Between being really sick for the past 24 hours, trying to still work today, and having some valuable discussions on the IC controversy, I didn’t get around to acknowledging #IWD on the blog!

This world is filled with some really amazing women and girls doing some really amazing work with great social impact. I can’t give every individual and organization a shout out, but I do encourage people to check out the following:

 
The International Rescue Committee: Wake Up
As most of you know, I’ve always respected this organization and am a huge fan of their work and the integrity with which they do it. Recently, I’ve had the privilege of meeting and working with some of their staff (who aren’t even on the program side), and I can see the integrity, diligence, careful thought, and passion with which they work.

Below is a video from their Wake Up campaign, which seeks to educate people on the violence and injustice that women face around the world. I think the statistic is 1 in 3 women globally will have been raped, beaten, coerced into sex, and/or abused in her lifetime.

The Wake Up campaign was listed today in Mashable’s “5 Social Media Campaigns Rocking International Women’s Day.” Makes me glad!

 
The Adventure Project
Yeah, I know you all are probably sick of me always talking about TAP, but the vision that Becky Straw and Jody Landers have is incredible: to eliminate extreme poverty, not through charity but through job creation.

TAP wants to educate Americans on smart giving. Donating to an organization is a social investment, and the women of TAP believe that investing in economic empowerment programs, training programs, and job creation for women in developing countries is an investment in sustainable solutions to poverty, hunger, the water crisis, and global health issues.

This is an old video from over a year ago, but it highlights one of the projects in one of the communities that they partner with: training women mechanics in rural India to repair the broken wells in surrounding areas. Love their projects so much.

(On a side note, co-founder Becky Straw was invited to speak today at the UN on International Women’s Day and women’s empowerment through social business.)

 
Camfed
Camfed fights poverty and HIV/AIDS in Africa by educating girls and empowering women to become leaders of change. The organization began in 1993 with a goal to improve the lives of two million children by 2013, and is currently at over 1,400,000 impacted.

“When rural girls and young women graduate from high school, they enter an adult world of massive unemployment.”

What I like about Camfed is that it doesn’t just stop at education; they continue to walk alongside young female graduates by providing seed money (microloans) to help them develop their economic skills and launch small businesses.

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Okay, I think it’s time for me to pop some meds and get some rest. But let’s continue celebrating women and girls (not just on March 8th)!

The reality is that I know nothing about Africa. I have never even stepped foot on the soil of the continent (yet). Therefore, I do not pretend to be knowledgeable in matters I am not well-versed in.

And also therefore, it’s important to hear from the voices of people who are actually tied to these countries.

TMS Ruge, founder of Project Diaspora, writes an honest and real post about the #StopKony campaign, African agency, and respect for the people of central and east Africa.

“Let me be honest. Africa is not short of problems, epidemics and atrocities. But it is also true that it is not short of miracles, ingenuity, and a proclivity to surprise. We as Africans, especially the Diaspora, are waking to the idea that our agency has been hijacked for far too long by well-meaning Western do-gooders with a guilty conscious, sold on the idea that Africa’s ills are their responsibility. This particular affliction is called “white man’s burden” in some circles. Please don’t buy into this. Africa’s problems are our own.”

While I don’t believe in absolutely no aid or collaboration with any non-Africans, I do agree that more local/grassroots empowerment is needed to bring any real change.

Ugandan journalist, Rosebell Idaltu Kagumire, made a video response to this Invisible Children debacle. She takes a very calm and diplomatic approach, I think, but gets the point across that what the IC video represents isn’t going to cut it for the people of central and east Africa.

Rosebell implores us to focus on “intelligent campaigns” that are geared towards “real policy shifts rather than a very sensationalized story that is out to make one person cry, and at the end of the day, we forget about it.”

She adds that how the story of Uganda is told might be more important than the story being told:

“If you’re showing me as voiceless or as hopeless, you have no space to be telling my story. You should not be telling my story if you dont believe that I have the power to change what is going on.”

Great trailer on How To Be A Philanthropist In The 21st Century. This short clip gives a general overview of where philanthropy is heading in our lifetime.

The creators write, “Despite us still being in the midst of a global recession, the number of super-wealthy individuals is on the rise, increasing by 8 per cent a year for the last 10 years, according to Merrill Lynch, and there are now 450,000 millionaires in the UK alone.”

(That seems to make basic sense to me. Money leaves one place, it must go somewhere else, right? Or maybe not. I’m no smartie pants.)

But even for the average non-millionaire, we need to really assess how we’re giving. As one woman (Dame Stephanie Shirley) says in the video, it’s not about how much we give, but how we give.

“Billions are wasted on ineffective philanthropy. Philanthropy is decades behind business in applying rigorous thinking to the use of money.”
- Michael Porter

People get offended when I criticize or question (tactfully!) an organization. But the truth is, we need to be wise when it comes to investing in a better world — or else we just end up throwing money and effort at the world and hoping it sticks.

(I originally just titled this “On being wary of NGOs and aid organizations.”)

So a number of my friends are working together to support a major international aid NGO. I have to preface that I don’t dislike this organization. I think they do decent work with good intentions, but as many of us know, good intentions are not always enough. I haven’t had a chance to thoroughly investigate this organization in recent years, but based on its past I do know it’s not the first organization that I would want to throw money at. I’d rather invest in an organization that focuses on long-term impact and in which I value its efforts 100%. Growing up, my parents and I supported said NGO, but between our mediocre experience with it and my continual education on aid and development, we’ve ceased giving money quite a number of years ago.

Because my friends, whom I care for quite a bit, are working so hard to give support to this NGO, I’ve just been keeping my mouth shut about my feelings on its efficiency or effectiveness. I kind of slide out of the conversation whenever it comes up and try to just politely be a bystander. (I do plan to support in some manner, if possible, without going too much against my beliefs.)

However, recently I got cornered. One girl directly asked me to support in a major way. Initially, I made up some other excuses, as I had before when general requests were made to our social circles, but somehow she squeezed out of me the truth: I’d support in a small way (like giving some money to show support for my friends’ efforts), but I couldn’t go and actually advocate on behalf of this NGO or participate in one of the programs that I don’t strongly support.

I was pretty quickly told that I was hard-hearted and arrogant, with implications that I also am closed-minded and enjoy being negative. Despite the fact that I was being antagonized, I was the one that ended up feeling bad. This girl looked like she was going to cry (and punch me). I tried to be diplomatic and tactful, but it didn’t matter. I simply was not as good of a person as I claimed to be because I didn’t want to be a champion for an NGO that gave money to little poor children in Africa. Apologies if that sounded crass.

(I have other theories on why the conversation went so sourly, and it has little to do with the actual NGO, but that’s not something I will blast here.)

Anyways, that conversation made me realize how difficult it is to have the average American really understand what development and social impact really looks like, and how charity and “doing good” needs a huge overhaul.

I’m not super knowledgeable or experienced in this by any means and have much to learn myself, but I do know we need to be investing our money and efforts more wisely. We need to question the institutions through whom we are channeling our giving, and we need to demand more transparency, efficiency, and long-term impact.

I swear I’m not a snob. I just care.

About 15 minutes ago, DC Entertainment and Warner Brothers announced the launch of a new initiative to fight the hunger crisis in the Horn Of Africa. In partnership with The International Rescue Committee, Save The Children, Mercy Corps, and the Justice League itself, the “We Can Be Heroes” campaign seeks to combat the worst hunger crisis in 60 years and bring assistance to over 13 million people in need.

I’ve always been more of a Marvel fan (X-Men wins it all for me), but I have to say kudos to DC for launching a really amazingly done campaign and for giving a 100% match in donations. This is spectacular from a corporate alliance standpoint.

To learn more about the campaign or join the Justice League as a hero, visit the We Can Be Heroes website or follow the hashtag #WeCanBeHeroes.

Last night as I was heading home from a fake meeting with my International Social Development group (aka “Team Awesome”) at Tom’s Restaurant, Jeremy and I got to talking about TOMS Shoes and social businesses. He mentioned that he wanted to purchase socially conscious footwear and was considering TOMS, to which I responded with a push to reconsider. That launched us into an analysis of social businesses.

It made me wonder a bit about some things, some of which I won’t delve into just yet since my thoughts aren’t fully formulated. But should these enterprises’ priorities be first sales and second social impact, or vice versa? Perhaps I’m biased in saying the latter since my area of focus is around development and sustainability…

Jeremy mentioned that essentially TOMS Shoes is a business and who are these businesses to really care about the social impact side when their MO is probably profit and sales? (Disclaimer: I don’t think either of us are saying that TOMS doesn’t care; it’s just a valid view to bring up in the discussion.) And he has a point. Businesses like TOMS wouldn’t be very successful if people weren’t kept in poverty. So perpetuating it is potentially beneficial for such companies, though I don’t think that is TOMS intention at all — just an unfortunate consequence of its “aid” model.

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Then earlier this morning, Daniela Papi connected with me and we jumped immediately into this discussion of the real impact of NGOs and aid. I won’t reiterate all of her great points, but she mentioned the need for better marketing of real social impact and of NGOs that are socially responsible. She also sent me a link to the video for A Day Without Dignity.

Watch below — it has great points, all of which I agree completely with, and the best part is that it doesn’t just criticize bad aid and donations but it gives a picture of what we can do.

 

 

“Why has it become so easy for people to start feel-good campaigns that nobody asked for?…”

 

At one point in the video (1:47), a quote from an aid recipient states that he/she doesn’t want handouts but rather work. It reminded me of Jessica Jackley’s TED Talk on Poverty, Money, and Love.

Jeremy also emailed me this morning saying that he had read my TOMS post and had been searching for socially conscious shoes, but it was difficult to find…and then suggested a good start-up website idea. Hmmm…

In the mean time, if you know of any shoe companies with good practices and impact, let us know!

 
I think people assume that just because I’m interested in “social good” (what does that even mean?) and social enterprises that I automatically love and support TOMS Shoes. Now, I want to first say that TOMS is a very well-intentioned organization run by very well-intentioned people. Their marketing tactics and business skills are great, they appear to the average American as a golden child of charity, but as of this moment I would not dare to say that I fully support the company.

Why?

My interest lies in social justice being met in a sustainable and culturally-aware manner that allows for economic and social development of communities. Unfortunately, TOMS is a classic example of “bad aid.”

• White Man’s Burden – Sigh: Western views or ideas of “third world countries” being in need of charity and saving. I’m not an anti-aid advocate but I think that aid needs to be carried out with wisdom. It’s pretty ignorant for me, a Westerner, to waltz into another country and think that I can save or fix things when I have no understanding of what it’s like to live the lives that the people there live. I support organizations that build up leadership within communities. The history of aid is filled with stories of the White Knight galloping in from the West. We need to start filling history with stories of community leaders being encouraged and feeling empowered to bring change to their own cities, towns, countries, etc.
• Community exclusion – the above ties into the general idea that organizations and aid in general should be working with the people they are serving and not just for them. Who better knows a community’s need than the community itself, right?
• Economic detriment – Each time TOMS flies in and drops off shoes, they take business away from local shoe sellers. I know that many people argue that TOMS is giving shoes to people who really need it (how is that being determined, anyhow?) and who can’t afford it, even from local sellers. Fair (sort of). But it doesn’t excuse TOMS from having a better method than it currently does; I refuse to believe that every single person they distribute a pair of poorly-made, overpriced slip-on shoe to is unable to afford the relatively cheap shoes from the local market (side note: TOMS began with Argentina).
• Donors over recipients – TOMS, and many forms of foreign aid in general, seems more concerned about pleasing donors than addressing the needs of the recipients.

So I’m not a fan of complaining or criticizing something without having ideas or solutions for potential improvement.

Again, I think TOMS Shoes is a very well-intentioned company. I support the idea behind their work — to prevent the contracting of disease by providing shoes for the shoeless. My suggestions for moving them from a company with a decent idea and good heart to a social business that is addressing core issues?

• Support the local economy – TOMS can produce within country or purchase local sellers’ shoes. That way, local economy is stimulated, profit/wealth is being generated for the community, jobs are being maintained, and most of all, TOMS upholds the integrity behind their mission by providing shoes to the shoeless.
• Cost-efficiency and awareness – I find their shoes to be overpriced and unwisely designed/produced. I’ve seen many children contract disease and parasites from being shoeless. When given a simple pair of sturdy rubber flip flops, the number of parasite infections decreased significantly. In terms of cost-efficiency, do kids at risk of parasitic diseases really need a trendy Vans-like slip-on? Is this the best way to utilize donors’ money?

In the meantime, as we wait for TOMS and other aid organizations to clean things up, what can be done?

• Consumer wisdom – Americans can just be more aware of who and what they are supporting. Instead of spending $50 on an American-made shoe that is inefficiently produced and distributed and that is really just a quick-fix bandaid that may lead to long-term issues in a region, we can choose to spend that $50 more wisely. Invest in local markets or entrepreneurs, or give to organizations that encourage empowerment and sustainable development. Don’t just blindly donate because a company or organizations has aspects of “social good” in their mission statement. Utilize your money wisely!

Well-intentioned aid does not necessarily equate good aid.