Nonprofits
Straws and Nets
The author asks if there really is a difference between religious organizations taking x percent of a donation for their church and a nonprofit taking money out for operating costs.
A note from the World Bible Society advises us of two new affiliates, one dedicated to supplying anti-malarial bednets and one to providing personal water-purifying straws. But the Nonprofiteer isn’t inclined to support either one because the World Bible Society is in the business of conducting Christian ministry and conversion throughout the world, an activity the Nonprofiteer regards as equal parts wasteful and culturally intrusive.
UNICEF supplies bednets and water purification services without those drawbacks; but perhaps people whose interest is in evangelism wouldn’t be moved to assist poor people without exacting a pound of conversion in return.
Which raises another, larger question: when we see that a huge hunk of individual donations goes to religious organizations, should we celebrate because religious organizations provide social services or mourn because they do so inefficiently, that is, only after siphoning off x percent of what’s given for the operation of the church? Is that any worse than a secular nonprofit’s siphoning off operating expenses from its donations?
Or any better?
Regardless: pure water and bednets are a good idea. If you’d like to supply yours with a side of Bibles, contact the World Bible Society; otherwise, UNICEF will be happy to direct your money so it provides clean water and malaria-free sleep to the maximum number of people worldwide.
Kelly Kleiman, who blogs as The Nonprofiteer, is a lawyer and freelance journalist whose reportage and essays about the arts, philanthropy and women’s issues have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor and other dailies; in magazines including In These Times and Chicago Philanthropy; and on websites including Aislesay.com and Artscope.net.
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COMMENTS
BY Annie
ON February 18, 2009 08:32 AM
Interesting post, but I think you error in assuming that UNICEF’s participation comes without strings attached. Read up on what UNICEF has done to halt international adoption. They usually achieve this by establishing themselves as a big donor in an area and acquiring significant political influence. Now, you may agree or disagree with the philosophy of trying to keep orphaned children inside their country of origin. However, those who have studied the impact on the ground usually find devastating results, because UNICEF pushes for this reform before there are alternate measures in place to handle large orphan populations. Last year, UNICEF successfully persuaded Guatemala to halt all international adoptions, before there was sufficient internal infrastructure to house these orphans or provide for domestic adoption. There has been a staggering rise in the numbers of orphaned children abandoned on the street, and tragically, infants dumped in garbage cans.