving Smart

It might be the case that you don’t have a lot of money to spare, but consider the other ways in which you can give. Perhaps you have professional expertise that would prove useful in a volunteer capacity – you might be a skilled events organiser, a gifted web developer, a facility with a white van or just have an excellent soup ladling arm. Smaller non-profits and charities are often crying out for the kind of skills you take for granted and if you are able to donate even a small but consistent amount of your time, the value of your work will be so much higher than emptying your pocket change into a plastic bucket. It can also help you gain valuable experience and even lead to an opportunity to explore charity jobs as a paid career option. Equally, if you’re time poor but cash rich, you can source the most deserving charity by looking at a site like New Philanthropy Capital in order to analyse which place your money would be best utilised. If you earn enough to pay taxes, make sure to declare your charitable gift on your tax return so that the charity can reclaim the basic tax rate.

 Evaluation

This applies to situations where you are donating goods rather than cash or services. When it comes to donating items like food, toiletries and clothing, it’s important to take a step back and evaluate what would be most useful to your given charity rather than just ridding yourself of useless tat. For instance, a lot of food shelters have websites where they list the food and personal items that are running particularly short. Always make sure to research a particular organisation so that you’re offering the most relevant help. It often surprises people that camping equipment is in high demand – unwanted tents and sleeping bags can make a real and tangible difference to a homeless person’s quality of life.

So there you have it. Go forth and give, but give mindfully. Leave the creamed corn in the cupboard, the world will thank you for it.

Neil Golman writes about Third Sector jobs, philanthropy and working for not-for-profits. 

I recently received an email from David Orr of the World Food Programme about a refugee

camp at Dadaab in Kenya that he just visited. Here’s an excerpt:

I’ve talked to some of the newly-arrived families at Dadaab. I’ve seen and heard about their suffering, how they have lost their crops and their animals.

Many stories are similar to that of Adan Kulo, who watched his livestock starve to death. “I realized my family would soon follow,” he says. He took his pregnant wife and children on a grueling three-week journey through the desert to Dadaab. They were robbed by bandits; food ran out; one child fell ill and his parents feared for his life.

Within hours of arrival at the camp, Adan received 21 days’ worth of food from the World Food Programme. “Now that we have food,” he says, “I’m looking for a spot where I can build a shelter for my family.”

WFP is the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger. They are 100% voluntarily funded, which means they rely on donors’ generosity to expand their operations.

Chris Sorbi recently contacted me about his Transcontinental Humanitarian Expedition. He’s going around the world on his motorcycle to raise awareness about world hunger. He travels around on his motorcycle while also posting updates about his expedition and about hunger in general.

I love the idea! First of all, I think motorcycles are cool. More importantly, it’s working. He gets press coverage, and he’s on the ground talking to people personally about these issues. I bet he has inspired lots of people to donate and get more involved.

I have read through quite a bit of his website and subscribed to his feed. His passionate shows in his writing.

I really like that Chris understands and stresses that the problem stems from social and political issues not a lack of food or global wealth. For instance, on his mission page he wrote, “Although our planet produces twice the amount of food needed to feed its population, we still have a crisis in every developing, and under-developed country.”

On his most recent post, he made a great point by showing how little attention the world’s biggest killer, world hunger, gets compared to other problems that kill significantly less people:

Sadly, I think it will be a long time before politicians finish spending their time doing favors for special interests instead of actually helping fix the fixable problem of world hunger, the world’s number 1 killer.

Luckily we have folks like Chris.

I was recently contacted by a person named Abby from the World Food Programme, which is the food aid branch of the United Nations and the world’s largest humanitarian organization.

Abby informed me that this year the number of chronically hungry people will reach 1 billion and at the same time the number of internet users will also reach 1 billion. The first fact of course saddens me. But the second fact brings up hope of a way to organize folks, raise awareness and take action to fight world hunger and poverty. To that end, WFP has created a web-page about using the power of the internet and online social networking in fighting world hunger: http://wfp.org/1billion

She also shared with me this clever video about their project:

You can post your comments on that video in this thread at our forums. You can also use our forums to post other videos about world hunger and poverty.

I found some cool t-shirts made by a company called Junk Food about poverty. All these shirts say “end poverty” on them. I think this is a great way to raise awareness about poverty. Check them out:

The first is a lady’s medium. The second is a man’s extra large. The third is available in all men’s sizes.

If you know of any other online retailers selling poverty-themed shirts, please tell us about them by making a post about them in our forums.

Our t-shirt contest is now over. Congratulations to LJEsposito, ScotHTH, and Macrocompassion who will each receive a free t-shirt from the Moju Project!

Nonetheless, the discussion of how a large sum of money could be spent to alleviate poverty is valuable regardless of it being a contest. So even though the contest is over, if you have not answered the question yet, please tell us how you would reduce poverty with $10 million.

Later today I will post my answer to the question.

A nice gentleman named Gerrid from the Moju Project recently contacted me to tell me about the project. It’s simple: A portion of the proceeds from anything bought off their website goes towards saving lives. Every t-shirt they sell feeds an orphan one hot meal daily for a month in Africa.

I like the t-shirts. I think they all would be great to wear, especially knowing that purchasing the shirt helped alleviate world hunger.

Gerrid sent me a free t-shirt. I picked out the African Bowl T-Shirt. Check out this picture of it from their website:

Gerrid also offered to give away three t-shirts to readers of this blog with a fun contest. It does not cost you anything to enter. All you have to do is post your answer to this question: If you were given $10,000,000 and all the money must be spent to reduce poverty and hunger, how would you spend the money?

Please post your answers to that question in this thread at the forums. I will choose my three favorite answers on Monday the 22^nd, and those three people will receive a free t-shirt.

What a great way to raise awareness about world hunger, win free stuff and have fun!

Tell your friends about this cool contest!

And remember, post your answer to the question in this thread for your chance to win!

On Sunday, May 4th, I will be volunteering at Foodshare’s Walk Against Hunger. If you will be in Connecticut and could make it to the walk site in Hartford, then please do. If you want to go and volunteer with me, just tell me as soon as you can. (You can contact me by email at scott@scotthughes.biz.) Alternatively, you can get more information from Foodshare directly:

http://foodshare.org

I think you can still sign up as a walker. If you think you might want to walk, go to the Foodshare website at foodshare.org.

Walk Date:
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Check-in 1:00, Walk Start 2:00

Walk Site:
The Hartford
690 Asylum Avenue, Hartford

If you do not live in Connecticut, then consider forming a local volunteer group in your local community.

A new YouTube channel allows users to submit videos about world hunger for a contest by the United Nations World Food Programme. They call the contest Hunger Bytes. The WFP will choose 5 finalists, and the video that gets the most views will win a trip for two to a WFP hunger relief project.

I like the idea. It will do a lot to raise awareness and spark action about world hunger and poverty. Users will make many viral videos that will educate the public about world hunger and will call people to action about these issues.

I just found an article that Kathryn McConnell wrote in October about Crop Hunger Walks in 2007.

Church World Service sponsors these walks. Like most charity walks and marathons, walkers get donations from people for walking. Of course, the walks themselves become major local events, which raises awareness about world hunger and poverty. People who hear about the event or attend may also donate. Additionally, raising awareness will spark action.

According to CWS, over 2,000 of these CROP Hunger Walks will have taken place in 2007. I assume that number does not include other types of charity marathons for world hunger or poverty.

I commend both the people who participate in these types of events as well as those who organize them. I hope they raise a lot of funds for the fight against world hunger. I also hope that they enjoy themselves and feel good.

If you know of any upcoming world hunger walks or marathons, or if you want to organize one, come tell us about it in the Hunger and Poverty Forums. It’s completely free, and all viewpoints are welcome.