Does Charitable Giving Make Things Better?

I was just reading through the responses to a Forum post on charitable giving. And, as often happens to me, my brain has these thoughts that seek to escape. This morning, they are all about the futility of using/expecting our giving to charity to make things fundamentally better. I usually make our annual gifts to food banks, figuring that this is a safer way to avoid charity frauds and expense issues. But, I know, that even if we gave all of our funds to the food banks, by the next quarter, or year, they would need more money because there would still be hungry people.

Problems abound, both domestically and internationally. There is no shortage of organizations that have identified a problem and are seeking funding to address that problem. But, as with food banks, most offer symptomatic help because there are no real solutions available that could address the root cause(s).

Even people like Bill Gates, who give away tens of billions, have trouble getting enough traction to actually fix something.  (https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work/programs/global-health/malaria)

I remember 30+ years ago when I was a member of Rotary, and the national organization came up with the idea that they could eliminate Polio by raising enough funding to vaccinate all the children in the world. It was a wonderful idea, very motivating. And, huge progress has been made with polio.  After 3B vaccinations it remains endemic now in just 2 countries. Rotary raised over $2B from its members, with an additional $10B in funding coming from various governments who wanted to partner in the effort. Millions of children did not get the disease. But, the disease isn’t eradicated. If the vaccination effort isn’t continued polio will return. This is an example of how hard it is to actually permanently fix something even when you have a good idea,  a solution exists, and you do a huge amount of work. Despite the need for continued effort in the future, I think this is a success.

So, we keep writing checks. And, I think that if we carefully think about things we know that for most problems that charities seek to address, real solutions are either non-existent, or a long way off in the future.

I think I need a little pep talk. I’d like to hear about other success stories in which a charity has  successfully accomplished something substantial.