Good Intentions Are Not Enough
Why We Fail at Helping
By Robin Low
Drawing experience and failures from working in post
disaster areas and developing communities, and observing the inefficiencies of
large organizations, Robin finds the reasons for these failures and suggests
ways to get to sustainable impact.
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Helping is complicated and easy to mess up. That much is
obvious now at the end of this book. But this does not mean it is ok to not
try. Doing nothing at all is not a good option.
The problem with helping is that for the most part, it
involves people being too assured of their ways to learn to do things
differently and instead, just following status quo. There needs to be a better
understanding of the problem, and purer motivations, with less religious
ideology and more economics . But much condescension from colonizing countries
towards the formerly colonized and sometimes, a racist mindset, may make people
think otherwise.
I have often been in a position where I question myself: how
am I going to change other people when I don’t exactly understand what is going
on myself? What people tell you is usually not their immediate problem, because
the problem is too complicated for someone external to understand immediately.
They tell you what you want to hear and so they can get what they expect to
get.
Change is difficult. Most people are difficult to change,
and they sometimes do, but slowly and only slightly. They are not always
grateful – some are resentful instead. Being too emotionally involved clouds
judgement. On days when one is confronted with a devastating problem that
cannot be fixed, the misery and helplessness rub off, perhaps making one feel
angry and blaming systems and society for what one cannot fix.
Being angry does not solve the problem. Resilience is
important and one needs to be tough, but not detached. Optimism, coupled with
creativity and innovation may be a way to continuously look for solutions when
encountering a dead end. Complaining does not help; only when the solution is
found is the problem solved.
-- Robin Low
Many people mean well and want to contribute solutions to
local and global needs. People often want to act for the sake of "doing
something". Often, this means poorly thought-out ideas that are often
unsustainable, or have little measurable social impact. Are these efforts
actually helping? Are they solving problems or creating new ones? What pitfalls
should a concerned giver watch for?
Rich People are Not the Solution
I’ve known many rich people who do not consider themselves
rich. These people I know live in properties that cost in excess of US$25
million, run foundations or own businesses, and continue to generate a lot of
income. Through my interactions with them, I have realized that most of them
still have a lot of anxieties – anxieties relating to financial security.
Often, when I approach these people who run foundations, I’ve
candidly asked them why they don’t do more for society personally, and I get
the same answer all the time: “You know, the costs of education and necessities
are getting more day by day, my businesses may be doing well now, but who knows
what is going to happen tomorrow?” Sometimes, I do get puzzled as the small
projects that I wish to be funded are under $10,000, and their response of
financial insecurity in their Rolls Royce prompted me to follow up with another
question: “So how much do you need to have in order to be financially secure?”
The quick answer is often “$1 billion in the bank.”
Many people talk about doing social good, creating social
impact, and many of them have the means to do it. Some who run foundations will
get their foundation to be involved, but foundations usually do not spend time
on small-scale prototypes, and many rich people do not seem to be financially
secure enough to part with some money.
I’ve met public servants earning more than US$1 million
dollars a year, refusing to support an educational project for local youths and
who pointed me to government grants which either take too long to apply for, or
simply are not the right match.
If you are in the business of fund-raising, you often get
this common reply: “I’ll donate more next time when I have more money.” Boston
College did a study on the Fears of the Super Rich, and found that even people
with an average net worth of US$78 million are dissatisfied with their sizable
fortunes .
So if you think that you will donate only when you are rich,
the question you should ask yourself is, how much money do you need before you
can consider yourself rich?
Social Enterprises – Really that Social?
When Social Entrepreneurship came along as a new and shiny
concept , many people jumped on board. Many entrepreneurs like the idea of
creating business that does good at the same time. Fundamentally, the very
concept of a social enterprise is flawed. Companies pay taxes, and the taxes go
to schools and roads. So, does that make all companies social enterprises?
What's more, when examining these concepts in practice, flaws are even further
exposed. At the bottom of the social pyramid, the needs of the more similar
people's needs are similar.
Poorer communities need basics like food, shelter and clean
water. If you can sell to meet the needs of one community, you can also sell to
others. As such, many enterprises that sell to one poor community will try to
scale-up and sell to others. However, when a startup scales, it runs into
problems. It can lose its ability to be nimble. It can become bureaucratic, and
communication with the ground level can suffer. Social projects that scale too
quickly often fail. When scaled too quickly, many social enterprises which may
have seen success in the small scale may even lose their social impact and
cause social harm.
Microfinance is a good social idea that allows poor people
to have basic financial services. Recipients of microfinance could start a
small business and are less likely to pull their kids out of school due to
economic reasons.
However, many people take the simple idea of giving loans to
the poor and twist it to make it very profitable. Payday lenders are getting
popular in many poorer parts of the country and each year, about 12 million Americans
incur long-term debt by taking out a short-term loan that is intended to cover
borrowers' expenses until they receive their next paycheck. This causes many
people to slip out of the middle class. Some of the lower income borrowers may
pay up to 400% per annum in interest rates, causing up to 40% of them to
default and push them closer to poverty .
Many people want to do good. Some want to help one person at
a time, and others want to change the world. Helping one person at a time
creates intimacy, but some fear that the blunder may get personal, and even
when it succeeds, it does not change anything in the big picture. Trying to
change the world may be ambitious, cleaner and more abstract. But success is
distant and unlikely, so people who attempt this often taste a noble failure.
I’ve met many people and learnt from many mentors, some even
younger than me, trying to do good. Learning from their experience, models and
failures, I realize that many people may not know the best way of doing good. Some
do it because of their religions; others may like the feeling of helping
someone. Everyone has their reasons. As I look at the result of their project,
I realize that many people doing the same thing and getting the same results
may come up with different conclusion of success or failure. Nevertheless, what
matters most is the real impact of the effort. Is it moving in the right
direction?
I have worked on many projects in the past 15 years. It is
interesting to me that my perspective has changed in these years, and some
projects which I’ve considered a success in the past, are failures to me now.
My failures taught me a lot, and even if I cannot convince you about what you
should do, let me at least share what not to do.
Why We Fail at Helping
Charities and non-profits have been around for many years
and charities seem to get bigger with record donations received almost every
year. Yet, the problem of poverty seems to be getting worse.
There are many attempts at making charities more efficient
after complains about how the bulk of money donated to the non-profits is going
towards administrative costs and not to the beneficiaries. Some people think
that applying for-profit business management techniques and using business
matrices to measure efficiency is a good idea, but sometimes, it does cause
other issues.
Traveling Overseas to Help? Whom are you Helping?
“Voluntourism” is getting popular, but there are many ways
to smell foul. All over the internet, you can find articles about how
ineffective short-term voluntourism trips to developing nations are, but many
people still engage in them.
I have been guilty of volunteering for some NGOs to organize
some of these trips, and after visiting the location and looking at the actual
activities the volunteers will do, I was appalled.
Yes, I’m talking about the short trips where professionals
or students visit Nairobi to build orphanages, and up with a short trip to Rift
Valley taking photos with the wildlife to prove it. There are too many examples
where people visit Haiti to build schools, or visit communities in the rural
communities in Latin America to teach English for a few days, and end up
visiting exotic sites.
Even in local communities, people with the best intentions
may visit orphanages or mentally challenged children, but after bonding with a
child, their leaving may sometimes cause more harm to the child’s psychological
growth. And when you bring such good intentions overseas, some organizations do
exploit the people or communities they pretend to help and ending up doing more
harm than good.
The idea of service learning is good, doing meaningful
community service with instructions and reflection can enrich the learning
experience. However, many people are ill-prepared and lack the necessary tools
to be effective. Yet they would like to believe that their presence (not their
money) would make a lifelong difference in a child’s life.
A common response after doing a voluntourism trip is: “I was
heartbroken to see how life is there. It really makes me realize just how good
we have it. My life will never be the same.” Many popular voluntourism trips
cost a lot of money and are essentially self-fulfillment trips. It is about
“you” and your experience, and giving you a different perspective. Let us not
call it humanitarian work when the only person that benefits from it is
“you”.
As reported in Al Jazeera America, “As admirably altruistic
as it sounds, the problem with voluntourism is its singular focus on the
volunteer’s quest for experience, as opposed to the recipient community’s
actual needs.” Calling a Spade – a Spade
Tourism does help the local economy, and the locals in that
community do benefit in some form or other. After a disaster, visiting the
disaster country, using local services, and buying local products do help the
local economy. Go because the country is interesting, but do not call it
altruism.
The Curse of Exclusion
There is much evidence that has shown that depression
overcomes many survivors in the shelters when they have lost everything and
have everything done for them. Helplessness sets in when they feel that even
simple tasks such as cooking are being done for them. There are a lot of
benefits to empowering survivors to participate in the relief and recovery, yet
in most cases, they are being excluded.
The rebuilding process and planning is rarely done with any
inputs from people living in the shelters, even though it is their homes and
town that are being rebuilt.
While I do believe that NGOs are doing a good job providing
shelter and food after a disaster, I feel that in many cases, volunteers can
come from the shelters and these survivors can be engaged and consulted in the
recovery of their own towns.
The curse of exclusion does not only apply to post-disaster
recovery. In fact, this happens in many other cases when we fail to engage
while we are trying to help a community.
The Power of Crowds
Communities have the ability to solve their problems.
– They
understand the problems they face better than anyone else.
– They are
not stupid and can solve many problems.
– They
don’t need pity, donations or continuous aid.
– They must
be allowed to try new ideas to get out of their bad situation and allowed to
fail and learn from the experience.
Billions go into fighting poverty and yet more people fall
into poverty everyday. NGOs have provided food, medicine and shelter for
people, but require more and more funding as it does not address the problem.
Giving food to people today does not reduce their need for food tomorrow.
Social Enterprise and social business ideas have a lot of
potential, but I’ve encountered many great businesses which seem to be doing
well and expanding fast but which cease to exist within two years of expansion.
Never Help; Engage, Enable, Empower & Connect
Social intervention is a lot more complex than what people
make it out to be. Over occasions such as Christmas, I see many people
participate in giving. They donate money, warm clothes and many other things
they do not need, and feel good about it.
I have asked a few of them when they donate about their
stance on social welfare, minimum wage and redistribution of income. Consistent
to my research, many of these people like giving, but do not like the idea of
empowering others. They believe in the bootstrap theory where the poor should
work harder and pull themselves out of poverty, and those who remain poor
simply do not work hard enough.
Many people do not think it is a problem that there are
people working full time, yet unable to support themselves and their families,
because the wages are too low. They do not see the widening income gap causing
more inequality. They think poor people are lazy and are not taking
accountability for their actions.
After a few long discussions, my conclusion is that many
people do not want to share power. They prefer to have all the power and give a
little at a time under their total control. People feel they will lose power if
they share it with others.
As far as the helping goes, much of the giving is for oneself
to feel good, some give it out of pity, and others give to feel positive about
themselves. As far as they are concerned, the impact of the giving is not
important. They also do not care who it benefits and how it benefits the
beneficiaries.
Giving has been going on for decades and few beneficiaries
are now in a better position even after receiving aid for many years. This is
because the current system of giving does not solve the root cause and people
are content to continue to give.
This system is however not very sustainable. When the
economy is bad, the giving stops while more people are in need of aid. The
people requiring aid continue to require aid and it often form an endless
cycle.
NGOs who want to continue their existence will continue to
ask for donations and maintain status quo. They will show pitiful photos of
human suffering to “guilt trip” people into giving. And over the years, the
situation of those who suffer does not improve, it just remains the same.
Book is available at
http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/10294
Book is available at
http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/10294
