A potentially catastrophic global crisis looms. Famine threatens Somalia, South Sudan, Yemen and Nigeria — countries mired in conflict. Humanitarian agencies that ordinarily respond are strapped for cash to fund critical relief efforts, possibly due to failures of previous humanitarian efforts to demonstrate that donations went where intended.
Many have turned to their purchasing power in support of causes, from buying red noses at Walgreens to end child poverty, to Toms shoes so children in poor countries get a pair, too. However, as faculty in global health studies and anthropology at Northwestern University, I’ve seen firsthand the effects of well-intentioned purchasing choices and material donations. Those purchased products for a cause, and our donated goods — clothes, toys, shoes, kitchen items — have unintended consequences, in part because from afar, we don’t know what is actually useful, and because there’s something alluring to purchasing something for ourselves and knowing it helps someone else. The fact is, these purchases and material donations often do more harm than good.
Take material donations. In 1998, after Hurricane Mitch hit Honduras, planes were unable to land because unusable donated clothing littered the runway. After the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, donated clothing was burned on Indonesian beaches for lack of volunteers to sort it. And, after the December 2012 mass shooting in Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, people donated approximately 67,000 stuffed animals, as well as school supplies, sleds and clothes to comfort the children. The town had to rent a warehouse to store it all. Much of it had to be redistributed or thrown out.
Similar donation issues affect organizations locally. We often give nonperishable goods to local food banks. By simply donating the funds directly, food banks could purchase food wholesale, feeding more people. In so many cases, money goes farther than material donations.
In my many years of research, I’ve come across countless organizations doing excellent work, but struggling with good intentions from afar. Material donations compromise their ability to make the best use of resources.
Two particularly memorable cases from Tanzania come to mind. In the first, the director of a school teaching disabled teens marketable trades like welding, sewing and carpentry received a donated package from Canada. Inside the box were school supplies: pens and pencils, notebooks and crayons. The director balked at the tremendous waste of resources, despite the good intentions of those who gave. The box cost more than $60 in postage — money he could have put to much better use to support the students’ needs.
In the second example, a hospital director received four shipping containers of used medical equipment. While the Scandinavian sending organization spent thousands of dollars in shipping costs to get the containers to Tanzania, the receiving hospital was obliged to spend additional funds to rent trucks and a crane to get the containers off the cargo ship, onto trucks and transported the eight hour drive to the hospital. When the director opened the containers, they were filled with equipment irrelevant to their needs: heated maternity beds not useful in a tropical country, sheets and mattresses that were useful, but also locally available. Had this director received the funds outright, she could have bought more equipment actually relevant to the hospital.
When we give from the heart, we expect recipients to be grateful. Many are grateful for the sentiment, but nonetheless burdened by the outcome of our good intentions. Have you ever received a gift you didn’t want? It’s awkward.
Donating to those in need is not the same as giving a gift. People in need have specific needs. They can’t just take anything and make it work. Organizations serving them require the flexibility to be able to meet needs as they arise. That’s why monetary donations can be so powerful, even when they seem less personal.
To be sure, there is justifiable concern about misuse of funds we donate. Many donation efforts are more about marketing and branding than about meeting needs. But among those organizations that don’t meet local needs are even more doing amazing work. Some are large, some are small. We really can make a difference by thinking twice before putting postage on material stuff, and instead putting money we’d spend on postage directly into a local organization’s coffers. Ask your neighbors, members of your religious community and your social networks what organizations or initiatives are already doing good work. Organizations on the front lines of the emerging famine crisis need our help, but they also need us to think critically before providing it.
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The Right Way to Give originally appeared on usnews.com
