that we are not teaching our children to think straight about charity?

[Himalaya]

I am thinking abou the response to the Tsunami, where people and charities are doing fundraisers, even though Japan has said it doesn't need donations.

www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16charity.html?

Its part of a broader trend of feel-good giving which starts at school it seems to me.

Events and campaigns like 'red nose' day and Make Poverty History have done a great job in making issues of poverty and development more accessible and getting resources to organisations that can use them to do good.

But they have also got us into the habit of thinking that every problem can be solved with with some kind of fun, light hearted fund raising event, and that we shouldn't look too hard at the organisations we give to.

Cheerycherry and pointydog - yes I agree Comic Relief does good work raising awareness of the issues. This costs money and is worth doing.

But taking good action doesn't just depend on compassion and awareness of the issues (like the Japan tsunami situation - 24 hr news means everyone is aware, there is a huge upwelling of compassion - but no one knows how to translate this into help on the ground - and charities that are fundraising on the promise that they will work it out once they've got the money are being oportunist)

Comic relief and other charities that have such a presence in schools have an opportunity to educate kids (and teachers) about how to give well - looking at the organisation you are giving to, do they report on impacts, how effective and efficient are they at translating donations into impact etc...don't assume that whatever feels good is good (exhibit A: shoebox Xmas charities)

But instead they are teaching nonsense like 'the golden pound principle'. Comic Relief know this is nonsense. They are a grant giving organisation. Apart from organising this once a year shindig they spend the rest of the year giving out funds. They sure as hell don't assess grant applications on 'the golden pound principle' that the one with the lowest admin costs is better, or that if there is more than one funder you don't have to look at the overall costs.

I guess that is what most frustrates me is that the likes of Comic Relief know this stuff backwards, but they are not only not educating they are positively diseducating.

Bonsoir - yes it would be nice if there was a 'wastage' line, but you can't know what that is unless you measure impact (and that is the really hard bit)

It is impact you are really interested in not 'wastage' (again the restaurant example - is it a good restaurant- yes the food is great, and it's good value for money, not 'yes, there's not many peelings in their bin')

Charities with the lowest admin costs (e.g. Volunteer run, small scale operations) are least able to assess wastage or even understand that it happens. So in my vaccine example Charity A doesn't know about the vaccines that went to waste because they don't keep good records, manage people proffessionally etc... (..which costs money)

Christine you are reading into my comments things I have not said. You appear to think I do not recognise a scale difference between the Japanese crisis and F&M. Of course there is a scale difference, but there are no two disaters alike. What true similarities are these between any two disaters except that they are unforseen events which cause great destruction?

I supported the Haiti appeal whole heartedly and before that the Boxing Day Tsunami appeal. Had the Chernobyl disater been during my adulthood no doubt I would have supported that too. As far as events go these are the three most comparable diasters I can think of, and yet they are each nothing like what happened in Japan a week ago. Haiti was one of the poorerst countries on it's continent, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka do not fully achieve official organisation or universal sanitation on a good day and the USSR/Ukraine were generally poorly equipped. There is not a disater that is directly comparable because no 2 disasters ever are.

What you can compare is human responses. It is the only ever present feature of a disaster, people will feel pity for the victims. Well, unless those victims are perceived to be able to "cope".

How many funerals did you attend because of the F&M crisis? I was present at 2. But then, my (rural) community are predominantly white, British and perceived to be fine. Even when farmers were breaking down in front of news cameras saying we don't know how we will survive, the appeal did not materialise. Consequently many people did not survive, either financially or actually. You have no right to argue that those 2 lost lives were any the less valuable than any other. They were preventable deaths, that we, as a country, did not prevent.

The Japanese may be refusing help because of thier pride, but since when did we have the right to tell another culture how to feel about itself? The British are noted for thier pride in their own home, whereas many African cultures would believe homes should be more open and communal. The Japanese have as much right to run thier own show as you do to make your own choices who may live with you. Were you Austrian you would have to let your spare bedroom to anyone who asked- I doubt you would like this much as a Brit.

Tolerance and understanding means accepting when you are not superior and do not have a moral right to dictate. It means when people plead and cry and beg for your help, when lives are on the line, you help. When those people say it's ok, we will do this ourselves you back off, and leave the offer open ust in case. If you ever have to spend any time in a wheelchair you will realise how incredibly frustrating it is not to be respected as worthy of your own oppinion.

Well a restaurant which doesn't operate well as a business will go under no matter how good their food is; most businesses fail due to poor cashflow rather than lack of turnover.

Not sure what that has to do with Comic Relief, which I loathe. Nothing against the charity projects themselves, I just can't bear the smugger than smug smuggery of the slebs falling over themselves to emote/be zany on cue. It's hard to say whether the emoting or the zany is worse.

But underachieving, disagreeing with the Japanese government's stance is not the same as thinking that we're morally superior to the Japanese people. On the contrary, I know a lot of Japanese people themselves who believe that the country needs help. What is so wrong about supporting the work of organisations like the Japanese red cross, given the enormous challenges that they are facing right now?

Crikey. Now we're on to how well charities educate about fundraising and administration. This thread has too many issues going on.

Himalaya - I used (many moons ago...) to work for a grant-making foundation, and assessing impact was a major preoccupation.

It is even harder to assess impact in a charitable organisation that is in the field of education, as our was, than in health, where measures of outcome are relatively straightforward to conceptualise.

How do you measure the impact of funding a PhD student from a developing country? Even designing a measurement at a conceptual level is wildly complex.

YABU, I'm surprised the japanese government has said it doesn't need help. The government channel (equivalent of the BBC) is asking for donations from Japanese people in other areas of japan. They do need money. There are also quite a lot of people starving up there in the North, so I'm not exactly sure what they're doing tbh.

OTOH, I do agree with underachieving's post. I should imagine the Japanese don't want to feel obligated to other countries. Obligation is hugely cultural. If people help you out when you're in a bad spot sometimes the "debt" of obligation can be more of a burden than if they'd never helped you in the first place. This could be why they are refusing aid from abroad. It's also perfectly natural to want to sort things out yourself when you're in a tight spot.

Well I have done some research and the Japanese government has NOT said that it doesn't need help, so the OP is completely WRONG on this point. I don't know why the NY times has reported this incorrectly, but it's not known for its integrity.

It seems that the Japanese Red Cross has only said it doesn't need volunteers, because they need specialised people and the nature of the disaster is such that they need specialized people. I even checked to see whether the donations should be given somewhere else in case the red cross was receiving more money than it could handle but even this is not the case. It does need donations; it wants donations. the Japanese government wants donations and is very grateful to anyone who is concerned enough to donate.

"The compassion the American people have demonstrated over the past week through their generous support to the American Red Cross is incredibly uplifting at a time when we are dealing with a such an immense humanitarian tragedy, said Satoshi Sugai, director, Disaster Relief for the Japanese Red Cross. ?This financial support is very much needed and continues to be welcomed to help the hundreds of thousands of lives that will forever be changed by this disaster.?"

Red Cross.org

Patrick Fuller of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Society

"One week in, it doesn't seem like the grassroots financial pledging is the same as say, after the Haiti disaster. Do you think that's because of the media overshadowing humanitarian news for the (nuclear) power-plant reporting, a public perception that Japan is too wealthy to need support, or something else?

That's because we haven't launched a public appeal but are accepting donations. yes - the media needs to focus on the needs of survivors but the nuclear issue is also a big story and possibly will help to keep the tsunami story in the public eye. If you want to keep up with what we are doing in Japan, log on to www.ifrc.org/ - thanks for the questions." trust.org

Japnese Red Cross asking for donations on its website

"If you want to donate money to the affected population of earthquake and tsunami, please contact your national Red Cross/Crescent society, which may have already launched fundraising campaign within your country.

If your national society doesn?t collect donation or you wish to send your donations directly to the Japanese Red Cross Society, please direct your fund to the following bank account. If you need the receipt of your fund, please state so clearly in the comment section of the bank transfer order. All the fund received under this account will be transferred to the Distribution Committee, which is formed around the local government of the disaster-affected prefecture and to be distributed directly among the affected population of earthquake and tsunami,

　Name of Bank: Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation
　Name of Branch: Ginza
　Account No.: 8047670 (Ordinary Account)
　SWIFT Code: SMBC JP JT
　Payee Name: The Japanese Red Cross Society
　Payee Address: 1-1-3 Shiba-Daimon Minato-ku, Tokyo JAPAN

Thank you once again for your generous offer. It is surely the source of encouragement for the affected population in Japan.
Japanese red cross

And Shelterbox are in the area. If you read the pane on the right that more or less sums it up:

• Mon 14 March -

"The Japanese government has not yet requested any international assistance for the provision of emergency shelter but has put great value in international aid agencies operating autonomously and self-sufficiently in the country, as ShelterBox is."

The Shelterbox Response Team hit the ground on Wednesday 16th, with over 5,000 boxes packed back in Cornwall and ready to fly, according to need.

Shelterbox are as reputable as they come. If they're in Japan then they've got the right kinds of official clearance. (They got clearance from Junta to work in Burma in the wake of cyclone Nargis when practically no one else could, which says a lot about having earned thier respect within the international community.)

Shelterbox are especially interesting because they do not raise money on a country by country basis. Anything raised in response to the Japanese crisis but not required in Japan will be used for the next disaster- or the current disasters in Peru, Bolivia and Madagascar which aren't making the headlines.

Underachieving, You are obviously from a farming background but please get off your high horse. Stop going on and on about the Uk doing nothing about F&M- what can we do about it now? NOTHING - We can help the countries that have been affected now by this disaster and others ongoing - famine etc etc

F&M was tragic when it happened sad and there might not have been a UK national campaign but I did actually contribute to the welfare of a farming community that had been wiped out- Organised by the Young farmers - it was a local thing I believe enough money was raised to buy animals to help some farmers started again.
Many Many more people have been affected by this disaster much more money will be needed to help them and if you don't want to then don't .

But I do agree about Shelterbox they are great .....

So if I'm understanding this correctly following a bit more reading what has happened is that Japan has not issued the same kind of appeal as governements usually do for aid, but instead has quietly enabled what aid is forthcoming. This has been erroneously interpretted by the media as refusing aid (probably because it makes for better copy), when in fact trusted aid organisations have been busy on the ground for days.

It's still a very confusing position, but if it does turn out that Japan were not refusing aid at all then I think journalism is going to have a lot of needless death to answer for.

Just seen your posts Rosa. There is no high horse about it. The point which you seem to have missed entirely is that in falling over ourselves to "help" a victim who says they neither need nor want it is intollerant. We can make the assumption that our own people can cope when they're telling us that they can't and yet make the patronising assumption that foreigners who are saying they can cope actually can't. It had nothing to do with F&M in and of itself, it was a statement about how the popular perception of pity skews the practical reality of the relief effort required.

Interestingly it appears the popular perception has skewed the practical reality yet again, if as Sakura and Shelterbox suggest, relief has not been refused at all.

This goes straight to the heart of the original question, which was are we teaching our children skewed thinking about charity. I have to say we are. Our own thinking about charity, as adults, is clearly a lot less than totally objective.

Why are they saying Japan is refusing aid?

errmmmmm I haven't missed the point at all - It was you who started comparing F&M to this and saying that the Uk did nothing.

I hate the New York Times. They recently wrote an article about the gang-rape of an 11 year old girl by 18 men, blaming the child because she looked 17. Hate them

We give monthly to 2 charities the local hospice and the childrens hospice. I know exactly where the money goes. We also give to a local st vincent de paul society, which helps people in the community. As a teacher in one of the local primary school I have a fair idea of the children who are in need. Through this charity the children are being helped directly. To be able to buy clothes,school uniforms, toys at christmas and food for a family who you know really need it is a much better use of my money than donating it to comic relief.

This is what I mean. People think about giving to 'good causes' with the ideal of person-to-person aid.

But in reality that is not how it works - you are giving to an organisation to support their work. The key measure of whether the organisation is worth supporting is NOT % admin costs but whether they are good at what they do, and whether what they do is a good idea.

Shelterbox is an example of an organisation which sounds good to donors (if they don't think about it too hard) but just isn't. Cornwall has no comparative advantage as a distribution hub for anything. The idea of packing stuff in neat boxes sounds nice, but aid workers on the ground can better assess what is needed, purchase it from supliers locally and distribute it.