This may be an unpopular opinion, but I've always felt it selfish when people of means partake in 'aid trips' over sending money to an appropriate organization. If you care to help, leverage your abilities efficiently; make the money doing what you're best at, and let others administer the aid.
I used to agree with this view, until I participated in an aid trip in college. When I personally saw what extreme poverty was, it changed the course of my life and future career decisions. So, the $1000 plane ticket and 10 days in a rural, high-need area allowed me to look outside the bubble of American extravagance I had grown up in.
It is one thing to rationally know that people are without food and basic medicine through the reading I did or videos I watched. It is another to be in a high-need community and find myself trying to explain to a father that I just ran out of the antibiotics he needed to help his sick child fight an infection. Of course it would have been more effective to not buy the plane ticket and ship $1000 more of antibiotics to the community, but that is the cost we (myself and the community) paid to change a lifetime of decisions I would make as a privileged American. The cost sickens me, but it is the reality I have come to understand.
Emotional connections are powerful, but they are difficult to form without the personal connection. My hope is that as technology improves, we will be able to build empathy more effectively even without the aforementioned expensive plane ticket. Perhaps then we will be more hesitant about war and more vigorous in helping refugees, victims of natural disasters, and others.
It's about recognizing that you aren't a perfectly rational person, and then taking steps to maximize your altruism in ways that may not have been strictly optimal if you hadn't taken that into account. If seeing poverty firsthand is going to give you the motivation to do something about it when you return, then that's the action you should take, as long as you're being honest with yourself.
That's an interesting perspective, and I'd be interested in seeing whether people who go on these sorts of trips end up giving more on average to charity across their lives than people who don't. If so, then the trips could be worth encouraging as a societal norm, not for the good that they do directly, but for the impact that they have on later donations. If the trips don't have much of an impact, then it would be better to discourage people from doing this, and societally encourage donations instead.
"Voluntourism is ultimately about the fulfillment of the volunteers themselves, not necessarily what they bring to the communities they visit." [1]
“Basically, we failed at the sole purpose of our being there. It would have been more cost effective, stimulative of the local economy, and efficient for the orphanage to take our money and hire locals to do the work, but there we were trying to build straight walls without a level.” [2]
Since he's in the financial business, I'm wondering why he isn't leveraging the effect of "money makes more money" before donating. Isn't it better to invest that money first, before donating it?
Take for example Bill Gates. If he had donated all his "surplus" money instead of building a business, he wouldn't have been able to donate the amount that he has; the amount wouldn't even be of the same order.
This is a really tricky issue; there are lots of competing considerations either way. (e.g. the return you get from your money; but your donated money also generates a 'social return', which can be much higher than what you get in a bank. And you'll learn more about how to do good later on; but the world is also getting richer so there might be fewer outstanding opportunities in the future. Etc etc.) There's a summary of blogposts on the topic here: http://www.effective-altruism.com/ea/4e/giving_now_vs_later_...
There's the obvious counter-argument about not being able to guarantee that investments will increase in value, but I think the more compelling one is that it's an especially useful time to be donating. According to the UN:
> in 2011, 17 percent of people in the developing world lived at or below $1.25 a day. That’s down from 43 percent in 1990.
It seems worth pushing to nearly-eradicate this "extreme poverty" now, rather than waiting another 20 years and doing something that would likely have a lesser effect on suffering.
Factor in the time-value of money, and the risk of investments. Is $100 going to be more useful to the EFF to stop bad law now, or is $200 in a couple years when they have to try to repeal bad law?
That's certainly a logical opinion, and I agree that efficiency is key. However, I think it's also important to keep in mind the personal value of traveling on aid trips, which allow for an improved understanding of the need that lies. Perhaps this encourages potential donors to increase the frequency and quantity of their contributions.
I'd liken it to the classic criticism: "charities spend too much money on advertising!"
But how do charities get donations without advertising? How do they let people know why they need the money and encourage them to donate? At some point, yes, a charity can spend too much of its donations on advertising, but advertising in general is a necessary evil.
Same with this. The charities might take in less overall if they "saved" money by scrapping these types of programs.
Lots of charities are entirely advertising and exist entirely so that the charity can keep on employing the people it employs.
This isn't 100% useless, as it causes economic activity, but it's done under the lie that non-profits are de facto good things.
This is the challenging thing about charities. If I want to evaluate the person selling me socks or smart phones, I look at the good they offer and decide if it is worth $N. If it is, I make the trade. If not, I don't.
But with charities, you have to figure out "is the marginal change the charity will do with $5 worth me having five dollars less?" And that's incredibly hard to figure out. Even the charity itself, assuming it even wants to know, can have a hard time figuring out the net difference of five dollars.
It is also similar to the criticism of CEO pay for nonprofits. If the CEO brings in additional donations and furthers the organization's mission, why wouldn't they have pay competitive to a for-profit org? Why should you be paid less to do good than evil?
I suppose that is fair. But since I don't donate 1/1000th of what these people do even with the trip, I don't really think my grandstanding on how they spend their own money would really be justified.
I will say that I took a holiday last year, and technically that is money I could have used to donate. So in that sense I am just as bad as they are.
Also, it maybe efficient in turning dollars to aid, but nobody at the "rich trader bar" wants to hear a story about someone donating money... that's just a way to reduce taxable income. An engaging personal story about travel and experiences is much more likely to have an impact on others.
From a purely financial, self-interested standpoint, how does a donation to charity which reduces taxable income actually help a person? If I reduce my income by $100, it's true I won't have to give the fraction of that to the government that I might have, but now rather than being out a fraction to the government, I'm out the entirety to the charity.
Even in the case where the donation drop the payer to a lower tax bracket, I don't see how it helps. Any insight greatly appreciated.
What I find most amazing is when bright Ivy League graduates go and do manual labour, like building a school, in a poor country with massive unemployment. It's not exactly playing to comparative advantage.
That's pretty much how they become brighter. These kinds of hands-on experience are far more transformative and contribute to higher efficiency than if they were to simply donate more money.
I agree volunteering abroad can be a great way to experience first-hand some of the problems in the world, which can lead you to do much more in your life than you would otherwise. I did it as a student and it was important in my life. But that's to say it should be a means to having a real impact later on, rather than an end in itself.
I'm not "picking on" anyone. I'm just reflecting that it would be refreshing if the subjects of this discussion would express some self-awareness. It's hardly surprising that they aren't.
You certainly could have chosen a path in life where you made a lot of money then donated it more efficiently. I know lots of developers who put hours into whatever games they enjoy. Leveling up that WoW character to level 70.
It is less selfish that not helping at all. To criticize those who help inefficiently more than those who don't help at all enforces the notion that it is better to not help at all.
I don't think of it as a criticism, moreso as an opportunity that people may not have fully considered. If you ask most people who do give to charity why they do it they'll usually say that they want to make a difference or alleviate suffering. As long as they aren't overly set in their ways they should be happy to hear about more effective giving opportunities, or maybe even to consider the entire question in a new framework that helps them better accomplish their stated goals.
I had a hiking friend who used to charter jets, collect farm equipment and food, and fly into areas of the world that he thought needed aid. My friend died two years ago in a car accident so I can't ask him, but I think he did that to be more efficient.
But then maybe wanting someone else to use their money efficiently is selfish of us when they might rather develop as people by observing and empathizing with the struggles of others.
If observing and empathizing are the goals of the trip, and everyone is clear about that, then all is fine and good. However, these sorts of trips are generally understood to have the goal of helping people directly, which they are not actually good at. Anecdotally, I find that these sorts of stories generally go "we helped them so much" rather than "I learned so much and will now donate more than I would have otherwise".
> If observing and empathizing are the goals of the trip, and everyone is clear about that, then all is fine and good.
Why does it have to be so explicit? My observations align with yours in regards to how these trips are marketed (if I can use the term) and how most people I know who have done them describe the experience. But I have another anecdote, one which describes why I don't want to hold my speculations or "understanding of the world" in too high esteem:
I know at least one person who was so sheltered that the big realizations on her trip (a "mission" trip as it were so) were that: not all children are born in fancy suites with a host of doctors tending to every need; you can't get processed American lunches out in the middle of the desert; "kids are literally hungry because they don't have enough food". Hearing this was equal parts astonishing and enraging and yet it made me check my own entitlement as well. Why should I want to attack her motivations? Why should I challenge her because the "result" wasn't "good enough", i.e. she didn't suddenly become enlightened as to what it was like to live in such a situation, instead she merely realized that she had a desire to care about the issue and support others who care as well (see: cash donations)? Any minute I could have said obviously, there are people in terrible situations all over the world and it would have done nothing because I already thought it. There will always be "those kinds" of people; we don't want to be them, but they also don't want to be us. The truth is that even if her interests end up being entirely selfish, she'll probably have more of an impact on those things than I ever will. I can appreciate that, even if it's not efficient, altruistic, or whatever. It's frustrating, but not terrible.
One thing that was pointed out to me once was that a normal person on a vacation will spend more money in the local economy than they would otherwise donate.
Spending $500 on a plane ticket and then spend $500 at local restaurants, vendors, and accommodations won't do as much good as the $1000 would straight-up donated, but it's better than the $100 I would _actually_ donate. Don't make perfect the enemy of good.
And ultimately, it will make me care more about wherever I visited, and prompt further donations in the future.
Empirically speaking, aid is almost completely useless[0], no matter who administers it. So whether he gives it all to the "appropriate organization" or "wastes" some of it on an aid trip is ultimately irrelevant.
That's not true. There are hundreds of thousands of different aid project, it would be miraculous if all were entirely ineffective. E.g. you'd have to be crazily skeptical to suggest that the programs recommended by GiveWell aren't of positive expected value; there's just so much evidence to the contrary. In terms of the link between aid and economic growth - aid is just such a small part of developing countries' economies that you simply can't peer through the statistical fog; it's such a weak signal, and there are so few data points ,that it's not surprising that we can't detect a correlation. A nice even handed discussion is given by Owen Barder of the Centre for Global Development: http://cf.owen.org/wp-content/uploads/Can-Aid-Work-Owen-Bard...
>E.g. you'd have to be crazily skeptical to suggest that the programs recommended by GiveWell aren't of positive expected value;
Their top charity for a long time was a mosquito net distribution agency. It turned out that the mosquito nets were used as fishing nets instead and, since they were treated with insecticide, polluted the local lakes.
It turns out that the nets in question came from net distributors with shoddy follow-up practices; GiveWell suggested Against Malaria instead of other distributors in part because they saw this issue years ago.
To me there are two issues at stake: taking their 90% claim at face value that may very well still leave them a very effective charity.
I am more concerned for the fishing stock. Assume 5% chooses to use their nets to fish with - is the this enough to have a material impact on fishing stocks? Will this effect the community to the point that the rest also have to use these nets to catch enough fish? Even if not, what is the effect of the insecticide?
Your articles seem to be really convincing with usages rate, but unfortunately rather handwavingly with the insecticide.
The ciriticism is that malaria is just a symptom of the larger problem of a lack of economic growth and development. Aid can save a child from malaria, but it will never solve the underlying problem.
Reducing or eradicating these diseases removes a huge burden from those in extreme poverty, it definitely is among the underlying problems that contribute to a lack of growth. It's also the most tractable.
Obviously there was a lot more to the Civil Rights movement than a lack of malaria. But it was one of the factors that helped. How likely is someone with “body aches, headache and nausea, general weakness, and prostration” to make it to the polls, to school, or to work? How likely are they to march on Washington?
It's easier to dream big from behind a windowscreen. Easier when you're not hungry. When you're not sick. When you're not weakened from parasites and malnutrition. And for those of us who would love to see systemic change, the "one-trick ponies" may be a good way forward.
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Having children not die of malaria causes economic growth. And economic growth causes children not to die of malaria. So either way they're connected...
Easterly's book is about aid mostly from western governments to developing country governments to encourage growth. That I can believe doesn't work very well and can end in rent seeking and corruption.
Giving $3.5k to save a child from dying of malaria is quite a different thing and seems obviously a good thing to do.
