Comments on: Charities: A sham?

By: Paul Smith

Paul Smith — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:35:38 +0000

Thanks for your first hand input on this subject, Rich

By: Rich Brubaker

Rich Brubaker — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 09:16:10 +0000

Running an NGO in China, I can say that I agree that changes in the system need to be made. but scraping the concept, or the organizations, of charity is not one of them.
Charities are, and have value. Look at Habitat, WWF, World Food, and many others that have done an excellent job of raising money and goods on a global level, and executing on a local level.
With that said, development is very different, and in the case of development I would agree that charities are not the best solution when it comes to really driving country wide economic and policy change. They make good partners, but the assistance needed in this case is at a much higher level in terms of who is funding the programs and the talent required.
To learn more about development, and the organizations involved, I highly recommend reading The End of Poverty. It is a fantastic book, and one .
I also suggest reading the Mohammad Yunnus book Banker to the Poor about the Grameen Bank story. that is a terrific case of where one grassroots organization got it right.
r
http://www.china-crossroads.com

By: Paul Smith

Paul Smith — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 16:22:23 +0000

You’re welcome Florence. Dale, you have a point, and also, there’s a matter of having titles that will attract attention, where they might otherwise be overlooked.

By: Florence Reed

Florence Reed — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 10:57:44 +0000

Hi, Paul. Thanks for the great post.
Florence Reed
SHI Founder/President

By: Dale

Dale — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 03:22:40 +0000

Paul – excellent post. I think the title is a wee bit misleading since it’s really about charity to developing countries and not charity in general, though I suppose you could extrapolate in certain ways. Anyway, I’m just being picky.