Three Harmful Nonprofit Practices to Avoid this #GivingTuesday (and what to look for instead)

Child Sponsorship

In the past, child sponsorship has been a very effective fundraising strategy – in terms of raising actual dollars, anyway. And it makes sense on the surface: you pay a student’s school fees; they go to school; they write thank you letters; you have their photo on the fridge; you feel good and they go to school. Harmless, right? Maybe even doing some good in the world?

In practice, however, child sponsorship comes with a tangled web of cultural, financial, and ultimately harmful repercussions that the sponsor will remain blissfully unaware of, while the child, their family, and even their community may be grappling with for decades to come.

Lily Siegle of The Guardian writes, “Child-sponsorship schemes perpetuate the myth that a single child's fortunes can be changed by a monthly donation. This is a flattering idea to the Western donor, but as Oxfam (which does not run child-sponsorship schemes) always points out, children's welfare is dependent on the kind of life their parents are able to lead.”

When white or Western people center themselves as the provider or savior in a child’s life, it can often lead to rifts between that child and their parents, who may feel a sense of inadequacy or being “second best” to their own child’s sponsor. Additionally, if that sponsor can no longer afford to donate for any reason, or simply becomes bored with the “project’ of sponsorship, the sponsored child is left not only with little or no financial support, but also with a sense of abandonment from someone they had grown to trust and rely on.

Instead of looking for a child to sponsor, you can look for organizations that accept monthly donations for community projects, and send general updates on beneficiaries and projects. This way you’ll still have something to hang on your fridge and share with your family and friends (“here’s the well my donation helped build this year; it provides access to clean water to over 70 families per day!”) and you’ll know you’re making a difference in a community across the world without causing any unnecessary harm.

Far Away Friends has a community of committed monthly donors called Advocates! They ensure we can pay our teachers a living wage, and help us with community projects all year long. Click here to learn more and Become an Advocate ahead of #GivingTuesday!

Poverty Porn

A controversial NGO buzzword of the last five or so years, Poverty Porn is used to describe images of people, usually children, in states of extreme poverty and duress. It's the old photos panning across our TVs in the 90s with a sad Sara Mcglauclin song in the background; children with distended stomachs, no shoes and worn out clothing, flies in their eyes and hair, dirt on their faces, no hope to be found. 

While certainly these images create a compelling case to donate, and have successfully solicited millions from donors over the years, there are several problems with images like these. 

First of all, there is no guarantee the children in the photos are actually receiving the funds you’re donating. Oftentimes organizations will use images from communities they don’t work in, or of community members that don’t benefit from their programs. This is exploiting children’s suffering for profit; getting you to donate because you want to help a sad child you saw on a postcard, when in reality they're using your donation for other programs for other people – and that child’s conditions remain the same.

As a result, children in developing countries become a stock photo of suffering, instead of the complex individuals they are, with complex joys and sorrows and needs. It becomes easy, when we see these images over and over again, to think of a country like Uganda as only a place of suffering that only we, the benevolent Westerners, can solve, when in reality it is a beautiful and complicated place with millions of intelligent local leaders who are working with their communities every day to solve real-world problems – and celebrate real-world joy. 

Before donating to an organization, check out their website and social media; if it’s all doom and gloom or sad kids on stoops, see if you can research other organizations that portray a more nuanced view of their community and programs.

Far Away Friends partners with local media and artists to portray as accurately as possible the intricacies – the joy and the pain – of Namasale, Uganda, the rural community where our programs take place.

Savior Centered (instead of locally led)

The story of many nonprofits is something lots of us are familiar with: someone (usually a Western, white someone) goes on a mission trip or travels with a relief program, falls in love with a place and its people, and comes home to start a nonprofit because they believe they can solve this community’s problems. 

Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this story; it is, in fact, the story of Far Away Friends – kind of. There’s one key difference in our story: rather than starting with an idea that we could save anyone (let alone an entire community), it started with a friendship. Two women – one Ugandan who fiercely believed the children of her community deserved better; one American who had a passion for international development and education – came together to co-found an organization and fuel a dream. 

Far Away Friends is different because we are locally co-founded and led; local leaders are a part of every meeting and major decision-making process regarding the development of the district we work in – their district. We talk about this at length in many of our social media and blog posts.

All this to say: if an organization is not community-led (and even better, locally co-founded), there is no way of really knowing that the work they're doing is what is best for the community itself. 

Imagine if someone came to your door and told you you needed a new school for your kid or septic system for your house. You’re thinking, I didn’t ask for this. My kid’s school is fine; my water runs great. What I really need is access to healthier foods at my grocery store, or a debt relief program to help me stay afloat. But nobody asked you. They assumed what you needed, and that’s what they’re going to do – plus, “it’s way sexier to fundraise for a fancy new school building than a debt relief program anyway. Donors will never give to that, trust us, we know best.”

This kind of “donor over beneficiary” fundraising puts the (oftentimes) wealthy donor in the driver seat, and gives them control over what happens in a community halfway across the world that they don’t live in and have never been to. While usually led with good intentions, this mindset can lead to harming the community you were trying to help.

Instead, look for organizations that are locally led – look for evidence of community-driven development (documentation of community meetings), clear financial statements, who they list as their "executive" team on their website, and who they talk about most on their social media.

While the vast majority of nonprofits have amazing intentions to do good in the world, it’s 2022 – good intentions are no longer enough. This #GivingTuesday, stay informed, and give to organizations that will make the biggest and best impact with your dollar.

To learn more about our work and what we’re planning this giving season, check out our website, social media, and other blog posts.