Simple Works of Charity

Fire of Liberty

Karen Woods, who is the director of the Acton Center for Effective Compassion, has a good piece over at National Review Online that notes that if you decide to give a gift of compassion to a local or national charity this Christmas, then you should make it your duty to find a charity that actually helps people who are starving, homeless or underclothed rather than one which wastes its money on paying its staff. If your a regular reader, you know that I've written extensively about how various groups like the federal government and world renowned charities actually seem to think that if they have bundles and bundles of cash in their hands they can spend the way out of the problem but when they start shelling the cash out, (after paying their staff, paying a high overhead) they discover that they end up creating larger problems within the community either by wasting their money in areas that are not germane to the problem at hand or merely creating greater sense of dependency in the minds of the folks needing help. Now when you compare them to the physically and economically smaller and more local charities, you discover that the smaller ones are providing the needed services to the real people in need. Woods clearly points this out in her piece when she points out that:

Good intentions are not enough. The most significant giving season of the year is no time to relent in our vigilance to avoid the unintended consequences of hurricane recovery (or in any other social need area either). From the smallest, personal kindness extended to an individual hurricane victim, to the most generous in-kind and cash donations of corporate America, due diligence remains important. Donors should do as much homework as they can, and use publicly available evaluation services like Charity Navigator. These services can tell you how to avoid a donation scam, or flag a charity that is less interested in helping the needy than helping themselves. Beyond balance sheets and metrics, individual donors will also want to make sure that the moral aims of a charity are in line with their own.

Look for groups that run lean. The Association of Gospel Rescue Missions has national coordinating offices in Kansas City. And when a member missions in New Orleans was wiped out and evacuees headed to Dallas and Houston and points west and north, AGRM coordinated the tremendous relief effort for the intact missions. And AGRM is taking absolutely no percentage, no cut whatsoever, for administrative costs. Every dollar donated goes to programming. Such is true for many small charities across the country.

So maybe when we think about making a contribution to charity, make sure we're very discerning in who we pick when choosing a charity. Now there's nothing wrong with giving your change or some paper money in the Salvation Army kettles whenever you can but you can do much better if you take the time to research these charities and pick out the one's that place more of their efforts and money towards delivering works to the folks in need. If we can do this, we can see a vast improvement on our ability to deliver charity in an effective and expedient manner rather. I suspect that the private, religious, small, and local charities have provided greater day to day help like food, clothing, shelter and education that what the vast bureaucracies of FEMA and the Red Cross can deliver. (The big groups do the heavy lifting but generally have too many obstacles and red tape in their way to be effective and on the spot.) So I guess that saying that all charity begins at home and in your community rings true even in the 21st Century. So donate wisely this Christmas and during the rest of the year, and have yourself a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.