Poverty Navigator: Who are the extremely poor? What happens to all that money given to help them? Is it getting to those who need it? Who is doing the best job?And how do we know? Can you trust anybody?
Let's Talk About Poverty
A Few Facts
Our Purpose and Objective
The Difficulty and Deception In Giving To Charities
Who Is Evaluating and Rating Charities and How Do They Do It?
What Standards of Evaluation Are WE Going To Use?
*Charities Rated
We Can Help You in Your Giving
Links to World Poverty Statistics
Interesting Reads Related To Giving To Abject Poverty
Charitable Giving In the US
Cost-Effective Compassion: The 10 Most Popular Strategies for Helping the Poor
Major International Poverty Organizations
We have found that while many 'Christian' aid organizations were honest in their dealings, in some cases, methods have been employed that appear deceptive.
In our research of 'Christian' aid organizations we have found that, while many were honest in their dealings, in some cases methods have been employed that appear deceptive. They include the following:
c1. Postman deception
c2. Purpose deception
c3. Pot deception
c4. Pass deception
c5. Problem deception
c1. Postman deception: Many aid organizations claim to help, feed, educate, or support many in need, while in matter of fact, they do nothing more than pass on some of the given monies to what they call partners, after having taken their cut for their own salaries, and other costs. It would not be honest if the postman or the bank which delivers the funds claim that they give aid to the needy. Who really provides the aid? It is important to check the partner organizations and to ask how the aid organization itself checks on the partner organizations. Overhead costs of a "postman" aid organization that does not have personnel in the field ought to be much lower than aid organizations that send their own personnel to work in third world countries. And a 'postman' aid organization that never makes costs in checking their partners should not necessarily be rated higher than the ones that find it necessary to make costs to evaluate their partners in the field.
c2. Purpose deception: Many aid organizations give the distinct impression that their purpose is to help the needy while in matter of fact, when one searches through the 'small letters' in their constitution, the purpose stated is often the help of the needy plus all that pertains to that purpose, in the broadest sense of the word, which includes salaries, office costs, publicity and fund raising costs, including the extensive mailings begging for your money. When an aid organization claims, therefore, that 90% of gifts go to project costs or to the purpose of the organization, and only 10% goes to fundraising, it means nothing. You still do not know how much goes to help the needy. As well, if the stated purpose is in opposition to the facts, as for example when monies are said to be given to a certain orphan in an adoption scheme, but in matter of fact are given to the community so that the orphan has only an indirect advantage, then it would seem the charity is misleading the donor.
c3. Pot deception: Nonprofits generally have one bank account to which you can make out a donation. Out of this one pot of money the varies pots of money are filled for salaries, for overhead, for shoes for Elizabeth, and the like. Many aid organizations employ specific projects or adoption schemes to personalize the giving. Giving to a specific child, buying a cow for a certain needy person and such similar projects tend to generate more gifts than donations to a large organization which is involved in impersonal and unspecified projects. Often when donations are made for a project, other funds that had previously been allocated for that project are then redirected for something else, like better salaries. Your donation then, indirectly, ends up in a different pot. The reshuffling of earmarked gifts ought to be transparent and evaluated.
c4. Pass deception: As has been mentioned, donations are often passed on to other intermediaries. This means that a daughter organization is often required to send monies to the mother organization, after which it is passed on to the sister charities which in turn passes it on to a partner which then helps Elizabeth. The daughter, the mother, the sister, the partner, and the banks, all have running costs that have to be deducted from the original gift for Elizabeth. Sometimes gifts going to the daughter come from charities with a different mother. Deductions for costs have already been made from these gifts as well. Charities give gifts to each other. When a daughter charity in this case leaves the impression that they are helping Elizabeth without informing the donor that there are other costs involved than their own in order to get the money to Elizabeth, they are misleading the donor.
c5. Problem deception: Invariably problems arise within nonprofits. This could be infighting with the employees, misappropriation of funds, corruption, and the like, within the charity itself that receives your donations or within one of the intermediary organizations. Corruption is prevalent in many third world countries. When these matters are concealed from the gift giving public it should be reflected with a lower rating.
In conclusion, we need some professionals who will help us to set up an objective standard (although certain subjective aspects are unavoidable) to evaluate Christian aid organizations involved in poverty alleviation. Perhaps this can be done by assigning points that are accumulated according to a standard checklist, in the four above mentioned areas. The better the Christian aspect, the greater the needs of the very poor are met, the better the money flow, and the better the results, the more points an organization is allocated. These points can then be translated into a five star rating system (including half-stars) as is standard practice. We need a number of people who will do case studies of any Christian charity, of their own choosing, involved with poverty alleviation. In such a study an attempt ought to be made to give a rating keeping in mind some of the aspects mentioned above. By combining these case studies, we can perhaps better work out a standard checklist with assigned points, applicable to all of the aid organizations under consideration.
As well, we need people who are willing to accumulate a lot of data, some of which is readily available on the internet. First of all, we need to identify the 50 or so organizations under consideration in each participating country. Secondly, we need to find as much information as possible, over as long a time period as possible, via publications given by these organization themselves, through their annual reports, financial statements, forms provided to other rating organizations, or to the government via such documents as the IRA 990 forms in the USA, or the annual reports according to regulation RJ650 in the Netherlands, or the Canadian Registered Charity Information Return, or the (Trustees) Annual Return in the UK, etc.
Data acquisition about the intermediaries and partners are equally important, if not more so, than of the nonprofit which first receives the given gifts. The charity that first receives the gift should provide this information since it may be expected that they are concerned with how a gift has been passed on and given at the end of the line to Elizabeth. Not providing requested information (with certain exceptions like aid going to politically sensitive areas) should mean a lower rating. In order to get the necessary data which cannot be found by the above mentioned methods, it will probably be necessary to develop a standard questionnaire to send to the charities. Not responding to this request or insufficiently providing the requested information should reflect on the rating of such a charity.
d. What are the results?
In other words, does Elizabeth get her shoes and has this been achieved within a loving Christian setting? This is the most important part because this is the reason that a donation has been given in the first place. All the earlier mentioned aspects that are necessary to rate an organization are secondary to this one. Accountability of a nonprofit should have this as a spear point. Devising a method to rate this aspect will probably be the most challenging of all. In the case that this aspect remains obscure however, then a look at the heart of the charities involved becomes more significant. Exorbitant compensations for CEOs, as an example, then reflect on the probability that results lack effectiveness.
2. Facts and Figures
Now comes the easy part. To facilitate Christian giving to Christian causes involved with poverty alleviation, it is important that we provide easily accessible information about the backdrop of this endeavor. This information is readily available on the internet or elsewhere. The intended facilitation is for both the donors and the charities, and should include some of the following information:
a. Biblical information about riches, poverty, ownership, giving, tithing, etc; a list of the Scripture references and comments;
b. What is a Christian aid organization, and why a historical evangelical and reformed world and life view better guarantees good results;
c. Maximizing giving by making use of government tax exemptions, and making use of other stimulants to giving, as for example, gift matching possibilities;
d. Avoiding high costs of money transfers; transfer costs between intermediary charities; exposing and analyzing charity transfer agencies;
e. Statistics on giving; how much is given; who are the donors; which Christian groups give how much; to which categories of charities; to which needy groups; why; when; assets relative to income; salaries; volunteers; poverty; geographical poverty and giving distribution; hot spots of need in the world;
f. Instructions on how one can analyze a small charity; what to look out for by smaller charities not rated by AAA; how to judge annual reports;
g. Fundraising; the ethics of it; how, when, where; general practices and statistics; where and how to look for funds by the foundations, by other charities, by NGO and government organizations; how to make a professional request;
h. About general philanthropic organizations; about the rating agencies that give a stamp of approval; the value and non-value and misconceptions about these agencies; fundraising agencies; agencies giving advice to nonprofits; lobbying agencies; other watchdog organizations doing comparative studies and giving relative ratings; their value and shortcomings (it is especially the standards employed by the 'stamp of approval' agencies and the agencies giving relative ratings that interest us and from which we can learn a lot);
i. Important media coverage of philanthropic matters;
j. Links to important web sites for help with all of the above; a list of all the Christian Charities involved in poverty alleviation, including the smaller ones, with their contact details.
Other broader facts, as for example, about the evils of the prosperity gospel movement, and the relative importance of giving for the poor over against other nonprofit areas of concern, and the like, might also be valuable for our site. At any rate, the above mentioned suggestions for facts and figures is in no way intended to be exhaustive, or conclusive.
This part on 'facts and figures' may seem to be quite massive and too ambitious. But most of the material is out there already and simply needs to be arranged, linked to, illustrated, and commented on.
3. Direct facilitation
At times a donor may want to contribute to a (foreign) organization not having a government recognized charitable status. In that case possible tax benefits do not apply. Or he may want to start up a small relief charity but not want all the paperwork and expenses for government registration, accountants or notaries etc. For these and other cases, AAA has set up a Foundation in the Netherlands called ARK AID. ARK AID Foundation is not just another aid organization. It does not actively raise funds. It does not keep assets. It does not make money in the gift giving process. It simply facilitates giving by passing on 100% of donations to designated projects or partners, generally for the purpose that tax benefits be applicable. No other organization offers this kind of service. ARK AID Foundation is in this sense a subsidiary of ARK AID Appraisal, the gift giving facilitator and watchdog of Christian charities involved in the alleviation of poverty.
ARK AID Foundation has been actively fulfilling this purpose for about 5 years. See their web page for more details: arkaid.nl (Dutch) or arkaid.info (English). We are looking to set up an office of ARK AID Foundation in other countries fulfilling a similar task.
The above proposal is only a concept. It needs to be developed, expanded upon, revised, filled in, etc. All is at the moment tentative.
The name ARK AID has been given to our endeavors and for or an obvious reason. The ARK of Noah, as well as the ARK of the Covenant, are pictures of the best kind of aid. The ARK is a picture (what the Bible calls a shadow) of Christ. Being in the ARK (in Christ) is a shadow of the best kind of aid: deliverance from the judgment waters which in a figure have come upon Christ because of sin. The ARK of the covenant gives an expanded picture of this deliverance-aid. The triple A logo is an expression of excellence. The exceeding excellence of Jesus is our pattern. AAA attempts to make its entire doings subservient to this higher goal of deliverance-aid and excellence. Jesus said, "what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and loose his own soul?" (Mark 8:36).
An Example of Charity Misrepresentation
Dateline NBC video on Las Vegas' US Missionary Corps. This scam was exposed and illustrates the kind of deception that donors potentially have to deal with every time they go out in public.
An Example of a Charity CEO's Extravagant Compensation
Taylor's Gift CEO defends $100,000 salaryTaylor's Gift is a small startup charity organization that brings attention to organ donation. Now the CEO of that organization is under scrutiny for taking a salary representing more than half of all funds that were donated in 2011. view full article