Canadians are a generous bunch. Especially at this time of year, when our biggest problems are disposing of wrapping paper and figuring out where to put our new stuff, we realize how much we have, and we want to share it.
Last week was the busiest of the year for many charities, as people scrambled to make their donations to get their 2006 tax receipt. Many of us do want to give. We just don’t want to be taken for a ride.
Now I’m about to say something that most of us think, but dare not express. Many times, when you give, you wonder if the recipients really appreciate it or deserve it. I remember about six years ago our family was matched with another for Christmas. When we arrived, struggling with ten bags of groceries and presents for the children, this particular family was watching a large screen TV on what looked like brand new furniture. We were still using hand-me-downs, and our TV didn’t work at the time. My six-year-old looked around and asked if next year, we could get on the list.
When another family I know donated a mattress, they arrived at the address they’d been given only to find five males, in their early twenties, smoking and drinking beer while playing cards. Without looking up, they barked at my friend to drop the mattress upstairs at the end of the hall.
And then, of course, there’s the recent discovery that MADD Canada spends more than 80% on fundraising and administration. Internationally, we hear about how the UN wasted millions after the tsunami, or how UN peacekeepers rape girls in the Congo. It’s incidents like these that make one want to close one’s wallet permanently.
I hope we don’t. We just need to be smarter. With a little bit of strategic giving, we can increase the chance that our money goes to the right place. So stay away from charities with government involvement, especially on the international scene. Government means bureaucracy, and increased expense accounts, and lots of meetings. Go with charities that are on the ground, connecting with the people who need help. On a local scale, that means going with the reputable ones, run by volunteers, that may give handouts, but primarily give people a leg up. That’s why I love the Salvation Army.
But my heart is really overseas. While there are worthy causes in Canada, we don’t really know poverty. Right now there are twelve million children living on the streets in Africa, rooting through garbage dumps for food. This year, my family all headed to Kenya to work at a children’s home for three weeks, run by a wealthy Kenyan family who had felt called to sell everything they had to care for orphans. We saw kids thriving with love, food and education, and heard stories of those for whom it was too late. Other people I know have been helping a similar but smaller orphanage in Lesotho. In both cases, it’s real people doing stuff without the government messing it up, and it’s working amazingly.
Many charities do similar things but on a larger scale, partnering with national organizations on the ground. World Vision in one of the best in that regard, and sponsoring a child can help your family put a face to poverty and focus your prayers and thoughts. Last year we gave towards a well in a village in Liberia through Partners International (harvestofhope.ca). A few weeks ago the charity invited us to meet a Liberian pastor who was in Canada to raise money for two hundred traumatized orphans of the war, who were still hiding in the forests around the village with our well, afraid to come out. He was the one who had dedicated the well, and he reported that this year, for the first time, no children have died of diarrhea.
Last Friday, as we were struggling to make our last minute donations, I came across another of those gift catalogs from a charity I admire (www.cbmicanada.org). For $200, you could give a child a cataract operation and prevent blindness. And as I put my tree away, I started to add up the total of all the presents I had bought this year. They were worth it, I know, but I couldn’t help thinking, how many kids could have seen for that amount of money? It’s humbling indeed. And I know where my donations will go next year.
If you want anymore information on any of these charities, you can contact Sheila at http://www.sheilawraygregoire.com.
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