The act of giving is innately set within human nature, and thus when others are in need, philanthropy is an act many turn to in order to help those who need certain resources to obtain them. Yet, often in our communities, philanthropic organizations have almost adopted the idea that giving back and helping those in need is a social responsibility, and the empathy and sentiments behind the true purpose of giving back are lost. Noor Quek, founder of NQ International in Singapore, said “[g]iving back to society tends to be treated like a business” (Q. and A.: The Differences Between Philanthropy in the West and the East). At the end of the day, we all want our philanthropic acts to significantly benefit others and improve the quality of their lives. It can be a challenge to decide which organizations to support in order to have this desired impact. Would a national organization be more effective because of its ability to distribute resources to a wider range of people, or would a local organization know its community and its individualistic needs better? This fundamentally becomes an issue of prioritizing quality over quantity: should we focus more on drastically improving the quality of a smaller group of people, or reaching a large number of people but decrease the amount of resources available per individual?
In class, we discussed and compared six different organizations set out to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey in 2017, and subsequently had to choose which ones we wanted to give our donations to. Out of the six different disaster relief programs, Give Directly received the most donations. The reasoning was that donations given to this organization went, quite literally, directly to the people affected by the disaster, who would know their own individualistic needs better than anyone else and therefore would have the greatest impact. Meanwhile, a national organization such as Red Cross received a comparatively lesser amount of donations because the distribution of donations was ambiguous and not fully transparent.
The trend that remained consistent within these philanthropic acts was that quality was always preferred over quantity. In other words, people would rather have a greater impact on a smaller group of individuals rather than make a lesser impact on individual lives amongst a bigger crowd. There is, however, compelling and indisputable evidence behind this rationale. The American Red Cross, a national organization, in response to the damages caused by Hurricane Harvey, reported it had “$429 million raised to help victims” and claimed it had distributed a countless amount of emergency funds to households. Yet, the organization received a significant amount of criticism from Texas officials who declared that “Harvey relief was not getting into the hands of the people who need it” (Red Cross faces criticism over Hurricane Harvey relief distribution). People who had been living in over three feet of water which flooded their neighborhood received close to nothing and were unable to substantially recover from the damages. Meanwhile, a local organization, such as the Greater Houston Community Foundation, was able to concentrate its funds and donations on a smaller area and had a greater effect on the victims of flooding and homelessness, enabling a Youth Homelessness Fund which directly provided a “design and implementation of a community plan to address youth homelessness” (Greater Houston Community Foundation). This goes to show that bigger is not always better, and perhaps completely rebuilding a house and preparing people for future disasters for a few local families might have a considerably larger footprint than handing out a hundred dollars to a couple hundred families.
Ultimately, we all want our philanthropy to be the most beneficial it can be, and can only hope that our efforts pay off by truly helping people in the ways that they need. It may seem like the opposite way to go, but perhaps we need to start small, and personally connect with individuals in a small community to help them in a way truly beneficial for them, before we try to reach a bigger scale of people; perhaps we need to start prioritizing quality before striving for quantity.
-- Srija Roy
Hi Srija, giving to smaller more local organizations appears to be a trend in our class! I agree with your perspective and believe giving on a smaller scale as you described is effective and rewarding because the direct impact of the gift can be seen more clearly. Last week we decided to give to a local organization as opposed to an international organization for similar reasons.
ReplyDeleteThe United States is nowhere near perfect and philanthropy is undoubtedly helpful for addressing a whole host of problems facing our country. However, parts of the world are facing much more unpleasant circumstances and could arguably benefit from philanthropy more so than the US. Although it would be difficult to build relationships with community members from distant countries, would you be opposed to giving to an organization that focuses on a specific community or family if it is located abroad?
For example, the Cambodian Children’s Fund focuses its efforts at the community level and allows for donors to sponsor a student’s education. They help families in a holistic way and have educated many children who would not have had access to education otherwise. In this case the organization can be seen as having both quality and quantity because it is currently serving over 1,500 children and has proven to be effective by sending students to college once they complete the program. I believe this organization is not unique in its ability to do both at the same time, and we may not always need to choose between helping many people or making a quality impact. In a utilitarian sense, prioritizing a maximal impact for the largest number of people could be another perspective on giving.
Here is the CCF's website if you're interested in their work: https://www.cambodianchildrensfund.org/
Hi Sophia, after reading your comment, I wanted to try and examine why our class tends to give to or support more localized organizations rather than global projects. I'm trying to understand why this is a trend and, going off of that, what the implications of this are:
Delete1. Giving to more local organizations gives a more personal feedback to those who we are helping as well as ourselves. We are not only able to help individuals in a more impactful way, but many organizations now provide ways to actually track your money. I don't want to sound too cynical, but I think that part of the reason that we are drawn to practices like this is that many people do not do philanthropy solely out of altruism, but also to feel better about themselves. And, if one can track exactly what they are doing, it's more quantifiable and thus more satisfying.
2. While all the readings we have done have pointed to the importance of community building and knowing the issues firsthand (Scanning the Landscape...), it is also imperative to understand the structural issues that are at work within the greater society. It is a common sentiment that all change is made on an individual level, however, without a broad scope, comprehensive progress may not be possible.
I completely agree with your address to the prominence of hardships outside of the U.S, and I share your fear in the ease of people to turn away from global initiatives due to the difficulty in making genuine connections. So I hope that these points help others to make important decisions, and to not always opt for the easier solution, that yields the most visible results, but rather the one that has the greatest impact.