Donating Responsibly

(Pictured:
An advertising campaign by
Stop the Traffik that received over 12 million views)                                                

Many large organizations have advertisement campaigns so that people will be aware of their existence and perhaps be moved by them – and donate their money to keep that organization alive. Nonprofit organizations do work that helps people, but a prospective donator should be wary of where their money is going so that it ends up being spent responsibly. Donation money is better spent directly helping a cause, or it is better spent with caution, if one is going to give to a large organization: some nonprofit organizations focus their spending more on salaries and marketing rather than directly helping people with the donation money they are given.
                                                                                    
Researching organizations is imperative – everything from web design to financial statements of an organization can tell how donation money is being spent. The video above shows that Stop the Traffik, a charity in the United Kingdom, has raised awareness about human trafficking. This is the organization’s purpose: it raises awareness of human trafficking. It describes itself as “acampaigning organisation that seeks to build a traffik-free world!” Furthermore,it has entire sections on its website dedicated to its advertising campaigns. This kind of research shows that Stop the Traffik does not directly help trafficked people - it explicitly calls itself a trafficking awareness organization, and its website is predominantly composed of the campaigns it created, not what it has done to help people who were trafficked directly. Researching a nonprofit’s financial statements also show how the company is spending donation money. Expense reports show the flow of money in and out of an organization, and they also show how exactly money is spent. The Invisible Children Charity is an awareness organization, also; their allocation of funds is mostly towards awareness kits, supplies, and marketing (over $13,000,000worth – that’s over 80% of their expenses). The charity spent over five million dollars to create the awareness kits – and in selling them, made a profit of over fifteen million. Furthermore, in one fiscal year, because of extensive campaigning, the expense of salary increased over $800,000. The financial statement, therefore, shows that Invisible Children do not directly help child soldiers in Uganda – their existence is based on making people want to help. 

A person looking to donate should do research on the charities they donate before giving their money away to a cause. To help causes more directly, a person would be better off donating to a charity that does so instead of raising awareness of an issue, or directly supporting the issues themselves instead of using a charity. To support trafficking victims, for instance, a person would donate to organizations that help trafficking victims directly, such as James Kofi Anaan’s organization Challenging Heights that provideseducation and counseling, among other services, to children trafficked on LakeVolta in the fishing industry and also takes preventative measures to ensurethat children in the future are not trafficked themselves. Donating to organizations like these directly supports a cause rather than supports the awareness of it.