Good Intentions Are Not Enough

Interesting articles and posts - December 12 - 19

2009-12-20T04:15:00-07:00

Interesting articles and post from the past week

Study suggests orphanages are not so bad - New York Times - Recent study shows that orphanages may be not be as bad as previous studies show and may be as good as keeping children in the community if they are done right.

Making a Profit Off an Appeal for Nonprofits - New York Times - discusses how much money goes to the people that are paid to solicit funds for charities on street corners and in malls

Amaze Your Friends with these Nonprofit Factoids - Blue Avocado - Compiled information on work in nonprofits in the US.

Part 1 of 3: "I do not think it means what you think it means" Tales from the Hood - Discusses the fact that aid agencies need to become better at explaining their work to donors because currently donors have many mistaken ideas about aid

Part 2 of 3: "You can't handle the truth" - Tales from the Hood - The reason aid agencies aren't completely honest with donors may be because they worry about how they will handle the truth.

Linking aid to results: why are some development workers anxious? - Owen Abroad - Discusses a new concept being tested of paying for results rather than inputs

Some lessons from recent work with international NGOs that will also apply to national and local NGOs - Going International - Some good advice to keep in mind regardless of which types of charitable organizations you work with

Charities fake their numbers to look good - Money Watch - Looks at how aid agencies report their in-kind donations to make it appear that a greater percentage of their donations go to programs and not administration. Similar to this post from Aid Watch - Aid Watch Grinch Edition: Are we mean to ask that NGO ads not be simplistic and wrong

No Silver Bullets

2009-12-17T13:43:01-07:00

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During dinner with my brother last weekend our conversation turned to microfinance and the fact that it's not living up to it's original hype. In fact, rather than being a panacea to all problems, people receiving microloans face many of the same problems we face with credit cards. High interest rates, using one card to pay off another, using borrowed money to pay for things that are not actually necessities. It is starting to appear that it may be better to offer other financial services such as savings accounts and insurance instead of, or in conjunction with, loans. For more on this see David Roodman's Blog, GiveWell's series on microfinance, and the Good Practice Guidelines for Funders of Microfinance

My brother, a regular donor to local and international charities, is like so many other donors. He wants to ensure that his donation does the good he intends. As we left the restaurant he stopped me and asked, "What does work?". This question, or some variation of it, has been asked to me hundred of times by donors over the past five years. Unfortunately, the answer is both simple and complicated.

What does work?

There is no silver bullet, there is no single type of project that is successful in all situations or solves all problems. On the flip side there are few aid projects that are always wrong. Even orphanages, which I have written against in several posts, do have instances where they might be the best solution for that specific situation.

What works are good NGO's and aid agencies following good aid practices

Unfortunately, the average donor has very little idea what good aid practices are or how to identify good organizations. A recent post from Tales from the Hood discusses this problem:

Despite more Developed World interest in international issues, aid, and philanthropy now than at any time prior, there remains massive, general disparity between what individual citizens who support our work think we do, and what NGOs and aid agencies actually do.

There is a critical need for individual donors to understand aid better so that their funding decisions are based on knowledge rather than the best marketing campaign, the promise of a silver bullet, or the illusion of a person to person connection.

This blog was started out of the need for better educated donors. Unfortunately, determining if the charity is well managed and follows good practices requires understanding and evaluating a variety of factors. No single post or series of posts can provide donors with enough information to confidently chose between the millions of charities vying for their donations .

A charity rating system that teaches donors what works

This has compelled me to develop a different type of charity rating system. One that teaches donors about aid as it walks them through the process of rating the charity themselves. A soft launch of this system is tentatively planned for January.

Just as there are no silver bullets for aid programs there are also no silver bullets for charity rating systems. While this system won't be perfect for all donors and and all charities, it will give interested donors the knowledge they need to make thoughtful funding decisions. And that's as close to a silver bullet as I could hope for.

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Related blogs:

A development disappointment - Blood and Milk
I do not think it means what you think it means... - Tales from the Hood

More bad donor advice

2009-12-15T11:08:13-07:00

Tales from the Hood takes on Nicholas Kristof, author of Half The Sky, for his recent article in Outside magazine titled "Nicholas Kristof's Advice for Saving the World".

I am also critical of this article. Given his audience Kristof could have provided practical advice to donors on how to see past aid agency advertising to make wise funding decisions. Instead his only advice to donors is in the final paragraph (added on later?) where he encourages them to develop their own sponsorship programs:

"...if you're trekking in the Himalayas, come back not with stories of impoverished villages but rather ones about a particular 12-year-old girl who, if she received just $10 a month, could stay in school. Come back with photos of her—or, better, video that you put on a blog or Web site. Make people feel lucky that they have the opportunity to assist her, so that they'll find helping her every bit as refreshing as, say, drinking a Pepsi."

Nowhere does he mention the problems common to sponsorship programs, nor any of the standards developed to protect both the sponsored child and the sponsor. Just a few InterAction standards for child sponsorship include:

7.11.14 Members shall have the capacity of providing financial and performance oversight and child monitoring at the local level, whether through a field office structure or through partnerships with local entities. They shall have established policies and procedures for ongoing program monitoring and evaluation.

7.11.6 Members shall never knowingly enroll a child or family already enrolled by another sponsorship agency; nor shall a member seek more than one sponsor for a child unless this fact is clearly communicated to sponsors.

7.11.8 Members shall have clear policies and procedures to respect the privacy and dignity of sponsored children and their families. Members shall seek to protect sponsors from inappropriate solicitations from sponsored families.

Does Kristof want the takeaway for Outside readers to be that they can save the world by finding children to sponsor in their travels? If so, he should have discussed issues such as: how to ensure that they're not being conned; how to monitor the sponsorship to ensure the money actually benefits the child; how to transfer funds to the family; how to determine if the child is already receiving funds from other people; and how to protect the privacy of the child.

Kristof's article covers none of these common problems, instead the bulk of his article appears to be aimed at the aid world.

People are far more likely to donate to a single person in need

Kristof does share some interesting research that found that people are far more likely to donate when it is just one person in need. The chances of donating decrease significantly when two people are featured, let alone thousands of people in need. He also found from his own writing that people are more attracted to stories of overcoming adversity rather than people still in dire need. He states:

"If one lesson is the need to emphasize hopefulness, the second is that storytelling needs to focus on an individual, not a group."

While good to know, this is nothing new to the aid world. Child sponsorship programs have been around since the '90s and one look at Heifer International's website shows they've got the story telling aspect down pat. Personally, I ignore these "happy stories" and tell donors to do the same because they are just advertising and do not prove that the aid agency is successful, competent, or providing the type of aid that is most needed.

Non "sexy" projects are hard to fund

Kristof readily states:

"Unfortunately, the most cost-effective aid interventions tend to be the kind that are incremental and save only a small proportion of lives—and are thus least satisfying to the giver.... Right now, about one-third of families in poor countries don't get enough iodine, and the result is not so much goiters as diminished intellectual capacity... This is a lifelong intelligence deficit and a significant burden on poor countries, and it can be resolved very cheaply; iodizing salt costs a couple of pennies per person per year.

Studies have suggested that iodizing salt brings real economic returns of nine times the cost—and yet we don't do it."

If iodizing salt is so cost effective with an economic return of "nine times the cost" why doesn't his website and article feature organizations iodizing salt and encourage donors to fund these programs? Perhaps because it's not what is known in the aid world as a "sexy project". Continued from the quote above:

"The reason is, I think, that the results are statistical, not visible. You can never look at a child afterwards and say, "This girl would have been retarded if it weren't for iodized salt."

If his purpose was to help Outside readers be more effective donors, Kristof could have highlighted more programs that have a real impact but are difficult to fund, encouraging readers to look past "sexy projects". Instead the rest of the article focuses on how aid agencies can make their projects look more "sexy".

Funding teacher salaries is not "sexy"

It is well known in that aid world that inherently sexy projects are easier to fund. It is simpler to fund the construction of a school than it is to fund teacher salaries, school maintenance, or utilities. In the field we've all seen schools that were built far larger than the actual need or libraries full of English language books that go untouched. While at the same time we've seen areas with so few teachers that they rotate between classes or even schools, or are paid so little they rarely show up to teach.

Kristof talks of slicing and dicing aid projects so that donors can fund specific items such as textbooks or school uniforms. This is not a new concept, every Peace Corps volunteer learns this and there are now numerous charity "gift catalogs". It is not the items themselves that are difficult to fund, it's the administrative and staffing cost of determining the need, developing the program, and distributing the goods that is difficult to fund. Kristof does not discuss any of this.

Donor Illusions

Kristof focuses on the need for aid agencies to create the feeling of a one-to-one connection with the aid recipient. To make his point he touts two examples, child sponsorship and Kiva.

Aid groups are getting savvier, and they are seeing how people want to help particular individuals, not causes. Child-sponsorship organizations like PlanUSA have always used this device, but the biggest success in recent years has been Kiva.org, which matches donors online with borrowers in poor countries who need microloans. It is very satisfying to make a $25 loan to a small shop owner in Paraguay, and so Kiva has boomed. Now other organizations are trying to figure out how to make these kinds of online direct connections as well.

Although Kristof was a reporter covering humanitarian affairs, he fails to mention the issues that arose around child sponsorship in the '90s when the Chicago Tribune uncovered questionable practices. Here is a quote from the Chicago Tribune via David Roodman's blog (which I highly recommend):

The Tribune’s yearlong examination of four leading sponsorship organizations…found that several children sponsored…received few or no promised benefits. A few others received a hodgepodge of occasional handouts, such as toothpaste, soap and cooking pots. Some got clothing and shoes that frequently did not fit.

Sick children were sometimes given checkups and medicine, but not always.

One child, a 12-year-old Malian girl sponsored through Save the Children, died soon after being sponsored, although the charity continued to accept money on her behalf for nearly two years after her death. A subsequent investigation by Save the Children found that at least two dozen other sponsors had sent the charity money on behalf of dead children in Mali for varying periods of time, in two cases as long as five years.

It is these very problems that lead to the push for general charity standards in the US as well as the child sponsorship standards listed previously. Kristof also fails to mention the recent flurry of articles about Kiva's advertising practices, which began with David Roodman's posting Kiva is not quite what it seems.

"In short, the person-to-person donor-to-borrower connections created by Kiva are partly fictional. I suspect that most Kiva users do not realize this. Yet Kiva prides itself on transparency."

Philanthropy Action has kept an updated list of all the articles and blogs written about the "Donor Illusions" controversy. Kiva has since updated their website to more accurately represent their process.

In failing to mention either of these issues Kristof ignores problems that can easily arise in an effort to attract donors. If aid projects are misrepresented it hurts the entire aid industry by diminishing donor trust.

Reinforcing bad donor practices

Until donors become more knowledgeable and change how they chose projects and charities to fund, it will be a continued struggle to improve aid practices and programs. Unfortunately, Kristof's article does not provide Outside readers with any real "Advice On Saving the Word", but instead reinforces bad donor practices that have made it so difficult to fund projects like iodizing salt.

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Deceptive advertising hurts the entire aid industry
Kiva, Heifer International, the American Red Cross, and donor trust
Does your aid agency website inform or misinform donors?
Bad donor advice perpetuates bad aid practices
It's time to stop telling pretty stories and start really evaluating the impact of aid

Interesting articles and posts - Dec 6 - 13

2009-12-14T08:43:11-07:00

Interesting posts and news articles from the past week

Money is not the same as effectiveness for foundations - New Philanthropy Capital Blog- Looks at why more money may not lead to greater impact.

10 Things Nonprofits Won't Tell You - Smart Money - Looks at information nonprofits generally don't share with donors.

Solicitors get most of money raised for charities - Boston.com - Looks at the money made by organizations contracted to raise donations for charities.

Nicholas Kristof's Advice for Saving the World - Outside online - Looks at how personalizing fundraising to focus on just one person and their success stories raises more money than discussing larger issues and populations. This is the reason why aid agencies tend to focus on individual success stories on their websites.

Cui Bono? The murky finances of Project (RED)™ - Aid Watch - An article on the lack of transparency on how Project RED finances are handled. Donors should demand transparency in all agencies requesting your support.

Orphanages revisited

2009-12-09T10:26:46-07:00

I've blogged on orphanages quite a bit, but it's worth revisiting one more time with the recent articles in both the BBC and New York Times.

According to an article in the BBC:

"At least four out of five children in orphanages around the world have a living parent, a leading charity says."

According to the article in the New York Times:

Experts and child advocates maintain that orphanages are expensive and often harm children’s development by separating them from their families. Most of the children living in institutions around the world have a surviving parent or close relative, and they most commonly entered orphanages because of poverty, according to new reports by Unicef and Save the Children.

In addition to the fact that most children in orphanages having living parents or contactable relatives, and orphanages being the most expensive way to care for children, there is also the issue of orphanages offering children for foreign adoption. Just because an orphanage offers foreign adoption (and often makes money from high processing fees), does not mean it's legal as two couples found out in this BBC article:

Two US couples have been jailed in Egypt for two years for trying to illegally adopt children. Iris Botros and her husband Louis Andros had been offered orphaned twins by a Coptic Christian church in Cairo. When they applied to take the children out of the country they were arrested for child trafficking.

Orphanages should only be used as a last resort, donors should seek other programs that help families care for their own children instead of institutionalizing them or adopting them away.

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Be cautious when funding orphanages
Does funding orphanages create orphans?
Hug-an-orphan vacations

"Philanthropy is important and serious work. It does require time and thought."

2009-12-07T16:49:02-07:00

Laura Freschi from AidWatch sent me a great article over the weekend, Why Measure: Nonprofits use metrics to show that they Are efficient. But what if donors don’t care? from Stanford Social Innovation. This report discusses the findings a research project to determine which performance measurement data would be most meaningful to donors.

No Rewards Yet for High-Performing Nonprofits

They were surprised to find that not only were high-performing nonprofits not especially attractive to funders, but in fact:

"Only four of the 22 interviewees were strongly interested in getting better data on the performance of nonprofit organizations. Much to our surprise, the rest expressed skepticism – or even outright disapproval of the concept."

Their research focused on five findings, I discuss three of them below.

Finding No. 1: Donors Do Not See a Need for Performance Measurement

As one donor stated

"in the absence of fraud, the act of giving is substantially more important than attempting to differentiate between the most efficient organizations and other groups. 'Unless you’re being taken,' he says, 'society’s interests are advanced."

Most individual donors have strongly held but incorrect beliefs about aid. To be able to have a meaningful discussion on good donorship I find it necessary to first debunk common aid myths. It is only then that donors can hear what I'm saying. I've written several posts on this topic but let me state it one more time. Poorly done aid can do more harm than good. It can hurt the local economy, cause aid recipients to lose money or jobs, and even lead to the aid recipient's death. It is critically important that aid agencies regularly evaluate their work and make improvements based on those findings.

But don't just take my word on it, the article quotes Andrew Carnegie:

"...Greater good for the human race is to be achieved by inducing them to cease impulsive and injurious giving. As a rule, the sins of millionaires in this respect are not those of omission, but of commission because they will not take time to think and chiefly because it is much easier to give than to refuse.”

Finding No. 2: Donors Do Not Have Time for Performance Measurement

While it can be difficult to find the time to really evaluate an aid agency it is critically important that donors do just that. As I said in my post What to look for when evaluating an aid agency

"For the sake of the people you are trying to help, please take the time to be an informed donor or don't donate at all."

Finding No. 4: Donors Do Not Want to See Nonprofit Resources Dedicated to Performance Measurement

Evaluations are critical to improving aid practices because aid does not have the built in feedback loop that business have. In business if customers don't like a product they stop buying it. If it is broken they take it back for a refund or to have it replaced. If the product is too expensive, the store is in a bad location, or the product is outdated, sales go down. A simplified representation of the feedback loop might look like this:

customer -> company -> customer -> company -> customer -> company

Without evaluation there is no feedback loop for aid, instead the system looks more like this:

nonprofit -> donor -> nonprofit - > aid recipient nonprofit -> donor -> nonprofit - > aid recipient

While donors may feel that it is more cost efficient not to evaluate aid, without the feedback loop, donors risk wasting their donations on projects that are not effective, useful, or even liked by those that are supposed to benefit.

Donors need to support and require aid agencies to evaluate their work

Donors are key to better aid practices. If donors continue to donate based on emotions alone, then aid will not improve. As the article says:

"Then, just as today, individual donors should be reminded that philanthropy is important and serious work. It does require time and thought."

This is why I blog...

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Interesting articles and posts - Nov 22 - Dec 5

2009-12-05T18:01:26-07:00

Interesting articles and posts from the past two weeks

As African Orphanages Spread, Advocates Propose a Better Way - New York Times - Discusses the fact that it is more expensive to care for children in orphanages than to support them to live with families. I blogged about this here

Most 'orphans' have a living parent, says charit y - BBC - Discusses the fact that many children in orphanages are not actually orphans. I've blogged about this here

Perhaps microfinance isn’t such a big deal after all - Financial Times - Discusses how microfinance might not live up to it's promises and savings accounts might be just as useful

Giving tourists a look at gang culture - LA Times - Yet another form of poverty tourism, this time in the gang area of L.A. I have blogged on the disaster tourism debate here

Two posts this week on the debate between field knowledge and research knowledge Action vs. Reflection - Cashewman and Going Pro - Tales from the Hood.

Beware of charities' 'donor illusion' - Market Place, American Public Radio - Discusses more on the donor illusion that some charities are using as a marketing tactic. I blogged about this issue here

The growth of CSO self-regulation - Alliance - talks about the rising number of initiatives aimed at self-regulation for Community Service Organization's

The Worst (and Best) Way to Pick A Charity This Year - Philanthropy Action - Discusses why evaluating aid agencies based on their overheads does more harm than good. This is an important issue that I've blogged several times here and here

The Global Fund and transparency - GiveWell - Discusses the need for more transparency by aid agencies

Grab Bag of Charities Grows, Along With U.S. Tax Breaks - New York Times - Talks about the explosion of newly registering aid agencies, a new charity is registered every 10 - 15 minutes in the US.

Step 2: Get to know industry standards/best practices

2009-12-03T15:06:04-07:00

Step 2 in the series How to make a difference

Good aid takes more than just good intentions, it also takes an understanding of good aid practices. Without this donors or aid workers may invest time and money in projects that are not in the best interest of the aid recipient. While not enforceable by law, these standards encourage professional practices and help avoid common mistakes.

Six general principles found in effectiveness initiatives

One World Trust has a database of civil society self-regulatory initiatives which includes many of the standards and principles I rely on. One World Trust recently analyzed these initiatives found six general principles that are integral to each of the initiatives, described in their article "Responding to NGO Development Effectiveness Initiatives". I've provided a description of each principle below but recommend the chart on page three of the report for more information. Use these principles to determine if the aid agency you are supporting understands and follows good practices.

1. Accountability - Are they accountable to aid recipients, their staff, and donors? What mechanisms are in place to allow aid recipients to be a part of the process and have their complaints addressed if aid is not meeting their needs. Does the organization have a whistle-blower policy?

2. Ownership, partnership, participation - Do aid recipients have a real role in every step of the process from needs assessment to project planning and implementation to evaluation? Does the aid agency partner with other agencies and the government where appropriate? Is everyone one that has a stake in the outcome of the project brought into the process?

3. Transparency and good governance - Is the aid agency open and honest about their work, their decision making processes, and their finances?

4. Learning, evaluation, and managing results - Does the aid agency regularly evaluate their work and use evidence to determine the impact of their work? Does the aid agency use these evaluations to learn and improve their practices?

5. Independence - Are the programs and populations served based on what is most needed and not on political or economic forces?

6. Respect - Do they have non discriminatory practices and show respect for their partnering organizations?

General Standards

The two standards for aid agency management that I reference the most are:

The Colorado Nonprofit Association Principles and Practices (very readable for those not familiar with the nonprofit world)

InterAction Private Voluntary Organization (PVO) Standards (covers a wider variety of topics)

Standards for specific types of aid

The standards, guidelines, and advice for donating to specific types of aid that I reference the most are:

Orphanages / Child Sponsorship
UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children (orphans, children separated from parents)
US Better Business Bureau – Donating to Child Sponsorship Organizations
InterAction Private Voluntary Organization (PVO) Standards Section 7.11 Child Sponsorship

Medicine and Medical Equipment
World Health Organization’s Guidelines for Drug Donations
World Health Organization Guidelines for Health Care Equipment Donations

In-kind Donations - donated goods (clothes, shoes, sport equipment)
Center for International Disaster Information – Guidelines for Corporate Donors
USAID DCHA Bureau Statement of Principles Concerning Gifts-In-Kind During Humanitarian Operations
Association of Evangelical Relief and Development Organizations Gift in Kind Standards

Disasters Relief
The Sphere Project – Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response
Code of Conduct for The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief

Microfinance
Good Practice Guidelines for Funders of Microfinance

Police and Firefighter Organizations
US Better Business Bureau Donating to Police and Firefighter Organizations

Partnering with local organizations
Principles in Partnership (Guidelines for international aid agencies partnering with local aid agencies)

Knowing these principles and practices helps donors and aid workers ensure that their investment of time and money is well spent.

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How to get involved in aid - Step 1

Cost efficient aid is not necessarily effective aid

2009-12-02T13:01:07-07:00

There is a false belief on the part of donors that cost effective charities are the best charities. I've written about this problem in previous posts. This week a joint statement from five charity rating organizations highlighted the problems caused by judging an aid agency primarily on it's cost effectiveness. Unfortunately, it will take continued effort to change these assumptions as cost effectiveness is the focus of much that is written about aid, as can be seen in a recent Forbes feature America's Most Efficient Charities.

Just because an aid project is efficient doesn't mean it's effective or even a good idea

Rating an aid agency on efficiency means that it must minimize how much it spends on staffing, rent, mortgage, office equipment, supplies, etc... So lets apply the idea of efficiency to your own life.

To be more cost effective, build your house without a kitchen

One obvious way to decrease your own administration cost is to build your house without a kitchen. Kitchens are extremely expensive, amounting to approximately 10% of the total cost of house construction. In addition to the actual construction costs you would also save money that would otherwise be wasted on repairing or replacing broken appliances and there would be no need to throw away money purchasing dishes, silverware, or pots and pans.

Not having a kitchen it also saves "staff" time. Instead of wasting time cooking, doing the dishes and grocery shopping all your meals could be ordered at a fast food drive thru. You wouldn't even need to waste valuable time sitting down to dinner with your family as you can eat while driving. You could also save time you might have had to spend teaching children to cook or do the dishes as they too will spend their entire life eating fast food.

You might argue that building a kitchen and planting a garden will make eating less expensive in the long run. But this requires a significant initial investment to build and stock the kitchen and purchase the tools and supplies you need to plant a garden. It could take decades to recoup the investment and in the meantime you are far less cost efficient. In addition there is the staff time spent planting, watering, weeding, and harvesting the garden and cooking the food. Perhaps you want to train your children to do the work, but training them takes staff time and investing in staffing decreases your efficiency.

Delayed problems

Although not having a kitchen can be cost effective, there may be difficulties selling your house in the future. Without a kitchen you may not be able to sell the house and relocate for a better paying job. Remodeling to include a kitchen will likely be more expensive than if a kitchen had been included with the original construction. But those problems are years away and you're cost efficient today.

Perhaps you're concerned about the medical costs associated with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes or even heart attacks from a lifetime diet of fast food. But these health problems will take years to develop and even more years to become debilitating or deadly. And in the mean time you're really cost efficient.

The kitchen equivalent in aid agencies

The pressure on aid agencies to be as cost efficient as possible creates similar problems. Aid agencies may not be able to make upfront investments that save money over the long run, they may not have the resources to train their staff or even hire staff, or they may not be able to take their projects to where they are most needed. Aid agencies may limp along malnourished for years before finally shutting down.

Houses without kitchens or bathrooms

The pressure on aid agencies to get the biggest bang for the buck effects not only the organization's own well-being but the quality of the projects in the field as well.

While it may seem a preposterous to build a house without a kitchen just to be more cost effective, several aid agencies built houses without kitchens or bathrooms after the tsunami to get the biggest bang for the donor's buck. The cost for constructing the kitchens and bathrooms were born by other aid agencies or the tsunami victims themselves. Due to the time and staffing needed to clear land titles, several aid agencies built houses on disputed land. After the aid agencies left the government and other organizations bore the cost of litigating land ownership and building new housing for people forced out of the disputed housing.

The cost of cost effectiveness

Insisting that aid agencies are cost effective hurts the industry and does nothing to ensure quality or effective aid.

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Charity ratings based on administration costs can do more harm than good
Common donor misconceptions
Best practices often lose out to quick and cheap programs that please donors
Bad donor advice perpetuates bad aid practices

How to get involved in aid

2009-11-30T15:01:57-07:00

I've had two requests recently to provide information on how to develop quality international aid programs and have been invited to speak on making a difference at a college volunteer center. These requests are not surprising given the popularity of Three Cups of Tea, the desire to have a job that makes a difference, increased mobility, and the use social responsibility projects in corporate advertising. Individuals forming their own aid agencies have become so common that one in three aid agencies providing tsunami relief in Thailand were started after the tsunami, most with founders having no previous experience in aid.

With the charitable giving season upon us, this is a good time for a series on how to make a difference.

Step 1: Learn about aid through the eyes of aid recipients, government offices, and aid workers

The average person has a lot of assumptions and misunderstandings about aid. Before planning any aid project it is important to understand good aid practices and the impact of aid from a variety of perspectives.

I always recommend reading Listening Project reports, the Listening Project conducts listening exercises in areas that have received aid in the past or are currently receiving aid. Participants talk to aid recipients, government officials, religious and secular leaders and business owners to find out how aid has affected their community in both positive and negative ways. Their findings are available online with reports by country here and by topic here.

Conduct your own listening activity

If you have the time and opportunity conduct a listening activity in your own community. Visit the local homeless shelter, food pantry, or any other area that interests you and ask permission to interview aid recipients. Ask open ended questions about the different types of aid they receive, how they feel about it, how it could be done better, and the positive and negative impacts of aid. While there ask to interview aid agency staff to find out what challenges they face, what issues are common to that type of aid, what they like or dislike about other aid agency or government programs, and how could things be done better. Next visit government offices to find out their opinion of local aid projects. This could be a government office providing similar services, providing different services in the same area, or an office related to aid such as the state office of consumer protection. Which programs do they feel have the greatest impact, what are some common problems, what is their ideal solution? Finally, visit the communities where aid recipients live and ask store owners or people in the park for their opinions. What do they feel works and what is not working, what could be improved? By interviewing a wide variety of people about the impact of aid, donors and potential aid workers not only gain knowledge of aid issues, but they also practice skills needed for conducting a needs assessment.

Become a long term volunteer or staff at a local aid agency

Regardless of whether the aid is local or international, good aid practices are the same and the problems faced delivering aid are similar. Before traveling half way around the world to solve a social problem somewhere else, learn about aid by helping in your own community. Not only is this a great opportunity to develop skills, knowledge and contacts, but it's also a safer environment in which to learn. Trying to learn about aid while in a foreign culture speaking a foreign language is far more difficult.

Sit on a community planning board

For a different perspective sit on a community planning board. I've been on both a city parks and recreation planning committee as well as a county land use planning board. Because the government has to meet the needs of all it's citizens, these boards must accommodate a variety of needs with a limited budget. Understanding this perspective is important because aid agencies very often work with government offices that have even fewer resources and greater needs.

Read about the realities of aid work

Reading this post is a great start, related posts on this blog include:

Overseas volunteering: Guideline 1, Guideline 2, Guideline 3, Guideline 4
Beggars can't be choosers - but are they really beggars
Hamburgers for Hindus
How to determine if an aid project is a good idea

Other blogs that discuss the realities of aid include:

Aid Thoughts
Tales from the Hood:
     Taxonomy of aid
     It only feels kinky the first few times
     The things no one tells you
   When not to innovate
     Welcome to Machine
     Regulation anyone?
Owen Abroad
Blood and Milk

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I'm happy to include any other posts people want to suggest.