Charity Choices

A while ago I read Peter Singer’s book The Life You Can Save and it made me think about how I give to charity and whether I could do better with my choices of worthy causes. However I mostly continued with my usual charitable donations and was more focused on learning about NGOs to support in Guatemala because I had become passionate about this beautiful, struggling country.

Recently I have done some more reading about poverty, aid and charitable giving partly because the subject fascinates me and partly because I want to make better choices with my hard earned money.  Most of the books & websites are written from an American and/or European perspective but the concepts hold true for New Zealand too as one of the wealthier countries in the world.

I’ve been mulling over all the information I’ve gathered in books and online and it’s not easy to make the ‘right’ choice. These are some of the questions I’m asking myself as I think about how I might change the way I give to charity.

1) Which cause?  Poverty or environment or animals or ...

2) How many causes? One large donation to one organisation or several smaller donations to several organisations.

3) Tax deductible?  Organisations that have a charitable status in New Zealand and are tax deductible make the most sense (&cents) to support. However I have seen very good grass roots organisations in action in Guatemala run by local people for local people that are not tax deductible but I know my donation will go directly to their programmes with no administration costs in NZ.

4) What type of programme? Of GiveWell’s recommended charities (evidence based, cost effective, really make a difference) only one is tax deductible in NZ (Against Malaria Foundation). Some of the most effective charities sound very unglamorous (Deworm the World Initiative anyone?).  Also some organisations run multiple programmes and that makes them more difficult to evaluate e.g. Oxfam.  

5) Local, national or international?  My dollars would go further in a poor country but communities thrive when people within a community support each other.

The problem with reading as widely and deeply as possible in an effort to make an informed decision about where to donate is that it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by all the issues in our world.  I may feel as though I’m giving significant amounts of money (because I consider it in the context of my work effort and income) but it also feels as though my money is a tiny drop in ocean in terms of all the problems to be solved. However I agree with Edmund Burke who said ‘No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.’ It’s like the starfish story, but the results are multiplied because other like-minded people join in to save the starfish.  

I now have a short list of causes. Some of them are different to what I have previously supported and some of them remain the same. I think my choices will be more rational and less emotional than before but in the end I’ll make the best decision I can with the knowledge I have. I need to stop reading and mulling, and umming and ahhing and just do it.

P.S. Some books I have found particularly interesting, enlightening and useful and that I will read again are:

The Life You Can Save by Peter Singer

Doing Good Better by William Macaskill

Poor Story by Giles Bolton

Half the Sky and the follow-up to it A Path Appears by Nicholas D. Kristof