Before civil war engulfed her Ethiopian home region of Tigray in 2020, Tsega Girma was a prosperous trader who sold stationery and other goods. But when hungry children displaced by the conflict started appearing in the streets, she sold everything and used the proceeds to buy them food.
After that money dried up, Tsega appealed to Tigray’s diaspora for donations. At the height of the war, her Emahoy Tsega Girma Charity Foundation provided meals to 24,000 children a day.
Today, more than a year after the conflict ended, it still feeds 5,000 children who cannot return home because of lingering insecurity.
All the food is bought locally and prepared by volunteers in the grounds of a disused library. “It is emergency work,” Tsega says. “We are doing this simply to keep them alive.”
Charities such as Tsega’s, set up by individuals to help their own communities, are the oldest form of humanitarianism. Yet they are also being viewed as the future of an overstretched and underfunded aid system that relies on international organisations and UN agencies to devise and deliver programmes.
Why send money to Oxfam, who will spend it on Land Cruisers, £60k salaries for Tamsin, Jocasta and Tristram when you can sernd it to some bird standing by hte market where they sell the necessary food?
Sure, economies of scale exist – but also Parkinson was right.
Well, yes Tim. But I’m thinking of UNWRA and my pet hate, the Yemen aid mess.
I’m sure that the locals can be just as corrupt and incompetent as we are.
Oooops. UNRWA.
See. A genuine proof of our incompetence at least!!!
For several years in the 1990s, I gave regularly to a tiny charity which had been set up by a friend of mine in India. It supported disabled kids and got them an education and employment. Who could have greater needs than disabled Indian orphans, and how could you spend your money better than my friend sending money direct to the Catholic priest who lived in the Indian town and provided direct care?! I used this argument many times to fend off chuggers and signal my superior virtue.
It turned out that Fr. Arulraj in India was siphoning off money and spending it on hookers.
After cancelling the Standing Order, I consoled myself with the thought that Indian hookers probably have a shit life, too, and my money had helped alleviate their poverty a bit…
I’m sure that the locals can be just as corrupt and incompetent as we are.
Sure, but Tsega is far less likely than the UN or Oxfam to fuck the kids.
These folks seem to be pretty good at getting money to where it’s needed, as loans:
https://www.kiva.org
We’ve just despaired of all British national charities even (i) Barnardo’s, where an ancestor of mine was one of Doc B’s earliest supporters, and (ii) The Saldals, whom I thought might be the last non-woke national charity – but apparently not.
“It turned out that Fr. Arulraj in India was siphoning off money and spending it on hookers.
After cancelling the Standing Order, I consoled myself with the thought that Indian hookers probably have a shit life, too, and my money had helped alleviate their poverty a bit…”
And the amount spent on hookers by the good Father was probably considerably less of a cut than would be taken by Jocasta et al if you donated the same money to a Western charity. And the hookers have families to support, so that money did some good too, albeit at the cost of giving the Father a happy ending.
I take the same view with the charity Tim has mention on here, that helps feed street people in Bangladesh. I throw some money at them every now and again, I figure it’ll do more good there, even if some is syphoned off to keep the head honcho in clover.
Large charities versus small.
Example of large: loads spent on fundraising (most obvious dilution!), admin and regulatory obviously, with the result that your £100 donated ends up being reduced to anything from 10% to 50% in terms of value of useful outcome generated.
Example of small: no £ incurred on fundraising, or on admin (all volunteered), next to no salaries (again volunteers). £100 is spent on materials or other necessities. Hence, your £100 gets leveraged, as it now facilitates volunteers additionally to donate their time/labour. Value of useful outcome might be 5x your donation?
Small versus large – could easily be 5-50 times more valuable per each £ donated (or simply donate some time). Stopped pissing away money to any large charity years ago. Which does sometimes annoy some people as I refuse their oh-so-worthy sponsorship to some perfectly worthwhile cause but grifting middleman large-charity.
I give to Wilmslow Wells for Africa which spends more than 98% of donations on creating wells. Then there’s the executive employment scheme that’s constantly advertising on TV and claiming to do the same work.
On my last visit the barber had a right paddy about the a restaurant they’d recently been to that wouldn’t take cash “I explained to them it’s legal tender and they have to take it”, she kept repeating. In the end I had to set her straight
I can understand the average punter not understanding it especially when self declared public intellectuals like Spud talk such gibberish.
Saldals, dearime? What’s that? My search engine just gives sandals, even when I explicitly say I’m searching for saldals.
Marius: “….Tsega is far less likely than the UN or Oxfam to fuck the kids.” Unfortunately, not true. Whether it’s Oxfat (sic) or micro-charities, a few abusers worm their way in. And I have worked for charities. The answer is to brief charity users on arrival and subsequently about potential abuse and what to report.
PS I no longer donate to charities…
Above comment wrong thread 🙁
“On my last visit the barber had a right paddy about the a restaurant they’d recently been to that wouldn’t take cash “I explained to them it’s legal tender and they have to take it”, she kept repeating. In the end I had to set her straight”
Isn’t that a situation where ‘legal tender’ is a legit issue? Legal tender means if you offer to pay a debt in ten pound notes, and the person refuses, they can’t sue you for the debt. So in a restaurant, where you have eaten the food and drunk the wine presumably you have a debt to the restaurant owner. If you walk out without having paid by their chosen method, and are confronted, and offer to pay in cash and they refuse then you’ve just had a free meal, no?
You used to be correct, Jim. Except there’s certain values of silver & copper coins above which they cease to be legal tender. But that may have changed. The commencement of any commerce is an offer to treat & so maybe now if cash is deemed unacceptable at the offset that would be the terms of trade & they may not be obliged to take it.
I’ve got some vague memory that legel tender rules were changed during covid….
If they had a thriving stationary business, why sell it off and run down the capital, why not keep it running and have continuous revenue to spend on the waifs.
The shagging priest reminds me of some film I remember where Fulton Mackay was a parish priest on some South Seas island with a retinue of females, and described as “father to the whole island” 😉
Digs through IMDB…. Ah! “Water”, 1985.
“Saldals” = Salvation Army.
I support a variety of charities where I have good reason to believe that my donations are doing some good (including one where my little sister was a Trustee); my fall-back option if I have money looking desperately for a home is The Leprosy Mission where the value of the good done would *still* exceed the value of my donation if 80% was siphoned off and there is no reason to believe that *anything* is siphoned off.
What I will not do any more is give to “chuggers” and I made a decision never to give anything again to the “Save the Children Fund” after some of its chuggers more or less bullied my wife during a visit to London.
PDSA was still a proper charity last time I looked about a year ago
No taxpayer funding, not woke etc. Unlike other “poor, desperate” “charities” like RNIB, RNLI, RSPCA, Yemen, Gaza no TV ads either
jgh said:
“Digs through IMDB…. Ah! “Water”, 1985”
Michael Caine as a colonial governor and Billy Connelly as the leader of the “native” insurrection? I loved that; a funny and sadly neglected movie.
All of what PF says. The only reason we have large charities is that they’re like superpowers in an arms race for people’s attention. They can use their muscle to keep their name in people’s minds as the Africa/pet/homeless charity.
They pour money into professional fundraisers, websites, community outreach to go to schools (to keep the name out there). And they really don’t care what they get as long as it pays for itself. If they can get 5% of your donation, that’s better than 0% of your donation. And they will gladly let fundraisers keep a huge amount of your donation, just to get a bit of it, rather than someone else getting that money.
Most of this stuff just doesn’t need huge numbers of people. Large organisations are generally about complexity, specialisms. Hair salons and plumbers don’t get more efficient beyond 5 people, or we’d have multinational hair salons and plumbing companies. Car making is complicated, so car making is typically more efficient at about 2000 people. Feeding people on the streets needs 2 people. Scaling it up doesn’t improve efficiency. You might as well just have 1000 little organisations of 2 people than 2000.
@ Western Bloke
Actually scaling it up *decreases” efficiency. Lady Bountiful1 of Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh and Lady Bountiful2 of Little-Binding-on-Dry-Ground and the Imam’s wife in Tower Hamlets each know who in her village is in need and can check up if one of them is sick-a-bed and fails to come to the food bank so that the children still get some of what is left over – no-one in a big organisation will carry all that knowledge in her/his head and by the time the computer has collated all the feedback it will be too late, the foodbank will be closed and the kids will be hungry.
For sending money overseas, scale is a benefit *as long as* the money is spent, or food is distributed, by the little battalions when it gets there.