The magazine Christianity Today included an article in the December 2017 edition that addresses how effective our giving might be. The author uses actual, observable facts and data from studies done in the United States and abroad about what happens when Christians here donate to the poor in various ways. I highly recommend it.
Before reading the article, I encourage you to make a clear distinction in your mind between what makes you feel good when you give and what actually makes a helpful difference in the lives of the recipients. You may think it obvious that the primary motivation must be the effectiveness of the gift and not the feelings of the giver. The truth is, much of our gifts to the oversees needy pleases us and harms them.
You know those eyeglasses, shoes, and clothes you collect, box, and ship to the oversees poor? They provide a short-term need among some of the poor but also harm the local optician, shoe sales store, and clothing store. Why should people pay for these things when they can get them free from America? Large amounts of emergency food aid is necessary after a major disaster. But, at other times it can actually have the undesired effect of forcing the local food stores out of business and preventing local food producers from selling their products.
The corollary here is the remarkable ignorance people in my country exhibit toward the rest of the world. Some will read the words above and think, “But, those people don’t have opticians, shoe stores, clothing stores, or food stores.” Of course they do, with rare exceptions.
When I taught at the largest public high school in my state, a group of students with faculty support solicited books to be donated to a certain west Africa country because they had no public libraries. When a student approached me at my lab bench at the front of the room to ask if I had books to give, I asked her, “What makes you think that country has no public libraries.” She actually responded, “Of course they don’t. They’re Africans.” I turned my laptop to face her, googled the public library system of that country, and showed her the dozens of branch libraries throughout the country. “Google can be wrong,” she said.
Similarly, the box of little toys for Christmas makes the donor feel good and delights the child who receives them. But it doesn’t make a difference in the child’s inability to afford the uniform required for school, to be able to sleep on something other than the dirt floor, or to get a meal every night. I hope you see the point: It’s the effectiveness of the gift in helping the poor take a step out of poverty that matters.
The most effective method turns out to be making direct cash grants of a hundred dollars or a few hundred. Most people oversees have the same smart phone you do and have an app that allows them to directly receive money and to spend it. The evidence is that money given this way oversees is virtually always used effectively and wisely by the recipient. Some of the most effective ministries (World Vision, for example) are now shifting to this method of helping the poor overseas.
Notice that I said “oversees.” In this country, the data shows that cash gifts handed to someone soliciting them by the traffic light on a corner are almost always misused. The article shares some reasons for this.
And, the generosity of even the poorest oversees generally outstrips the smidgen we give in this country. Because we earned it! It’s ours.
It’s a fine article and will shake up some misconceptions you may be harboring. Read it.