As we all know, the purpose of a charity is to raise money and/or goods with intent to donate those goods to someone or something that needs them more than we do. In the year 2016 alone more than 350 billion dollars were donated to a charitable cause worldwide. 

Most of this money is donated to the sick and the poor. Many people in desperate situations rely on charities to live. This dependency on charities brings up the question, what would the world be like without charity? In my research, I am going to emphasize the impact on third world countries such as third-world African countries and Haiti. Surely, they will struggle initially but in the long run will taking away charity donations be beneficial to the development of Africa and Haiti as self-sustaining nations.

Michael Matheson Miller is a researcher that wanted to look at the hidden effects of providing people with free services. (Miller, 2014) He went to a small, poor village in Zimbabwe and interviewed one of the locals that used to own a small chicken farm. When Miller asked the man what happened to his business he told him about how a first world “charity” ran him out of business. This man worked hard for a living and when he finally saved up enough money he bought himself a half-dozen chickens and built a chicken coop in hopes of starting his own business where he sold eggs to his neighbors at prices that they can afford. His business was successful. He would raise chickens and sell the eggs for profit at the same time as he provided his struggling village with a new steady food source. Small business’ like his help third world countries provide for themselves so they do not rely on donations to live. This man’s business not only helped him make a living but it also helped the people of his community because he provided jobs to potential villagers that have no way of making money otherwise. The business was getting to be very successful so he spent money on more chickens in hopes of further expanding it. One day a shipment arrived from the united states with enough food to feed the village for a couple of months. This was very good news to most the village because they were able to eat without struggling to buy enough food to feed the family. But, to the business owners this shipment was devastating. As you can imagine, after the food shipment came in no one bought any eggs until all the free food was gone. This donation had a bigger impact on this village than any donator could have possibly imagined. In the following weeks, the business owner had to fire all of his employees because he was not selling enough eggs to pay for their labor. Shortly after that the man went completely broke and did not have enough money to pay for food for the chickens to eat and they all died. After the food from this “donation” was all gone the village was much worse than when they started. Nearly all food suppliers in the area went bankrupt and out of business. The unemployment rate is up, the food supply is down, and the quality of life has plummeted. 

This man’s story is very eye-opening. It shows how charities that seem to be doing the right thing are actually damaging the quality of life in poor regions of the world. Another example of this is the charity TOMS. TOMS are a “One for One” charity business model that has giver over 70 million shoes to the people of Africa over the last 10 years. (TOMS, 2006) Every time he sells one shoe, he donates one show. He says that his goal is to sell so many shoes during his life that no African will every have to go without shoes. This is a very generous idea but, in execution it doesn’t turn out very well. Mostly all of the local shoemakers in these poor regions of the world have gone out of business and in some places, there is an overflow of shoes that have nowhere to go. TOMS shoes are creating a dependence and putting people out of business. This hurts the African economy. TOMS and other importation based charities are the main problem with the charity system. There are good charities that truly help people in need. 

Not all charities are bad. Charities do help people in need. In 2015 over $35 million dollars were donated to Sub-Saharan Africa alone. Although communities in this region have the lowest quality of life out of any region in the world, the quality of life is raised during the time periods that were recently after charitable donations. People in areas like this do truly need outsider help to survive. Which leaves us to question what kind of charity is good charity, what kind is “toxic charity”, and what we can do to help. 

There are many types of charities that truly help people in these regions of Africa and Haiti. Any charity that comes and provides services, especially training services, to people in need is probably a good charity. For example, if we want the people of Africa to be self-sustaining the need to be educated. The lack of education in Africa is caused by the lack of money to send kids to schools and the lack of teachers. Donating money to charities that pay teachers to go to Africa and teach children and adults necessary skills are an example of a very helpful charity. Charities like Child Africa raise money to build schools, provide teachers and fund students through their education. Another good type of charity is a medical charity. Any charity that pays doctors and surgeons to go to Africa and give free check-ups and surgeries to kids is a helpful charity. 20/20/20 is a charity that raises money to pay surgeons to perform a $300 on the blind people that can cure their sight. Charities like this are good because it helps them have something they couldn’t have. As a rule of thumb, any charity that provides people with something that they could never possibly obtain for themselves is a good charity. People in these poor areas could never go to school or get medical attention without our help. They could, however, make their own food, clothes, shoes, etc. Charities have the right intentions but they must make sure they are providing the right things to avoid hurting the people they are trying to help. 

In third world countries, such as certain African countries, the economic development and self-viability is at an all-time low. They are not producing much of what they use. A heavy majority of the goods and services that the people of these countries consume are not produced/provided by themselves. Rather, they are donated by people in first world countries that have enough money to give a few dollars to charity to help people in need. But, little do they know, there donation might do more harm than good. The items being donated seem to be helpful at first but after further inspection are not very well thought-out. 

When a disaster strikes, it is our moral obligation to help those in need. For example, in April of 2008 there were food riots in Haiti due to an unsuccessful rice crop that year. The world responded by sending in as much rice as Haiti needed. But, when the hunger riots were over they kept donating more rice despite the rice farmers request for them to stop. This was a significant mistake because the Haitian rice crop is one of the country’s biggest markets. The continued import of rice significantly lowered the price of rice in Haiti. This was bad news for the farmers in Haiti. The next harvest season the price of rice more than halved. This means that if the Haitian rice farmers want to sell their rice they will make less than half of what they made the year before. In fact, there was no demand at all for more rice so basically no one bought any Haitian rice that year and it went to waste. Haitian rice importations still have not stopped. Rice farmers are begging the US and the U.K. to stop the rice donations. (Miller, 2014) They have enough rice and other food to feed everyone in Haiti without our help. The rice also has other consequences that were not thought of before. Since the price of rice is down, not many people are buying anything other than rice causing other small food businesses to struggle. So, if this is such a big deal then why don’t we just leave them be?

In 1986, a man named Lawrence Pezzullo gave a speech urging people to stop donating to third-world countries in Africa. He said that the aid that we are giving them is not working and we are hurting more than we are helping (Pezzullo, 1986) . if we could see the consequences of our actions all the way back in 1986 then why are we still doing the same things. It is due to something that I like to call “corporate charities”. These charities are labeled non-profit, which means that they can save as much money as they want in something called a “fund balance” which can either be reinvested into the company or put into savings. If the money is put into savings the high executives can take the money to compensate for their work. Executives in high end “corporate charities” make upwards of a million dollars a year. These people are making millions of dollars off donated money which they are using to ruin the economy of third-world nations. That doesn’t sound very charitable, does it? In addition to this more and more people are donating to these charities because celebrities are supporting these charities and giving them a good reputation by praising them all over the media. When Haiti needed us to stop the most in 2010 after two years of not making any money from the rice crop a bunch of celebrities decided to make a new version of the song “We Are The World” in the We Are The World 25 For Haiti movement. This song shined a negative light on the people of Haiti and other third-world countries of the world. The song depicts the people of these nations as weak, sad, dumb, and dependent. (Wadhams, 2010) The don’t want to be known as the poor nation that can’t do anything for themselves. On top of that, this movement asked the people of several first-world countries to donate goods to Haiti and Africa. The whole situation was unfortunate and shows how ignorant and how arrogant we were being to the people of Haiti. Haiti asked to not be sent any more rice, there request was neglected by a bunch of celebrities that wanted to show how charitable they were so they made a song about how people should donate. As a result, a bunch of “corporate charity” millionaires got even more rich off the donations and sent Haiti more rice. The whole system is wrong and needs to be fixed. People should not be allowed to make a seven-figure salary off of a non-profit charity. Other than that, the way we donate needs to be fixed. People need to become educated and understand the difference between good help and bad help. 

I think that the solution to this charity crisis is best put into words by Robert Lupton, the author of “Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help, And How to Reverse It”. (Luptin, 2011) We need to listen to what the people in need want, focus on community and focus on development. Rather than sending them an abundance of something that we have excess of we should ask them what they want and what will truly benefit them in the long run. We need to focus on the community rather than the individual and put what is in the best interest of the community first. If the community is doing well then the individuals do well. We need to focus on developing these communities so they can support themselves. We need to teach these people how to provide for themselves as a community. He also says that there is no easy fix to most things. We need to pay attention to our pace and make sure we don’t get ahead of them and overwhelm them. If we do this we will be able to work with them instead of for them. 

In other words, rather than giving people food, teach them how to thrive. Listen to them and their ideas. They need hands on help. Not our shipments. Rather than helping wealthy businessmen get richer take things into your own hands. Go to Africa yourself or fund someone that wants to. If some African wants to build a garden and grow food for her village, go help them build it and invest in the start-up. Invest in local businesses. If business owners have more money and product they can afford to hire more labor. If more labor is hired then the unemployment goes down and the community starts to do better as a whole. Sending in huge donation shipments kills businesses. Rather than giving money to food donation services give money to charities that fund small businesses and educate the people. Think about the future, not about the present. They need us to let them provide for themselves. 
