Do yourself a favor and pick up Peter Singer’s new book: The Life You Can Save.
Singer outlines a disturbing paradox: Each day over 27,000 children die around the world. Another one billion people are living on less than $1 day. And just a few dollars could change a life and even save a life. Yet, despite this suffering we don’t give. Instead, we spend our extra dollars on lattes, bottled water, expensive jeans, luxury cars and other items. As Singer notes: “We wouldn’t hesitate to save a drowning child, yet while thousands of children die each day we spend money on things we hardly notice if they were not there”.
In fact, Americans do give. Last year over $300B were donated to charities, with individual giving far outweighing the dollars provided by foundations and corporations. But, Singer is correct that we give relatively small amounts of foreign aid to help the world’s poor, with only 4.3% of all donations going to international aid. As Singer notes, the US is second to last among industrialized nations (only ahead of Greece) in giving foreign aid (as a percentage of National Income).
Why don’t we give more foreign aid? Singer outlines a number of factors: Some of them are more obvious. For instance, there is the issue of parochialism. He notes how Americans gave $1.5B in support of the 220,000 people that lost their lives in the 2004 Tsunami in Southeast Asia, and yet donated $6.5B as part of the Katrina efforts which killed 1,600 people. He also notes that people can have a sense of futility (i.e., the problem is too big to solve) or diffused sense of responsibility (i.e., someone else will solve the issue).
Perhaps most interesting is the “identifiable victim effect". As Mother Theresa once said: “If I look at a mass I will never act. If I look at one, I will”. Singer provides a clear example of this effect in action when the country, in 1987, was riveted by the case of Jessica McClure, a 18 month old girl that fell into a dry well in Midland Texas. During the 2.5 days it took to get here out, the intense drama and media coverage resulted in a million dollar plus trust fund for Jessica. Yet, “elsewhere in the world, unnoticed by the media and not helped by the money donated to Jessica, about 67,650 died from avoidable poverty related causes during those 2.5 days”.
Now this is a complicated issue with additional nuance. For instance, William Easterly often points out that much of our foreign aid does little good (i.e., corrupt foreign government officials will often siphon the money into their personal accounts, etc.).
The answers to this paradox are not readily clear and way beyond the scope of this post. However, emerging platforms and charities might consider implementing a number of elements to help start a process by which American's skip the latte's and save more lives:
1) Make the impact of the donation clear through stories, pictures, and personal accounts. Kiva and DonorsChoose have shown that people are willing to give (and or lend) in small amounts. Yet in those examples, the benefit and impact of my loan is quite clear. I see who is getting the loan. I can track progress. I receive updates. However, it is not so clear the impact I am making with a small donation to the thousands of charities that support the eradication of poverty in the developing world. What percentage of my money actually supports a program (versus administrative costs). What specific impact did my dollars make? Why am I going to donate money, even in small amounts, if it is not clear the impact I am making. Charities need to find a way to provide their donors with this transparency, to the degree possible.
2) Provide personal validation. Why do so many people like to see a record of their giving? Or wear a wristband from their charity of choice (i.e., Livestrong yellow wristband). Because we like to tell the world that we care.
3) Support multiple channels of giving. We have moved beyond the era of cash, checks and credit cards. Text to give programs (or Twitter to give) efficiently facilitate small donations. Programs like eScrip allow contributions to occur from purchases. New channels are quickly emerging.
4) Be transparent about how donations will be spent. Donors recognize that salaries and other support costs must be paid. Yet, they also want to know that 70%+ of the funds are going directly to support the programs that provide the specific goods and services.
Other ideas?
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