I have issues with the word ‘charity.’ It makes me squirm and wrinkle my nose when I’m introduced or described as working for a ‘charity.’
‘Charity’ conjures up images of wealthy church ladies in Victorian times, assembling baskets of Christmas food for the poor that their husbands maintain working for miserable salaries the rest of the year. ‘Charity’ to me is working at a soup kitchen but never asking why people don’t have enough to eat, and who should be doing something about it and what needs to change. ‘Charity’ is the community members having to kowtow to the big man in the community for some of his left-overs in difficult times.
‘Charity’ is about power. ‘Charity’ is having pity for those that you are ‘helping’ and seeing ‘the poor’ as helpless victims. ‘Charity’ rests on foundations of guilt, privilege and the belief the ‘the poor will always be with us’.
Most everyone understands the act of ‘charity’. I have more than you do, so I give you some of what I have. You feel grateful for my generosity. I feel good about my generosity. Everyone’s momentarily happy. We do it again next season, nothing changes or gets better; and ‘the poor are always with us’ and kept in check by power imbalances.
‘Charity’ is related to a ‘needs-based’ approach, still used by some non-profit organizations, both large and small.
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There’s another approach that is referred to as social justice, related to the ‘rights-based’ approach. This type of approach is a little more complicated, but still not too hard to grasp on the surface.
Needs-based vs. Rights-based However, social justice or rights-based approaches are not so easy to actually implement, because they imply shifting power, changing systems, demanding that governments and other authorities fulfill their obligations, pushing citizens to take on their civic responsibilities, and getting political. They require those who have power to question why they have it, and they require those who are claiming rights to be empowered and organized. They often require examining one’s own behavior on a broader level. These approaches are not so easy as giving someone some money or your old clothes or a turkey at Thanksgiving. Talk of justice and rights makes a lot of people afraid, both those who hold wealth and power and those that the wealthy and powerful manipulate through the media. However these approaches can lead to long-term and sustainable changes.
This blog post at the Episcopal Cafe (I recommend reading the whole post – it’s short) sums up the difference between charity and social justice quite well. It starts off with this quote:
“Had I but one wish for the churches of America I think it would be that they come to see the difference between charity and justice. Charity is a matter of personal attributes; justice, a matter of public policy. Charity seeks to eliminate the effects of injustice; justice seeks to eliminate the causes of it. Charity in no way affects the status quo, while justice leads inevitably to political confrontation.” – The Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., from his book Credo.
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When I read about some of the initiatives being promoted these days – the #SWEDOW projects of the world and the idea that ‘anyone can do aid or development’ – more than anything, what irks me is that many (not all) of them are coming from a charity mentality. Sure, if all you need to do is hand out some of your old stuff or build something, maybe anyone can do it. But that’s not really helping much in the long term.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a non-profit, a do-it-yourselfer, an innovator, a business person, a religious-based group, a social media guru, or a movie star who wants to help out. And it doesn’t matter if the person is from (or working in) the US or a ‘developing’ country. The first thing that I look at in an initiative is the approach — is it coming from a charity mentality (in which case I will groan and fume) or is it questioning why the problem is happening in the first place and does it work in a non-patronizing, non-romanticized, respectful way with the people who are affected by the issue in an effort to help resolve it? (In which case I’ll then look further to see if the person or organization initiating the project has done their research to find well-documented good practices and avoid repeating mistakes or potentially doing harm or doing something that’s totally unsustainable.)
I recognize that social justice is not nearly as easy to achieve as ‘charity’. And I recognize that sometimes people need to be fed so that they have the strength to question why they are hungry and so that they have the energy to do something about it. And I don’t want to give the impression that solutions come from the outside, because most of the time they don’t.
I also recognize that ‘people want to do something’. But if ‘doing something’ means ‘charity’ then I am not in favor. It’s important to address the causes, not just treat the symptoms.
Social enterprise with its triple bottom line (people, planet, profit) has come up heavily in the past few years as one way to address poverty. Social entrepreneurship is also a trend that allows people a way to ‘do something’. I’m not as familiar with these approaches as I am with the other approaches, and I admit that I get the two terms confused.
I like that they move away from the charity mentality. But I’m not entirely sure that these approaches do enough on the side of changing power structures and ensuring that those who are marginalized can access their rights. I’m not convinced that the market takes care the people ‘at the bottom’, or balances out society. I’m also concerned that when push comes to shove, the profit motive will always win out over people and planet, and we are back to where we started perhaps… ‘the poor will always be with us’…. The jury is still out on that one for me.
I’m looking forward to seeing what hybrids develop over the next years, and if we will ever finally eliminate poverty and injustice. In any case, I feel pretty confident saying that it’s time to retire the charity mentality.
Some Resources:
Dochas Network’s simple overview of the Rights Based Approach
Bamboo Shoots – a tookit for facilitators working with children using a rights-based approach
Participatory Rural Appraisal (aka Participatory Research and Action) overview
Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Anything by Robert Chambers (my development hero!)
Applying a Rights-Based Approach (.pdf)
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[…] here to read the rest: Enough of the charity mentality Posted by Linda Raftree on Sep 27 2010. Filed under Poverty & Development. You can follow […]
As usual I mostly agree. But I honestly don’t think most people working in this field understand what social justice would really look like, and that’s why we’re stuck in cautious charity models. What it would REALLY look like…probably involves some messy confrontations and dangerous street protests, more what they call “social unrest.”
So, I’d rather an NGO just come right out and say, we do charity, than couch it in rights all over the place, when what they are doing still fits quite neatly into status quo.
Here in Nairobi, I hardly hear anyone speak of rights or social justice. Maybe because they’re afraid of being kicked out. Governments have a way of doing that. Maybe because development practice these days gets too technical – let’s overstudy the problem and provide “solutions”. The standard scientific approach to a messy, social problem.
I gained a new appreciation, too, for the charity mentality upon meeting a family who brought over tons of baby clothes and donations from their church to a small village in Kenya. While that’s clearly charity, once they arrived they were challenged by the deeper problems to think harder about what might work in the longer term. I had to respect this process that people go through – they may start with a soup kitchen but while there, they are faced with things they never imagined, and over time, they start to get it – they allow the complexity to settle in. There was something so honest about this one family I met. I almost never sense that honesty when I walk the halls of an NGO headquarters with its photos of dark-skinned children on the walls – in spite of all it’s lingo on human rights.
Linda, good stuff 🙂
Have you read the first chapter in Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”? He outright damns charity as “false generosity” and says that in any “oppressive system,” only the “oppressed” can restore justice. Its a fascinating read that left my brain processing for quite a while.
Recommended!
in so far as social enterprise and social entrepreneurship are activities fitting into capitalist systems of profit, consumption, individual ownership and etc i do not see them as changing power structures, and having witnessed many such projects in my own country, i see them doing little to lift people out of poverty. therefore i don’t see them as much of an improvement on ‘charity’. until we create systems of ‘from each according to their ability to each according to their need’ — which arise through ORGANISATION and COMMUNALISM (as in seeing our commonality of interests) power structures won’t change.
the level of endorsement of these entrepreneurship schemes from international NGOs is quite sickening! and i actually find it quite ‘racist’ that the level of survival people eke out of such schemes is considered acceptable for (for example) africans, tho that standard of living would never be considered acceptable by northern counterparts.
Has anyone has the chance to read “The Prosperity of Humankind”, “Eradicating Poverty: Moving Forward as One”, or “Rethinking Prosperity: Forging Alternatives to a Culture of Consumerism?”
I find these papers to be unique perspectives on the development issue, contributed by the international Bahai community to the overall discussion.
From the point of a non-poor westerner: for me one other way of distinguishing charity from rights-based is that the former is on “our” terms (I give what I feel is necessary), rights-based is on their terms (they themselves identify what is necessary).
Another practical criticism of charity is that a lot of it is of dubious quality, including its intentions at times. When I worked in Honduras at 2 street kids centres for a year back in 2004, the amount of “Junk for Jesus” that we received was astonishing. Did someone actually think that sending a complete set of outfits for a marching band would be of any use to us or the kids? What about 100kg of expired USAID canned pork? On a purely financial point: if people work out what the transportation cost of such donations are, they could provide funding directly to the local organisation and let them purchase exactly what was needed. It also puts money into the local economy too. But does it give them the personal and tangible satisfaction of having “done” something?
I’m not as up to date on social justice, as I have always based the projects I have worked on through the rights based approach (using the UNCRC). For me, social justice is hard to deal with as a socially just model can maintain the status quo, or allow for the poor to get marginally better off whilst the rich get massively better off which is an accepted model (take John Rawls for example). Instead, I see non-profits/NGOs as pushing for the rights of the marginalised that we represent (at the micro-level) which feeds in to the broader social justice movement (macro-level), to make sure that, for example, the poor and marginalised receive the level and breadth of support that they require, and that charity as a approach via any means is therefore not seen as an acceptable solution.
wow thanks everyone for the great comments!
@Max and @Barmak – adding your reading recommendations to my list of things to check out (when I’m back to fast internet) – thanks for that. And Max thanks for the good insight and examples.
@Rebecca – I tend to agree with you, but also think that in general Int’l NGOs have done a poor job of helping people generate their own income which I suppose, in the end, since the world is currently a capitalistic model, is one way for people to get out of poverty…. so I’m not opposed to social enterprise that supports community based groups or individuals to generate income for themselves. The larger scheme of capitalism does feed into the charity model though. The rich earn from the poor and then give back through charity…. Social justice I guess would mean that business would need to make ethical principles and fair/just treatment of employees and sustainable/kind use of the planet an integral part of their business model rather than try to deal with those aspects after the fact via “corporate social responsibility”.
@prabhas – I’m a HUGE Freire fan. 🙂
@Erica and as usual I mostly agree with you too 🙂 Maybe INGOs and Governments DO know what social justice would look like, and that’s why they don’t do it? I think there are ways to achieve social justice that don’t involve extreme violence and bloody conflict though. Also totally agree with you that there’s too much focus on “technical solutions”and linear thinking around what are really messy social problems. And as for the last paragraph – sometimes people do come to broader understanding after starting off with a “charity” approach, but I wish that there were more public education and awareness so that people wouldn’t have to start there, but would start further along the pathway so they could avoid reinforcing the benefactor/beneficiary stereotypes.
I can’t find any online communities that actively participate in discussion on helping alleviate poverty. The online space is an awesome opportunity to get people developing teams to target issues that can make this world a better place. As far as I can see, no NGO’s or poverty minded philanthropists use it well for developing community. This is sad.
Hi Philip – there’s a very vibrant commuity on Twitter that discusses poverty alleviation and related themes 24 hours a day. You can find good blogs also there to read and comment on/discuss, and the Twitter contacts often lead to further communication/collaboration/meet ups, etc. Through the blogs and other discussions you’ll also find links to more specific thematic on-line groups on different aspects of development and poverty alleviation….
@Linda can you name or post links to these groups — I want to check that I’m following all of them!
Hi Rebecca, I’m on super slow internet for the next couple weeks and not able to easily find the links to paste. Many people I follow on twitter have good twitter lists – try lists that @talesfromthhood and @viewfromthecave have put together for starters and then you can dig around on those lists to find more lists and people to follow. I’ll try to remember when I’m back on fast internet to post some links. Also check my blog roll for good conversations/folks to follow….
@Max – I agree that there is too much funding that is based on what funders want to achieve as opposed to what communities have identified as their needs … I think for example, the Bill&Melinda Gates foundation is a good example of this. Bill & Melinda clearly have an agenda to make Africa into a market for their many products (they’re not just invested in Microsoft) — this is actually incredibly disturbing as they are invested in e.g. biotechnology and GMs and fund African farmers to do GM crops; they are invested in circumcision devices and so push circumcision, despite damning evidence that circumcision will do nothing to solve the AIDS crisis … these projects are ultimately harmful to Africans, and actually helping the so-called philanthropists more than anyone else …
Not all the funders are as bad as these, but just about all have agendas driven from the donor countries which override agendas of recipient countries…
[…] Enough of the charity mentality – Wait… What? […]
Love it! I have only skimmed, as I’m at work, but will read more closely later. I too, for some time now, have been struggling with the concept of “charity” and this was on my list of things to blog about. You beat me to it! 🙂 I really don’t like the word and have been trying for a while to figure out why or put into words what my beef with it is, exactly. This really helps crystalize some of that for me. Great post!
Thanks Carol! I had been wanting to write it for a long time before I actually got to it.
I hear ya!! Agree absolutely, relieved I’m not the only one to feel that some of ‘aid/’charity work being done is being delivered in a way that is fundamentally demeaning to its recipients…
I’ll be in touch…. 🙂
thanks – look forward to it 🙂
Hi Linda. I think this is a central issue for development.
I like to think that the limitations of charity — which you have well described — are widely discussed. (I hope they are.) The question that follows is: What’s the alternative?
I feel we have bits and pieces of the answer emerging. We have “development partners” instead of donor/beneficiary. We have strengths-based instead of needs-based approaches. But what we have yet to develop is the compelling picture which pulls all of these together, in place of the centuries old charity picture, which still “holds us captive”.
You’ve discussed the possible of the rights-based approach as an alternative, but this still seems to have echoes of “we have, and you have not”, and “we know, and you know not.”
The biggest obstacle, I feel, is the flow of funds. Because until we interpret the flows of funds as OTHER than “we have, and you have not”, we will remain captive of the charity mentality.
“A picture held us captive.
And we could not get outside it,
for it lay in our language
and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably”
–Wittgenstein
thanks David – Always brilliant thoughts coming from you. I agree. We are in the middle of a shift and something new will come out of it, but it’s not fully formed yet.