Brigid Slipka

Doctors have a mantra that guides every medical action they take.  It’s as vitally important as it is simple:  First Do No Harm.

Donors and philanthropists need to do the same.

So so so often the assumption is: all gifts have positive impact.  That is the essence of giving.

But of course we also know well the rule about assumption vis a vis the creation of asses.  And the assumption that gifts automatically do good would fill the UK’s donkey sanctuaries a thousand times over.

I don’t want anyone to just take my word for it, though.  That’s just more assuming.  So I want to make this here article a spot to chronicle examples of harmful gifts.

I already hate this post.  It’s depressing and heartbreaking and a total bummer.  And I haven’t even gotten to the links yet.  But my hope is that by seeing how badly things go awry, we’ll become more thoughtful, more connected donors.

At the very least, we won’t be making things worse.

(For discussion on how to avoid Harmful Gifts, go here)

Examples of Harmful Gifts

PlayPumps: A merry-go-round style water pump ends up being too physically and mechanically wonky to use, causing recipients to have to travel further for clean water (gracious recognition of philanthropic failure here).

Medika Mamba: Haitian production of a type of ready-to-use-therapeutic food (RUTF) to distribute within Haiti is undercut by French production of the same good, subsidized by aid dollars.

Free rice:  Giving away free rice in Haiti threatens to decimate the local economy.

Freeing sex trafficking victims:  Americans plan to free victims of the sex trade by purchasing their freedom, which would allow the trafficker to then buy more people, make more money for the trader, and encourage others to enter the sex trafficking industry.

Child beggars: Giving money to children on the street in the developing world increases trafficking and the number of children who drop out of school

General Explanation
Entrepreneurship in Africa: African entrepreneurs are unable to develop their businesses because of competition with gift-subsidized foreign aid.

When Philanthropy Kills: video explanation of harmful giving

The dark side of philanthropy: Taking from William Damon’s The Moral Principle, outlines the ways in which philanthropy does harm.

Gifts In-Kind (GIK) / Stuff We Don’t Want (#SWEDOW)
Omigod there’s a million of these stories.  This section under prolly permanent construction.

Baby formula: Formula requires clean water to prepare, which is likely unavailable post-disaster, and ultimately reduces supply of the best source of a baby’s nutrition, breast milk.  All of this results in higher infant deaths.

Medicine: “Huge percentages of donated drugs are unusable and not only take critical time from medical personnel to sort but also cause a medical waste disposal problem.”

Clothing: “After the tsunami, due to media hype and a desire to help, thousands of people donated clothing. So many clothes were donated to India that truckloads of them were just dumped alongside the road. They became a choking hazard for the local cattle and government staff had to be diverted from the recovery effort to dispose of the donations.”

Bed nets:  “These seemingly well-intentioned celebrity stunts of altruism are not killing mosquitos, instead they are killing the livelihoods of the very people that are supposed to benefit from the nets.”

And just plain terrible examples (see comments)

(Hat tips abound for @alanna_shaihk at Blood and Milk, @saundra_s at Good Intentions are Not Enough, @talesfromthhood at Tales from the Hood, @texasinafrica at Texas in Africa)