Good Intentions Are Not Enough

What is an in-kind donation?

An in-kind donation is giving something besides money.

An in-kind donation could be donating goods, such as

• a store donating trash bags to a cleanup project,
• a restaurant donating food for a community event
• an individual donating their used clothes to the local thrift store.

An in-kind donation could also be donating your time or professional services. This could include

• regular volunteers at museums
• an accountant doing the taxes for a non-profit
• company staff helping to plant trees on company time.

Four reasons to NOT donate baby formula overseas

Back when I was working on the Navajo reservation a church group invited me to join them in putting together care packages for Thailand. Having worked in Thailand I was very skeptical of what they were sending over: baby bottles, formula, diapers and diaper pins. I'd never seen a rural Thai using any of those items and could imagine the Thais pulling them out of the box and wondering over them. I had assumed that they would simply be a useless donation. It was only later that I found out the well-intentioned donation was not only useless but also potentially harmful.

If you trust an aid agency enough to donate money, then trust them to decide how it is best spent

Far too often aid agencies have their hands tied with funds that are earmarked or otherwise limited in how it can be spent. This does far more harm than good as it prevents aid agencies from spending money on what they see as the most pressing needs.

This leads to over funding of "sexy" projects and underfunding of non "sexy" projects, it forces aid agencies to develop projects based on the latest trends rather than on the reality in the field. It diminishes cooperation and coordination in disaster relief efforts, and prevents aid agencies from meeting their own needs to ensure they continue to be a viable organization.

My advice to all donors is to take the time to evaluate an aid agency before donating. If you do not trust the aid agency to use your donation to the best of their ability, then it is best to simply not donate until you find one you do trust. Once you find an aid agency that you feel confident is well run and following best practices, then step back and allow that aid organization to use their professional judgment on how funds can help the most.

Related news and blog postings

This is a regular Sunday morning post, previous posts can be found under "current events". In this weekly posting, I provide links to the news articles and blogs related to development and disaster relief that I found most interesting during the week.

Before donating to a foreign disaster, verify whether international assistance is both needed and wanted

This is the first of a series of posts on things to consider about before donating to a foreign disaster to ensure that your donations do the good you intended. 

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When a disaster strikes and the news show images of people in need, its natural to want to donate. However, before giving it is important to understand that international assistance may not always be needed or welcomed by that country.

This may seem impossible, because there are pictures of the destruction all over the evening news along with stories of those still waiting to be helped. Unfortunately, media coverage can exaggerate or downplay the actual need. Some disasters get wall to wall media coverage, while other disasters or "complex emergencies" (such as civil war or genocide) are not as "sexy" or interesting to viewers and therefore may get very little coverage. Needless to say, disasters and other emergencies that receive lots of news coverage generally get far more money donated than those with little news coverage. In aid this is known as the "CNN effect". It's important to understand that just because a disaster has occurred and the news shows people still in need, does not mean that the local government and local aid agencies are not capable of reaching those in need or that they are not working as quickly as possible to do just that.

Related articles and posts

Returning to my regular Sunday morning post, previous posts can be found under "current events". In this posting I links to numerous news articles and blogs related to development and disaster relief that I found most interesting during the past three weeks. 

The importance of donating to local aid agencies after a disaster

Recently I saw an appeal on Twitter for donations to the Taiwan typhoon. The appeal was from Global Giving whose website states: "Global Giving connects donors with community based programs that need support". I have a few questions to ask Global Giving before I would be willing to endorse or donate to them (I would recommend you always consider these same questions before donating to any disaster, these questions will be the focus of my next posting), but I am all for community based programs and was happy to see that Global Giving may be able to direct funds to those local agencies.

Support local aid agencies whenever possible

Local and national aid agencies are in a great position to respond after a disaster but all too often lack the funding needed to respond adequately or to be a key player in the planning and coordination of the disaster response. Currently post-disaster funding is far more likely to go to international aid agencies with name recognition and user friendly English language websites. This funding differential leads to a myriad of problems for local aid agencies.