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I would rather see them pay the billions they owe Washington state end the US government ...NGOs are horrifically inefficient.

Second only to governments.

See Haiti as an example

Exactly.

Imagine if they threw a billion dollars in matching funds to Kiva - it would have a revolutionary impact by leveraging millions of volunteer decision makers, and they'd probably get it all back.

Do something useful in her name. Help someone overseas (or local - but someone not as lucky as you) get started with a cheap loan. http://www.kiva.org/start

Mine go to Kiva, although technically it's a loan not a donation. You can keep re-loaning the amount once you've been repaid. There's a lot of choice available in terms of where you consider loaning, both sectorwise and geographically.

Your argument does not hold water in the face of the facts. When it push comes to shove, it turns out that atheists, agnostics, sceptics and freethinkers (people that generally don't believe in an afterlife) help others more than Christians do. Turns out, you don't need to believe in a heaven or an afterlife to care about fellow human beings.

You dont get it.

Getting ripped off in microfunding is funny, it isn't an egotistical thing, it is suppose to work like that. Kiva claims 98.89% Repayment rate over 217,129,550 repaid lones.

Take a random example:

http://www.kiva.org/lend/402948
ÂRykiyamo is married and is a loving mother of five children. She is very hardworking and always tries to be a successful woman. She has been buying and reselling children's toys, perfumes, souvenirs, women's undergarments and scarves for more than five years. She has a rich experience in this business. Besides this business she provides a service in bridal gown rentals. Rukiyamo wants to take out a loan to buy merchandise with the goal to increase the variety of her inventory.

3 days left, 25 bucks to go out of 3000, 100 loan sharks... or wait...

I could think of less sensible things to do with money.

Why not microfinancing, such as http://kiva.org/ ?

You're welcome. I've given away more than 50 Kiva Gift cards, and haven't had as much impact as this single comment on /.

You might also be interested in joining a Kiva Team. My favorite is Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and the Non-Religious at http://www.kiva.org/team/atheists. It helps promote healthy competition, and helps other people at the same time.

I teach driver's ed, (and haven't taught anything else).
I tell boys that girls will push them as far down into the gutter as they will allow.
Its up to the boy to show disapproval of the girl's chaotic driving when they have reached their tolerance level.

CBS is attempting to extort fanatics that will provide the show with free media attention. Kudos for helping them on their endeavor.

For me, I do not download everything illegally, I support software development and those shows I feel that it is warranted. I can endure a few ads for that matter!
This self-censorship is to me appalling, hell my grandmother even calls it ludicrous and she is Catholic!

Bored this summer, help a good cause
-commonSense

>>Just like humanists do, without the fear / motivation of hell or god / gods? I completely agree! http://www.kiva.org/community

Which goes right back to my point that even though they all say they do, the data shows they don't as much as religious people, even though they're much better off overall.

Oddly enough, it is possible for people to help each other just out of the goodness of their hearts.

Just like humanists do, without the fear / motivation of hell or god / gods? I completely agree! http://www.kiva.org/community

Old people are full of wisdom and experience, but unfortunately also prejudice. Don't tell me what works and what is futile. If you have that attitude, and refuse working for a better earth, know that you are either part of the solution or you are part of the problem. If you are old and tired, psychologically or physically, please don't pacify the next generation.

I remember my dad replied "but that is an utopia, it is idealistic," clearly trying not to be bothered by my preaching. I thought of this and later I realized, utopic and idealism is relative. We have more then enough food, and every single piece of it is wrapped in plastic. Isn't that an idealistic thought a hundred years ago? The world is a better place because of a few idealistic individuals. Be the change in the world you want to see.

http://www.knujon.com/
http://www.kiva.org/

Honestly, the best way that I've seen for enabling this segment of society to grow and prosper and have success is the availability of micro loans. The amount of success driven by this type of economic activity is truly inspiring.

I don't disagree, in fact I donate on the New Space team over at Kiva, please come join us.

The discussion about slums is in comparison to rural poverty. If you actually saw the progress that the poor were making in slums and compared it to the stagnation that is poverty out on the land, you'd see why he's so impressed. The world really is a global village now. People around the world are getting micro-loans right now and doing business to improve their life. Most of those people are in slums, not out on the farm.

You know - someone should set up a charity. It would do decent things in Africa. (Or New Orleans. Whichever is the poorer.) People like me would pay $40/month to it - just to show that we are willing to PAY for what we bittorrent.

Set up at team at Kiva, and invite others who share your views to join that team.

If you think charities are the solution, why is there still so much poverty and starvation?

There simply is not enough wealth in the world to support six billion people at a good standard of living. That said, there is a lot to be done in that area. One simple way is to simply increase the amount of wealth in poor areas via methods like microfinance (Kiva is a website that organizes such loans). On starvation: the food production of the Earth is greater than the need. Every hungry person is hungry not because there is not enough food but because no one could manage to get them access to it.

I believe Kiva, at least, does allow you to get your money back once the loan is repaid:

4) When lenders get their money back, they can re-lend to someone else in need, donate their funds to Kiva (to cover operational expenses), or withdraw their funds. --How Kiva Works

The lender doesn't get any of the interest from the loan, just the original principle. Other micro-loan organizations may work differently, of course.

What we should be doing is funding micro-lending ventures

On this note, a little plug for Kiva, who do just that. Just in case anyone reads the previous post and wonders how one could go about getting involved in something like that.

I've only been a member for a few months but it all seems legit and works as advertised. The only minor problem is that loan repayments aren't disbursed until they've been fully repaid. This seems like it might be limiting the speed at which funds can circulate within Kiva. Presumably funds in limbo are being used for something useful, so perhaps it doesn't matter.

There are ways to provide aid that don't rely on the method of just giving hand outs. For instance, Heifer International donates farm animals to families. They teach the family how to raise it, but the family has to take care of it. Kiva loans people money, and favors loans requested to start/improve a business. What's interesting about Kiva is that you see who you'd be donating to and what they want it for, and choose where your money goes. So there are options out there. Perhaps the problem isn't the act of donating; maybe it's just the model.

Sorry, but they pretty much killed subsidized education in my country. Instead I was locked into student loans that lately have been somewhat above the average APR. The government guarantees my loans to the bank but not the interest rate I pay. My local school taxes support a district my kids don't attend because it's substandard so we get to pay double to get them a decent education.

I have plenty of respect for the opinions of a chinese coal miner, though the definition of "risk" is subjective. In my case it also involves occasionally working with infectious materials that are very definitely fatal. Collapsed mine, HIV, what's the difference if you're dead? Oh, the miner doesn't have to worry about being sued by gold diggers.

Greed and selfishness destroy any scheme you can come up with. Have you heard about the UN aid workers in africa trading relief supplies for sex? What makes you think good intentions will change anything? At least in a capitalist country you have a mechanism to harness the ambitions of the greedy. By the way, some of my classmates were Vietnamese immigrants who were VERY glad for the chance to go to school. You see, the communist government there made life rather difficult.

I never mentioned race so who's biased here? My classmates also included Iranians, Lebanese, Nigerians, Ghanans, Koreans, Chinese (sorry, no miners), Taiwanese, Indians, Pakistanis, Russians, Jamaicans, Trinidadians, Barbadians and Canadians. Some stayed, some went back home. Every single one worked their freaking asses off. Every single one took responsibility for their own welfare.

The thing keeping people down in most 3rd world countries is political corruption and oppression, not free market capitalism. One of the most effective methods for spreading wealth around is microloans - check out http://www.kiva.org/ and yes I've donated. The idea of helping entrepreneurs is particularly appealing to me since it goes directly to the people who will use it best. People all over the world prove themselves smart and hardworking once you give them a shot. What's better - giving a man a fish or teaching him to fish? If you just send over a bunch of food aid you end up with dependent refugee populations.

You don't know me and you certainly seem to prefer personal insults instead of reasoned discourse. Unfortunately your approach is rather sophomoric. In fact I'd lay twenty bucks that you're no more than a 2nd year university student, which is rather generous since you seem to be so confused about the definitions of a few simple concepts.

Still you can donate to business in a useful way:
I find Kiva a good way of microcredit the poor.

I worked in "charity" for five years. In all that time, I cannot name one thing other than "not having to fire anyone" that we accomplished.

If that's true, then you need to report it to the Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance, as well as to Charity Navigator -- groups which track the return-on-investment aspects of charitable organizations.

If you truly and literally spent five years not helping anyone, your charity is a scam. This hardly means that all charities are scams; most are not.

As for connecting donors to recipients: sure, that's a nice idea, except for:

• Economies of scale. You get ten thousand donors together to buy food, supplies, etc., then you can get a lot more solution for your money.
• Addressing root problems. Sure, a thirsty family in Africa might be able to buy safe drinking water for a month on the $20 you send them. But it would be better if a bunch of people could collectively send over $2500 and build a new, clean-water well. Or if somebody organized the money together and built dozens of clean wells all over the region. There are tons of problems like this.
• The problem isn't always money. Sometimes the problem is education. Or identifying problems in service delivery. Or advocating for change in government policies. How would you solve these problems by sending your money to the needy people?

Sometimes direct support works well. Kiva has a really interesting approach that seems to be successful, for example. But it's hardly the answer to every problem that nonprofits try to solve.

In some ways I agree with what Bill is doing. His idea is good, but instead of adding more government funds to this type of incentive, the money that our governments CURRENTLY spend on sending cash and food and other things that are misappropriated, fall into the wrong hands etc needs to be re-allocated to make a better impact. How much do we spend sending tankers of water rather than building wells?

What's the most effective way to really combat poverty? Building schools like the Central Asia Institute (http://www.ikat.org/) does for only around $12K per school, or helping developed world lenders (like me) support entrepreneurs who want to open or run their own businesses (help themselves) like Kiva (http://www.kiva.org/) does is the best way to combat real poverty. Education, jobs and drinking water is the best way. Educated young people are less likely to be recruited by extremists as well.

Sending truckloads of rice is a temporary bandaid that's not even guaranteed to get to the hands of the needy.

Hell, Kiva has more people in countries like USA and Canada who want to help, but Kiva is small and can't scale up fast enough to get to enough needy people to take advantage of all the interested donors/lenders. Government money that ends up in the hands of rebel groups could be better spent here. There is a business case to be made as well since Kiva for example is looking into passing interest back to the lenders.

Next steps can be to help bring medical skills and sustainable agriculture to a region - something that building schools can help solve.

Anyway, the current model of foreign aid is waaay broken. Fix the root of the problem like lack of education, rather than trying to fix a collapsing damn with your finger tip in the hole.

(This post is kind of all over the place, but philanthropy issues have recently become something of a passion, and I can't write prettily just now.)

Its a bitter pill to swallow to divert funds from saving children today...but unfortuneately it only prolongs the problem. This is why I'm diverting my giving to something like http://www.kiva.org/

I follow your argument, and I agree that there's a place for charity spending beyond providing food aid.

Still, providing basic services to the neediest people is going to have an impact beyond "next Tuesday."

Providing $200 worth of fertilizer, for example, could have a more positive impact on more people than $200 worth of OLPC laptop -- it would help feed people in the short term, and in the profits from a good crop would enable the reinvestment in fertilizer and seed needed to make a farmer more productive for years to come.

Similarly, $200 worth of medications costing only a few cents a dosecould save the lives of hundreds of children -- a few of whom might grow up to be contributors to a strong, sustainable economy.

There's a need for interventions like the OLPC project. However, I can't imagine that a single XO Laptop will improve the lives of as many people as $200 dollars worth of more basic aid. Just my 2 cents, though. Now to go put my money where my mouth is.

I think his point is that while 200$ per child + ongoing upkeep may be "giving" a library of books by our standards, it doesn't meet the needs of a population in a region dominated by subsistence scavaging and unemployment.

And in some ways I'd have to agree. There is this strangely pervasive belief that if these people were only better educated, they'd miraculously pop out of poverty. There always feels like a twinge of latent racism in the "educate these people and they'll be fine" argument. This ignores many other important factors like available capital for new businesses, unfavorable political climates, a lack of inherent natural resources, exploding birthrates, poor sanitation and health, etc. All of which are important to creating a thriving population.

On the other hand, if you need sanitation improved through mass construction of lavatories, the Silicon Valley is not the place to go. OLPC is the right contribution that particular people can make to improving the lives of third-world students. It doesn't meet their immediate needs in any shape or form, but hopefully it will contribute to their ability to understand their local political climate, facilitate launching of businesses, etc.

P.S., if you want to make a lasting change without the OLPC, try loaning money at Kiva. Help a 3rd world business meet regional needs without unsustainable handouts.

Or, you could just loan them the money to buy a goat. And they have a 99% repayment rate.

Seems a good place to mention Kiva. Lend people money to start up their businesses and then when they have paid it back, lend it again.

I'm not sure I necessarily follow, and I'm usually pretty much on the fair trade side of things. So by not buying chocolate and not putting any money into these economies (however slight) we're doing what, exactly, that helps these people?

If you want to help people in these regions, support sustainable exports. Go over and teach them the art of business negotiations. Provide development loans through kiva and other microlending organizations.

But unless you have secondary plans in place, simply saying "don't buy stuff" doesn't relly do much to pull them out of poverty.

It can get wearying at times the constant battle against the socialists

You know, you're not a good patriot unless you never tire of fighting the Commies. ;)

There's a difference between stabilizing an area and just outright transferring wealth to an area.

Absolutely. But note that we are doing neither currently; most money given in foreign aid by the United States is spent on US companies working in the area. It is not necessarily going into any actual infrastructural investment, which is the key, I think, to - as you put it - provide opportunity for poorer regions. I do not believe handing out cash is useful, but projects like Kiva can actually target the people struggling against the number biggest thing you need to succeed in a free market economy: capital.

That is, after all, why they call it 'Capitalism', and while there are many good parts to capitalism, total free reign to exploit a worker base is not one of them. In the United States we made huge strides forward through the implementation of worker's rights and unions; simply because the power of corporations became more distributed - unions held some and the government held some. Note that this is distinct from Socialism, where the Party holds all the core power. Those checks and balances are required outside of the government itself.

The video you posted is very interesting. I somewhat disagree with the constant use of logarithmic scaling, because it reduces the precision of the visual display. The spread is actually a lot farther than it seems, but he is right in that it is ground that can be covered, and is trending in that direction as free markets spread. I am exceedingly happy that such technological movements are occurring.

By and large, technology is really the key to all of this. The Scientific American issue on the Millenium Goals talks a lot about bringing microtechnology to countries - like the $100 computer, or the treadle pump, that reduces their need to rely on a government to provide huge, resource-intensive, monolitic infrastructure. Rather, it gives individuals the ability to cross the barriers in small numbers and of their own volition - and not by providing them, simply, with money, but rather by ensconcing them in the financial and obligation-driven customs of civilization. The "Teaching A Man To Fish" philosophy. If our national enterprises followed a similar common-sense approach of helping the populace instead of concerning itself entirely with government, I think we'd make a lot more headway in stabilizing those regions.

In short, I don't think we actually disagree, though I'm probably somewhat more liberal in terms of how many resources I think we should be putting towards bringing the rest of that pack with us.

GeekCorps for tech help, Kiva for $$.

http://www.geekcorps.org/
http://www.kiva.org/

And web-based organizations like http://www.kiva.org/ can end-run around the failing or non-existant financial institutions to bring the willing into the global economy.

"Peer to Peer financing has been around for decades. It is called a Credit Union."

Existing Credit unions are in fact quite different than these new P2P efforts; credit unions generally:
    1. require membership (member of a trade union, church, etc),
    2. are geograpically regional, and
    3. don't require or enable any relationship between the lender and the borrower. (the credit union institution is the middleman.)

These new P2P internet internet lending ventures differ on all of these points. Have a look at http://www.kiva.org/ for an example of a startup that is already doing P2P direct lending across the globe. (of note: See their interesting dev blog as they scale up their site at http://kivachronicles.blogspot.com/ )

There are many organizations with roots in the Microfinance and Microcredit space ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcredit for a lot more info ) that have done similar things ( example: http://www.oikocredit.org/ ), with new ventures like Kiva and Prosper taking things to a whole new level on the web.

Hey, why lend when you can give?

For a solution which is somewhat in-between, there's organizations which provide low-interest microfinance loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries, helping them towards econmic independence. One neat-looking organization is Kiva.org, which enables individuals to make such loans. Worldchanging has a neat article on organizations like Kiva and how they're helping things in the developing world.

A relevant item from Kiva's FAQ:

Why loans and not (just) donations?
Over the last three decades, microfinance has proven to be an effective tool in raising the standard of living in impoverished communities. Up to now, there has not existed a way for individuals in developed countries to participate directly in this exciting movement. Kiva believes individuals in developed countries will find loaning to be a more rewarding and sustainable form of involvement in international development than traditional giving. In other words, when you receive your original loan amount back, you are more likely to loan again than if you simply made a donation.