Are 80 million potential voluntourists, slacktivists & DIY humanitarians the future of charity?

Forgive the catchy headline, but this is still a development blog ;)!

To answer my question straight away: No, of course not.
But wait, there’s more…

In a recent NPR feature How Millennials Are Reshaping Charity And Online Giving Elise Hu shared the story of Charity Water founder Scott Harrison:
Harrison volunteered to spend the next two years in West Africa. What he found when he first got to Liberia was a drinking water crisis. He watched 7-year-olds drink regularly from chocolate-colored swamps — water, he says, that he wouldn't let his dog drink.
Most childhood diseases in the developing countries he visited could be traced to unsafe drinking water, so everything changed for Harrison. He got inspired to start raising money for clean water when he returned to the states, but his friends were wary
But this is not a critical post about Charity Water and development entrepreneurs (there was a nuanced debate on the organization over at Humanosphere last year).
The real dynamite comes a bit later in the form of a statistic that one Twitter user summarized as follows:
As much as the article deals with future challenges around giving, excuse me, in neoliberal charity new-speak it has to have a business connotation (‘… younger donors want to feel more invested in a cause. Choose a different word, with a different connotation: investment’), the numbers are scary.
Not all 80 million millennials want to help/invest abroad, give up time or money or care about ‘development’, but that still leaves us with a significant number of potential DIY do-gooders, because as Harrison recalls from speaking with his friends (when? During a 1987 ‘aid does not work’ seminar?!):
"They all said, 'I don't trust charities. I don't give. I believe these charities are just these black holes. I don't even know how much money would actually go to the people who I'm trying to help,' "
And we are only talking about North American millennials here. We haven’t even started to include a new generation from BRIC countries and beyond that may repeat some of the previous mistakes as I wrote a while ago.

In the end, we teachers, researchers, educators and citizens will have to live with a growing demographic of people who will be demanding their full charity investment experience-either abroad and/or in connection with online activities…it means that traditional charities have to change from the printed newspaper to a New York Times online to Buzzfeed model of charity or the attention, clicks and dollars will go elsewhere-potentially traveling with a new generation of entrepreneurs who want to experience quick impact during a short sabbatical…

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Global Development Substacks I Like

Image
The other day a friend asked me about recommendations for development-themed Substacks and rather than responding to him directly, I decided to share my favorite "blogs-send-out-as-newsletters" resources on the blog... For many years a group of German media entrepreneurs has been awarding the Goldenen Blogger and one category they had for many year was "bloggers without a blog"-this is a bit how I feel about Substack and the concept of (mostly) long newsletters instead of traditional blogs. So which are some of my favorite writers and concepts then? An Africanist Perspective Ken Opalo is a towering figure in the #globaldev Substack community-his posts, fully developed essays really, set the standard for long-form post-blogging... Disability Debrief I am so grateful to learn every week something new about (dis)ability & development thanks to Peter Torres Fremlin's newsletter! Suvojit's Newsletter "I currently live in Nairobi, and write regu...
Read more

Should I consider a PhD in International Development Studies?

After the Economist’s piece on the (non-)value of doing a PhD and some comments later (e.g. Prometheus doesn't read the Economist (I like the slightly cynical dichotomy between ‘civilians’ and the ‘academic insiders) or the ' 100 Reasons NOT to Go to Graduate School ' (they are only halfway through so check it out regularly in the future...) I had an interesting conversation with a prospective PhD student a few days ago. This was not the first time that I had been approached about doing a PhD and I always try to be as frank as possible, even playing the ‘devil’s advocate’ when it comes to the complicated ‘should I or shouldn’t I?’ decision-making process. At the end of our conversation I sat down and tried to summarize a few important and generic points from the point of view of doing a PhD in Development Studies and in the UK . I understand that every case is different and involves a range of motives, options and rationales, but there a few important questions and t...
Read more

Handbook on Humanitarianism and Inequality - Chapter 06 - Localisation and the humanitarian sector

Image
Every two weeks I am going to feature one of the chapters of our Handbook on Humanitarianism and Inequality which was published in spring 2024.  This week we are taking a closer look at Chapter 06 - Localisation and the humanitarian sector - contributed by Rita Stephan and Claudia E. Youakim From the introduction Over the past 15 years, the humanitarian crises have grown sixfold. Despite these alarming and swelling trends in humanitarian aid demand, a greater number of people who are affected by conflict and disaster ‘are unreached or underserved by the humanitarian sector’ ( Robillard et al., 2021 ; Girling and Urquhart, 2021 ). The humanitarian financing gap is growing whilethe availability of qualified and willing staff to meet the needs of people in crisis is becoming increasingly challenging ( UNHCR, 2016 ). Some observers suggest that one way to ‘fix’ the formal system is to improve donors’ effective engagement with local actors. Empowering local actors will not only addres...
Read more

What if MrBeast really is one of the futures of philanthropy-and what does that mean for communicating development?

Image
“ I feel good seeing myself dancing after receiving the money. It makes me appreciate the moment my life changed and reminds me of when I was able to send my son to school .” (Resident of Nakapiripirit, Uganda) “ It might seem strange to carp over a few good deeds filmed for YouTube clicks. After all, even if this Gen Z mode of philanthropy is brash and narcissistic, some lives are being changed for the better. Yet at the same time, Donaldson is exploiting less fortunate people’s problems to shape his image of decency, while reinforcing the aid illusion that has blown so much money and achieved so little over the past half century .” (Ian Birrell, UnHerd ) “ As people have noted, if you watch the video in total isolation, it's maybe not that bad? Mr Beast is good at this. And he's not obviously mocking or manipulating these people. Then again, the TV commentators in the Hunger Games fawned over Katniss. That wasn't the issue .” (Justin Sandefur, Center for Global Developmen...
Read more

Handbook on Humanitarianism and Inequality - Chapter 05 - Humanitarianism, development and peace: a southern perspective

Image
Every two weeks I am going to feature one of the chapters of our Handbook on Humanitarianism and Inequality which was published in spring 2024.  This week we are taking a closer look at Chapter 05 - Humanitarianism, development and peace: a southern perspective - contributed by Priya Singh and Paula Banerjee. From the introduction There has been a significant increase in emergencies caused by conflicts and deeply entrenched development issues over the last decade in many parts of the world, especially in the Global South. New conflicts, probability of renewed conflicts, failures of peace agreements, an alarming increase in global forced displacement with most refugees finding shelter in low-and middle-income states with shared borders, are added onto earlier rounds of humanitarian crises such as partitions of countries by colonial powers (e.g. Murshid, 2014 ) and multi-country wars. Added to these are crises related to climate change ( Jolly and Ahmad, 2019 ) and other ‘natural’ ...
Read more