With the recent and hugely visible campaigns such as the Poppy Appeal, Movember, Pudsey for Children in Need and York’s own RAG Winter Wonderland, I have been struck by the question why do we give to charity? Obviously there is the incentive of it being a short-cut to a good deed; hand over a small amount of change and feel good in the knowledge that you have given your support to a cause which will then do the hard work for you. But why do we give to some charities and not to others? Is it more to do with a successful promotional campaign, or the people who ask you, than the actual issue behind it? And if we do give to any charity without looking further than the person asking for the donation, is this necessarily a bad thing?
Thinking specifically about the recent and highly successful Movember campaign, I have to admit I knew next to nothing about what the charity endorses and how successful it is in its research. It turns out that this particular charity receives a lot more media and celebrity support than medical back up; in a recent article the BMJ questions the efficiency of screening tests that the Movember charity actively encourages. Had I researched the charity and discovered the wealth of information always available at the click of a button, I might have made an informed decision over whether to donate or not. As it happened, I didn’t bother and instead gave my support based on a few friends (and a relative’s well meaning horse!!) asking for it. So perhaps my motive was guilt. If I don’t donate I look stingey. Or perhaps it was in support of the friend rather than the cause; if someone you know puts themselves out there to support a cause they personally believe in, surely there is some good in helping them do this.
One way of looking at it is, regardless of motivation, perhaps giving to charity is a way of acknowledging our relative but ultimately overwhelming position of wealth in a world which is fundamentally unequal. A sort of small-scale redistribution of money and resources which points to something much needed on a global level. On another level, there is the much-hyped ‘warm fuzzy feeling’ you get after having done something selfless for others. In other words giving to charity, regardless of the cause, increases feelings such as benevolence and generosity, reduces selfishness and greed, and surely creates a better society for all. That’s the theory anyway, a cynic may say you just wanted to get your friend off your back and saw two pounds donated as an easy way of doing that.
But perhaps there is something to be said for doing your homework and finding out which charities are cost-effective and useful before you donate. Ahead of the game in this respect, is the charity ‘Giving What You Can’, set up precisely to give you that choice: it conducts its own research into the efficacy and transparency of a charity, and has compiled a list of those it recommends you donate to. The idea is that you can donate to something which will make the most of your money, and will leave you with no lingering doubts about where exactly your money goes after you place it in the RAG bucket, or transfer it on a Just Giving page. The distance between someone who donates and exactly where the money ends up, and the obscurity of that process, does sometimes leave me feeling a bit sceptical about giving to charity and the Giving What You Can organisation counters this by helping you ensure your donation is as useful as it possibly can be. It is a user-friendly, interactive and ethically minded scheme and website, which allows you to really make a difference. Should you be inclined to donate some of that dwindling student loan to a charity, you may as well choose one which will make the most of it.
York now has its own Giving What We Can facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/GivingWhatWeCanYork
To emphasise Nina’s point, some charities are hundreds or thousands of times more effective than others.
For example, as GWWC founder Toby Ord says: “training a guide dog can cost £25,000 and for this money more than 2,000 people could be cured of blindness in developing countries.”
Given this, I would encourge people to give to the top-rated charities. I would also encourage RAG to demand more independent evidence of cost-effectiveness and efficacy from charities when it creates its shortlist.
There’s also a really useful organisation – http://www.givewell.org/ which does all the important research and testing of charities to come up with top recommendations as to the most cost-effective charities where your donation will go as far and do as much good as it possibly can. Do check it out!