by Boris Yakubchik
For the second year in a row I chose to have a "Birthday for Charity" where I urge my friends to refrain from giving me presents other than donations which I would match (up to a point) and donate to a specified charity. In 2009 I made a website to encourage others to do the same - pledge publicly some amount of money. Here is the result:
http://www.birthdayforcharity.net/yboris ($415 donated)
This year the website is fully interactive - anyone is able to register and host their own Birthday for Charity. While charitable contributions from my friends this year are lower than last year - I hope others will be inspired to have their own Birthday for Charity
http://www.birthdayforcharity.net/yboris2010 ($230 donated)
Monday, April 5, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Write us about what you are doing to save a life
Perhaps, like Adam Lerner (see the previous blog) you have done something unusual to raise money for those in extreme poverty. Or to spread the word about www.thelifeyoucansave.com and encourage people to pledge.
Share your ideas. Send us your story, in anything from 100 to 1000 words, and if we think it suitable, we'll publish it here as a guest blog. You may inspire others and save even more lives.
Send it to thelifeyoucansave@gmail.com. Thanks!
Share your ideas. Send us your story, in anything from 100 to 1000 words, and if we think it suitable, we'll publish it here as a guest blog. You may inspire others and save even more lives.
Send it to thelifeyoucansave@gmail.com. Thanks!
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Guest Blog: The Alternative Alternative Spring Break
By Adam Lerner
In the United States, most universities give their students one week in March to do what they need – or want – without having to worry about going to class. They call this week off “spring break”, and the standard way to spend it is by hopping on a plane to some place with warm beaches and a lower legal drinking age – one such popular destination is Cancún, Mexico.
Recently, though, an increasing number of students have deviated from this standard and decided to take what are often advertised as “alternative spring breaks”. Alternative spring breaks also consist in hopping on a plane to a sunny locale, but instead of laying on the beach sipping drinks, students are put to work aiding impoverished communities, often by building houses, running medical clinics, or teaching English. These international service trips, as they’re also called, travel to countries like Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and Ghana – places that really need help.
Like many of my service-minded peers, I also thought I would do something morally good this spring break. But instead of going on an international service trip, I am sitting at home enjoying the company of my family and a few good books. How in the world is this morally good?
Taking the money I earned working over winter break, and the money I received for working as a teaching fellow this semester, I am donating $1414 – the average cost for one student at my university to go on an international service trip during spring break – and giving it directly to VillageReach, a highly efficient charity which works to improve infrastructure that would otherwise keep lifesaving vaccines from those in rural Africa who need them. By staying home, I am actually doing good abroad.
How much good? According to GiveWell, a non-profit committed to evaluating charities not just on their financials but on their human impact, my donation could be used by an immunization-focused organization like VillageReach to save at least one and up to seven lives.
VillageReach is GiveWell’s top-rated international charity, meaning that it strongly satisfies all four of their evaluative criteria: demonstrated impact, cost-effectiveness, scalability, and transparency. If GiveWell is right, then I am doing the most good I possibly can with the monetary resources I have. Does this mean those participating in international service trips are doing less good?
I’m not in a position to say for sure just how efficient service trips are or are not. But I don’t think anyone is, for that matter.
Service trips are difficult to evaluate, and it’s not just because they tend to be coordinated by small organizations that lack the means to analyze their own impact, but because much of the good service trips claim to engender can’t be counted simply in terms of lives saved. The good they contribute, it is often claimed, is something less tangible. Service trips have the power to shape attitudes towards poverty and suffering, to make their participants into caring citizens of the world in whom the seeds of future service are planted.
This might be true. Without a doubt, most service trip participants return home having acquired both a profound emotional tie to those in extreme poverty and a strong desire to perform more service. But to what end? I think it’s fair to say that most participants channel their newfound motivation into raising money to repeat their trips for a second, third, or even a fourth year. I’ve even heard of graduates going on to create their own annual service trips.
But if a significant reason why service trips exist is to motivate students to perform more service in the future, and the service they end up performing later (say, in the form of more service trips) is itself largely justified by how it will motivate them to perform more service in the future, then it seems we’ve gotten ourselves into a closed circle of justification in terms of motivation that never intersects with the reality of meeting the needs of the world’s extremely poor. Participants just keep getting more and more motivated… to get more and more motivated.
Fortunately, I think the above picture is incomplete. First of all, some service trip participants do go on to devote their entire lives to service working for efficient charitable organizations. Assuming they would not have gone this route without having first gone on a service trip, service trips can be said to be worth the money for these people and those they will help in the future. Nevertheless, I suspect people like this make up only a small minority of those who go on service trips.
Secondly, even if a significant portion of service trips’ justification does amount to mere self-perpetuation, this doesn’t mean they do no good at all. In fact, I think they do quite a bit of it. Talk to anyone who has gone on a service trip. They would be glad to recount to you the joy they saw in the faces of those they helped – those for whom they built a bedroom, pulled a tooth, or taught an English sentence. Many are with little doubt doing real, tangible good – certainly more than the student who blows $1000 on airfare to Cancún and drinks on the beach.
But if it’s true that giving to a highly efficient charity does more good (and perhaps significantly more good) than going on an international service trip, wouldn’t one expect those who have been so motivated by their experiences to eventually come to the point where they just want to do as much good as they can with the resources they have? If so, one would expect them to give the money they would spend on a service trip directly to charity.
Is this psychologically realistic? After all, it’s not like all service trip participants have $1400 sitting around ready to go – they work really hard all year long trying to raise money through concerts, bake sales, and other events to reduce their costs. And they do a remarkable job – many end up paying just a few hundred dollars to cover the airplane tickets that take them outside the country.
But couldn’t these fundraising efforts themselves be reoriented directly towards charity? I think they could, but let’s be charitable to service trips and say that as a matter of psychological fact, they couldn’t. Let’s say that students are only motivated to raise so much money because in the end they know they will see the fruits of their labor firsthand. In this case, we arrive at a dilemma. We could encourage students to give $300 (the price many service trip participants end up paying out of pocket) directly to charity, or we could continue to encourage them to raise $1400 each to go on a service trip. The question becomes: is more good achieved when $1400 is spent inefficiently or $300 efficiently?
$300 could easily save one life if given to the correct charity. I simply don’t know how many lives per participant service trips save, if any. I am sure it depends on the service trip. If for every $1400 spent sending one college student on a service trip, at least one life were saved, then going on that trip could in fact be one way to maximize moral good. But accepting this last part requires assuming once again that it is psychologically implausible to expect a college student to be able to raise $1400 and just give it straight to an efficient charity.
I hope that in making my donation I have shown this last assumption to be false. I think many college students like myself are already motivated to help the world’s desperately poor and that this comprises a non-negligible part of what motivates them in raising all of the money they do for their service trips. For this reason, if what we care about above all is doing good, then we should give to charities that are proven to successfully help those they aim to help, do so in a cost-effective manner, have potential for productive growth, and make their records available for those who ask to see them. Some service trips may satisfy these criteria, but no one knows. Until they do, I feel better placing my bets elsewhere. After all, this is a matter of life and death.
In the United States, most universities give their students one week in March to do what they need – or want – without having to worry about going to class. They call this week off “spring break”, and the standard way to spend it is by hopping on a plane to some place with warm beaches and a lower legal drinking age – one such popular destination is Cancún, Mexico.
Recently, though, an increasing number of students have deviated from this standard and decided to take what are often advertised as “alternative spring breaks”. Alternative spring breaks also consist in hopping on a plane to a sunny locale, but instead of laying on the beach sipping drinks, students are put to work aiding impoverished communities, often by building houses, running medical clinics, or teaching English. These international service trips, as they’re also called, travel to countries like Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and Ghana – places that really need help.
Like many of my service-minded peers, I also thought I would do something morally good this spring break. But instead of going on an international service trip, I am sitting at home enjoying the company of my family and a few good books. How in the world is this morally good?
Taking the money I earned working over winter break, and the money I received for working as a teaching fellow this semester, I am donating $1414 – the average cost for one student at my university to go on an international service trip during spring break – and giving it directly to VillageReach, a highly efficient charity which works to improve infrastructure that would otherwise keep lifesaving vaccines from those in rural Africa who need them. By staying home, I am actually doing good abroad.
How much good? According to GiveWell, a non-profit committed to evaluating charities not just on their financials but on their human impact, my donation could be used by an immunization-focused organization like VillageReach to save at least one and up to seven lives.
VillageReach is GiveWell’s top-rated international charity, meaning that it strongly satisfies all four of their evaluative criteria: demonstrated impact, cost-effectiveness, scalability, and transparency. If GiveWell is right, then I am doing the most good I possibly can with the monetary resources I have. Does this mean those participating in international service trips are doing less good?
I’m not in a position to say for sure just how efficient service trips are or are not. But I don’t think anyone is, for that matter.
Service trips are difficult to evaluate, and it’s not just because they tend to be coordinated by small organizations that lack the means to analyze their own impact, but because much of the good service trips claim to engender can’t be counted simply in terms of lives saved. The good they contribute, it is often claimed, is something less tangible. Service trips have the power to shape attitudes towards poverty and suffering, to make their participants into caring citizens of the world in whom the seeds of future service are planted.
This might be true. Without a doubt, most service trip participants return home having acquired both a profound emotional tie to those in extreme poverty and a strong desire to perform more service. But to what end? I think it’s fair to say that most participants channel their newfound motivation into raising money to repeat their trips for a second, third, or even a fourth year. I’ve even heard of graduates going on to create their own annual service trips.
But if a significant reason why service trips exist is to motivate students to perform more service in the future, and the service they end up performing later (say, in the form of more service trips) is itself largely justified by how it will motivate them to perform more service in the future, then it seems we’ve gotten ourselves into a closed circle of justification in terms of motivation that never intersects with the reality of meeting the needs of the world’s extremely poor. Participants just keep getting more and more motivated… to get more and more motivated.
Fortunately, I think the above picture is incomplete. First of all, some service trip participants do go on to devote their entire lives to service working for efficient charitable organizations. Assuming they would not have gone this route without having first gone on a service trip, service trips can be said to be worth the money for these people and those they will help in the future. Nevertheless, I suspect people like this make up only a small minority of those who go on service trips.
Secondly, even if a significant portion of service trips’ justification does amount to mere self-perpetuation, this doesn’t mean they do no good at all. In fact, I think they do quite a bit of it. Talk to anyone who has gone on a service trip. They would be glad to recount to you the joy they saw in the faces of those they helped – those for whom they built a bedroom, pulled a tooth, or taught an English sentence. Many are with little doubt doing real, tangible good – certainly more than the student who blows $1000 on airfare to Cancún and drinks on the beach.
But if it’s true that giving to a highly efficient charity does more good (and perhaps significantly more good) than going on an international service trip, wouldn’t one expect those who have been so motivated by their experiences to eventually come to the point where they just want to do as much good as they can with the resources they have? If so, one would expect them to give the money they would spend on a service trip directly to charity.
Is this psychologically realistic? After all, it’s not like all service trip participants have $1400 sitting around ready to go – they work really hard all year long trying to raise money through concerts, bake sales, and other events to reduce their costs. And they do a remarkable job – many end up paying just a few hundred dollars to cover the airplane tickets that take them outside the country.
But couldn’t these fundraising efforts themselves be reoriented directly towards charity? I think they could, but let’s be charitable to service trips and say that as a matter of psychological fact, they couldn’t. Let’s say that students are only motivated to raise so much money because in the end they know they will see the fruits of their labor firsthand. In this case, we arrive at a dilemma. We could encourage students to give $300 (the price many service trip participants end up paying out of pocket) directly to charity, or we could continue to encourage them to raise $1400 each to go on a service trip. The question becomes: is more good achieved when $1400 is spent inefficiently or $300 efficiently?
$300 could easily save one life if given to the correct charity. I simply don’t know how many lives per participant service trips save, if any. I am sure it depends on the service trip. If for every $1400 spent sending one college student on a service trip, at least one life were saved, then going on that trip could in fact be one way to maximize moral good. But accepting this last part requires assuming once again that it is psychologically implausible to expect a college student to be able to raise $1400 and just give it straight to an efficient charity.
I hope that in making my donation I have shown this last assumption to be false. I think many college students like myself are already motivated to help the world’s desperately poor and that this comprises a non-negligible part of what motivates them in raising all of the money they do for their service trips. For this reason, if what we care about above all is doing good, then we should give to charities that are proven to successfully help those they aim to help, do so in a cost-effective manner, have potential for productive growth, and make their records available for those who ask to see them. Some service trips may satisfy these criteria, but no one knows. Until they do, I feel better placing my bets elsewhere. After all, this is a matter of life and death.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Guest Blog: An example for high schools (and others) to follow
The following blog was contributed by: Gal Ben-Yair, Gali Shilo, Shir Adomi, Aviv Bronkhorst, Elad Argaman, Oxana Bardesky and Liad Kalush
My Brothers and Sisters in the Least Developed World is an educational program for affluent high school students, which strives to foster empathy and a profound understanding of the way in which the world is managed. It also seeks to foster students' willingness to act for the benefit of people living in the poor world (Richardson, 1979; Davies, 2006; Oxfam, 2006).
The persistent harsh reality in many developing countries poses the question: Do affluent high school students care about the state of the one-fifth of the global population that lives in absolute poverty and suffers from chronic malnutrition? Would they be more caring if they learned about it?
An educational study is currently seeking to address these questions. In the course of the study, 11th and 12th grade students are taught a curriculum that uses statistics and visual aids to describe the current situation. In addition, the curriculum also touches upon some of the global economic mechanisms that exacerbate the poverty of the least developed world.
At the end of the learning phase, the students are given the opportunity to voluntarily participate in a practical phase. This component of the course enables students to present the information they learned in order to promote awareness and to raise funds.
The Pilot Stage
During the school year (2008-2009), a pilot test was conducted with students of nine classes at four different high schools in Israel.
Of the 283 students who participated in the pilot stage, 114 (40% of the students) asked to participate in the practical phase. That means a rate of 40% voluntary participation – 40% of the young people were moved and outraged enough to decide not to stand aside.
The students who participate in the practical stage present a one-hour presentation to adults and peers in other classes. Their presentation consists of the three following sections:
A. A vivid description of the harsh conditions in which people in the poor world are living, underlined by statistics on the subject. They present among other things the number of people who are living on the purchasing power of $1.25 or less per day, the number of children and adults suffering from chronic malnutrition, the number of children who are forced into labor and the figures about child-trafficking;
B. A description of the three main global economic mechanisms currently exacerbating the poverty of people living in the least developed countries: Foreign debts, harmful trade, and a consistent erosion in the Official Development Assistance that the rich countries committed to in a U.N. resolution from 1970;
C. Presenting the audience with the question: Is our humanity today strong and wealthy enough to significantly improve the situation within two decades? The students then present the UN Millennium Development Program and its accurate figures, which prove its relatively low costs in comparison to the developed world's annual income.
As part of their awareness promoting activity, the students raise funds for two causes:
1. Finance children's nourishment through the World Food Programme;
2. Support children's schooling through UNICEF.
Here are links to essays written by two students describing their experience.
(1 and
2)
Here you can see as well some photos of students during presentation.
One of the study's main goals is to develop a curriculum that will serve formal educational organizations in the affluent world. The U.N. emphasizes the need in these kinds of curricula (UNESCO, UNHCHR: World Programme for Human Rights Education – Plan of Action. 2006)
For more information please contact Liad Kalush whose idea the program was and who coordinates it.
My Brothers and Sisters in the Least Developed World is an educational program for affluent high school students, which strives to foster empathy and a profound understanding of the way in which the world is managed. It also seeks to foster students' willingness to act for the benefit of people living in the poor world (Richardson, 1979; Davies, 2006; Oxfam, 2006).
The persistent harsh reality in many developing countries poses the question: Do affluent high school students care about the state of the one-fifth of the global population that lives in absolute poverty and suffers from chronic malnutrition? Would they be more caring if they learned about it?
An educational study is currently seeking to address these questions. In the course of the study, 11th and 12th grade students are taught a curriculum that uses statistics and visual aids to describe the current situation. In addition, the curriculum also touches upon some of the global economic mechanisms that exacerbate the poverty of the least developed world.
At the end of the learning phase, the students are given the opportunity to voluntarily participate in a practical phase. This component of the course enables students to present the information they learned in order to promote awareness and to raise funds.
The Pilot Stage
During the school year (2008-2009), a pilot test was conducted with students of nine classes at four different high schools in Israel.
Of the 283 students who participated in the pilot stage, 114 (40% of the students) asked to participate in the practical phase. That means a rate of 40% voluntary participation – 40% of the young people were moved and outraged enough to decide not to stand aside.
The students who participate in the practical stage present a one-hour presentation to adults and peers in other classes. Their presentation consists of the three following sections:
A. A vivid description of the harsh conditions in which people in the poor world are living, underlined by statistics on the subject. They present among other things the number of people who are living on the purchasing power of $1.25 or less per day, the number of children and adults suffering from chronic malnutrition, the number of children who are forced into labor and the figures about child-trafficking;
B. A description of the three main global economic mechanisms currently exacerbating the poverty of people living in the least developed countries: Foreign debts, harmful trade, and a consistent erosion in the Official Development Assistance that the rich countries committed to in a U.N. resolution from 1970;
C. Presenting the audience with the question: Is our humanity today strong and wealthy enough to significantly improve the situation within two decades? The students then present the UN Millennium Development Program and its accurate figures, which prove its relatively low costs in comparison to the developed world's annual income.
As part of their awareness promoting activity, the students raise funds for two causes:
1. Finance children's nourishment through the World Food Programme;
2. Support children's schooling through UNICEF.
Here are links to essays written by two students describing their experience.
(1 and
2)
Here you can see as well some photos of students during presentation.
One of the study's main goals is to develop a curriculum that will serve formal educational organizations in the affluent world. The U.N. emphasizes the need in these kinds of curricula (UNESCO, UNHCHR: World Programme for Human Rights Education – Plan of Action. 2006)
For more information please contact Liad Kalush whose idea the program was and who coordinates it.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Photos needed for The Life You Can Save website
We are redesigning The Life You Can Save website, and we want to use photos of people who have pledged to meet the standards for giving to those in extreme poverty.
If you have pledged, and are willing to be featured on the website, please send us a photo, along with a line or two about who you are and why you decided to pledge.
We need colored photos - the more colorful the better - that are at least 600 x 400 pixels, and in shape they should be wider than they are high. They may show only you, or you and your partner or your family, and of course if you happen to have any taken when you were visiting a developing country and looking at a project to help those in extreme poverty, that would be even better.
In sending us your photo, you will be warranting that all people shown in the photo consent to have their image put on the internet (or that in the case of children, the parents or guardians consent.)
If we receive many photos, we will make a selection and run those we judge suitable at different times, so not all photos will be on display at all times.
Please email your photo or photos to thelifeyoucansave@gmail.com
Thanks!
Peter Singer
If you have pledged, and are willing to be featured on the website, please send us a photo, along with a line or two about who you are and why you decided to pledge.
We need colored photos - the more colorful the better - that are at least 600 x 400 pixels, and in shape they should be wider than they are high. They may show only you, or you and your partner or your family, and of course if you happen to have any taken when you were visiting a developing country and looking at a project to help those in extreme poverty, that would be even better.
In sending us your photo, you will be warranting that all people shown in the photo consent to have their image put on the internet (or that in the case of children, the parents or guardians consent.)
If we receive many photos, we will make a selection and run those we judge suitable at different times, so not all photos will be on display at all times.
Please email your photo or photos to thelifeyoucansave@gmail.com
Thanks!
Peter Singer
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Another way to decide how much to give
Here's an interesting idea from Ka-Ping Yee, a software engineer working with Google.org. He writes:
***
I am trying an experiment I call "personal consumption offsets" (http://wolog.net/254527.html):
In 2010, I'll match everything I spend on a non-essential purchase
with an equal donation to an effective charity.
I think there is a good chance that this method may have both practical
and psychological benefits:
1. Anybody can apply this plan, regardless of income.
2. The statement of the pledge is simple and does not involve
choosing arbitrary numbers.
3. I will make more total donations than by pledging 5% of my income.
4. It will motivate me to donate more to charity (because it means
more enjoyment for myself).
5. It will enhance my enjoyment of the things I buy for myself
(because I will know that it also benefits others).
If you like this idea, please consider passing it on
****
I like it, so I'm passing it on. It resembles, to some extent, the idea behind www.whatIdidnotbuy.org, which is also worth a look.
I have only one tiny cavil. In his blog, Ka-Ping Yee describes this as an alternative to take the pledge that I have invited people to take, at www.thelifeyoucansave.com. But why not do both? If you give in this way, then unless you have an extremely high income, or spend almost nothing on non-essential items [or both - but that is unlikely} you will exceed the pledge level. And taking the pledge spreads the message to others - it helps them to see that many people are giving significantly to those in extreme poverty.
***
I am trying an experiment I call "personal consumption offsets" (http://wolog.net/254527.html):
In 2010, I'll match everything I spend on a non-essential purchase
with an equal donation to an effective charity.
I think there is a good chance that this method may have both practical
and psychological benefits:
1. Anybody can apply this plan, regardless of income.
2. The statement of the pledge is simple and does not involve
choosing arbitrary numbers.
3. I will make more total donations than by pledging 5% of my income.
4. It will motivate me to donate more to charity (because it means
more enjoyment for myself).
5. It will enhance my enjoyment of the things I buy for myself
(because I will know that it also benefits others).
If you like this idea, please consider passing it on
****
I like it, so I'm passing it on. It resembles, to some extent, the idea behind www.whatIdidnotbuy.org, which is also worth a look.
I have only one tiny cavil. In his blog, Ka-Ping Yee describes this as an alternative to take the pledge that I have invited people to take, at www.thelifeyoucansave.com. But why not do both? If you give in this way, then unless you have an extremely high income, or spend almost nothing on non-essential items [or both - but that is unlikely} you will exceed the pledge level. And taking the pledge spreads the message to others - it helps them to see that many people are giving significantly to those in extreme poverty.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Special Guest Blog: How Students Can Support a Millennium Village?
Reading The Life You Can Save I got pretty excited and with good reason I think too. Last year at Carleton University our group, Students To End Extreme Poverty, worked to get a question to referendum where students voted on whether or not they would all have to automatically pay an additional $6 in tuition fees ($5352 instead of $5346) to help support a Millennium Village. It worked. Carleton students now contribute over $110,000 annually.
Here is our hope: By getting enough universities and organizations to support Millennium Villages (aside from helping a couple communities help themselves out of extreme poverty) it would raise enough awareness, get enough media attention, engage enough people, foster enough cooperation, and generate enough civil society will to see policy changes: more and better aid, fairer trade, and debt cancellation.
Worst case scenario: thousands of people, many of whom would otherwise be dead, will have the basic tools they need to lift themselves out of extreme poverty.
Just like professor Singer pointed out, if we remove the barriers to involvement and giving – people can always opt out if they don’t like it – the great majority of people will stay involved in alleviating global poverty and be happy they did with ”the right kind of nudge”. Facilitating institutionalized giving of 1% of people’s incomes could easily generate enough money to make a massive impact on some of the worst effects of extreme poverty and send a clear message to our governments: act now to end world poverty. Norway even gives 1% as a country.
Institutions and their employees don’t usually do this for global poverty. They can; it’s just that oodles of people haven’t leapt at the opportunity to make it happen. Efforts like these can be going on in a variety of fashions across the world. In Canada alone there are 18 million people in the labor force with nearly 4.5 million people in unions. Over two million of those unionized workers are in nine unions. That’s not a logistical nightmare to try and make happen. Want to make a difference? Opportunities like this abound.
What have we got to lose in going for it? Especially if it’s benefiting a stellar organization like Millennium Promise or Oxfam where the money is spent transparently, where there are monitorable objectives and where it is making a demonstrable difference in people’s lives one person or one community at a time.
This is something that we as a global community can run with. There are numerous ideas like these that with little time produce results thousands of times the size of the effort they take. There are a number of us working on similar initiatives so please get in touch if you want to help. James Grant said “the problem is not that we have tried to eradicate global poverty and failed; the problem is that no serious and concerted attempt has ever been made”. Sadly it’s true; however on the plus side, there really has never been a better time to make poverty history.
Bryan Turner
Youth Engagement Coordinator
Make Poverty History Canada
www.makepovertyhistory.ca
Here is our hope: By getting enough universities and organizations to support Millennium Villages (aside from helping a couple communities help themselves out of extreme poverty) it would raise enough awareness, get enough media attention, engage enough people, foster enough cooperation, and generate enough civil society will to see policy changes: more and better aid, fairer trade, and debt cancellation.
Worst case scenario: thousands of people, many of whom would otherwise be dead, will have the basic tools they need to lift themselves out of extreme poverty.
Just like professor Singer pointed out, if we remove the barriers to involvement and giving – people can always opt out if they don’t like it – the great majority of people will stay involved in alleviating global poverty and be happy they did with ”the right kind of nudge”. Facilitating institutionalized giving of 1% of people’s incomes could easily generate enough money to make a massive impact on some of the worst effects of extreme poverty and send a clear message to our governments: act now to end world poverty. Norway even gives 1% as a country.
Institutions and their employees don’t usually do this for global poverty. They can; it’s just that oodles of people haven’t leapt at the opportunity to make it happen. Efforts like these can be going on in a variety of fashions across the world. In Canada alone there are 18 million people in the labor force with nearly 4.5 million people in unions. Over two million of those unionized workers are in nine unions. That’s not a logistical nightmare to try and make happen. Want to make a difference? Opportunities like this abound.
What have we got to lose in going for it? Especially if it’s benefiting a stellar organization like Millennium Promise or Oxfam where the money is spent transparently, where there are monitorable objectives and where it is making a demonstrable difference in people’s lives one person or one community at a time.
This is something that we as a global community can run with. There are numerous ideas like these that with little time produce results thousands of times the size of the effort they take. There are a number of us working on similar initiatives so please get in touch if you want to help. James Grant said “the problem is not that we have tried to eradicate global poverty and failed; the problem is that no serious and concerted attempt has ever been made”. Sadly it’s true; however on the plus side, there really has never been a better time to make poverty history.
Bryan Turner
Youth Engagement Coordinator
Make Poverty History Canada
www.makepovertyhistory.ca
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