I first posted this on Examiner in 2010. Within a month, it became the most-read column of my entire writing career. Much of the information is still relevant.
Unless you’re a robot, the tragedy in Haiti can’t help but
pull at your heartstrings. Unfortunately, there are people out there who are as
soulless as robots, who will use your emotions to rip you off. Here are some
recommendations from various watchdog organizations on giving. There are lessons to be learned from the Haiti tragedy that, sadly, will continue to have relevance.
- Avoid giving food, clothing or other in-kind
gifts unless they are specifically requested, and you know the group has a way
to quickly and efficiently distribute them.
- Find out if the group you're planning to donate
to already has an on-the-ground presence in afflicted area. Transportation in and out is limited, so if a group doesn’t already have
a significant presence there, your contribution may be diverted elsewhere.
- Giving online is dangerous. Make sure you know
who is operating the site. Spammers have created what look very much like
legitimate sites.
- Be highly suspicious of claims that '100 percent
of your donation will go to victims.' Every legitimate charity involves some
operating costs. A claim of 60% to 85% of money raised reaching Haiti is considered
reasonable. Legitimate costs are salaries for workers and executives,
advertising the charity, etc. The problem is that since charities are
non-profits, they are mostly unaccountable for what they take in and how they
spend it. Do your homework. Google the officers of the charity, see if you can
find out how high on the hog they are living. For example: according to Snopes.com, the current CEO of Red Cross, Gail J. McGovern, was paid about $1,037,000 in 2010.
- Don’t text your donation! I know, it’s
convenient, but the money won’t likely get to the charity right away. Why not? (I know you would never do this but)
some of your friends may have called a 900 number at some time. Does
“900-meet-asian-chicks” get the money right away? No. First, your phone company
has to bill you, I mean your friend. Then the bill has to be paid. Then the phone company has to
forward the portion collected to the 900 company. Same thing is true of texting
money to a charity. It could be a few months before your money is doing any good
in Haiti or wherever it's needed, and in the meantime, the phone company is making money off the
billing fees and the interest.
What about donating through your church?
Last week, I selected 30 churches at random from the Phoenix
phone book, and emailed them some questions about Haiti donations. Not
surprisingly, most churches are reluctant to talk about the tons of loot they
are raking in. Below is the text of my email, and the very few replies I got.
"I
write a column for examiner.com. I’m currently working on a column about
donations for Haiti. I’m sending this email to about a dozen churches in the
Phoenix area. I would like your answers to the following questions. If you can
supply the answers, great! If you choose not to answer, that’s fine, but my
column will state that I got no reply from your church, or that you chose not
to comment on a particular question.
- How many different services do you have in a
week?
- What is your average attendance?
- Do you pass a collection plate at each
service?
- Do you pass it more than once?
- Do you suggest/require a donation amount? How
much?
- Do you communicate by letter, email, or phone
call with your members regarding amounts they are suggested/required to donate?
- Besides the upkeep of your facility, what are
the donations used for?
- Do you have salaried ministers or other local
employees of the church?
- Are you asking your members to give something
extra for Haiti?
- If so, are you taking that money from the
regular donations, or do you have some special arrangement? (Passing a
collection plate again, sending out request letters, etc.)
- If you are making special donation
arrangements for Haiti, do you have a target figure?
- What percentage of the funds earmarked for
Haiti do you expect to reach Haiti? (For example, charitynavigator.org reports on many reputable charities that have a less-than-stellar record - some as low as 10-15%.)
- Where are you sending the Haiti funds? (your
organization’s upper management, CARE, United Way, etc.)
- What arrangement do you have for informing
members of what they are contributing and how their money is being used?
I look forward to hearing from you.
A Baptist church replied:
“We have 3 Sunday Worship Celebrations. And then a
Wednesday evening Service that is a little different than Sunday's. Our
total Sunday worship attendance is slightly more than 200, and we have Sunday
small groups for all ages with attendance of about 150. Yes, we pass a
collection plate at each service. No, we do not pass it more than once. We do not require a donation amount.” However, he followed
that up with, “We do believe that a Christ Follower will be generous in giving
and that the biblical minimum standard goal is the tithe, which is 10 percent
of their income.”
For the record, tithing was a Jewish arrangement to support
the Levites, who were not allowed to own land. It was never a
Christian requirement. If it were, Jesus would not have died with no
possessions other than the clothes on his back.
The Baptist church hedged a bit on the
question about sending collection letters. “To date 'no' to the suggested
donations, and we do not 'require' donations.” His reply to how the money is
used was also a bit vague: “Ministry, Missions, Personnel.” As to salaries, “1
full time pastor, and other part time staff.” Yes to the question of asking for
something extra for Haiti. As to the question of special collections for Haiti:
“Last Sunday all of our undesignated offerings
(normal offerings not marked for a specific purpose) went to the Haitian
Disaster Relief efforts. And now we will encourage our people to give if they
wish to give more. We will have information in the Sunday bulletin and on our
website (which I suppose that you have seen) that direct people to a trusted
site for supporting the work.” On the question of what percentage of funds earmarked for Haiti actually get to Haiti, he replied, “100%.” But the next question, Where are you
sending the funds, he answered, “It is going through our Arizona Southern
Baptist Convention or through the International Mission Board of the Southern
Baptist Convention.” But he already acknowledged that “pastors” and “staff”
collect salaries, so how could “100%” be reaching Haiti? On the question of
advising members about how the money is used: “We keep confidential records of
all contributions that come through [our] Church, and give a report back to
individuals who contribute. Regarding the Haitian Relief efforts the agencies
through which we contribute will have various measures of reporting.”
Next reply was from a Lutheran
church:
“This time of year we average 3000, average weekly
for the whole year 1350. We pass the plate once each service. We do not suggest
or require a donation amount. No requirements, all strictly voluntary.”
His
reply to how the money is used was also a bit vague. “Salaries of staff,
program costs, mission trips and outreach, community service.” He also
acknowledged that the ministers receive a salary. (I keep mentioning that
because, as previously noted, Jesus died poor, Paul made tents to support
himself, and Jesus told his followers, ‘You received free, give free.’ Since
none of us have paid Jesus for our biblical education, how can anyone justify
charging parishioners for his services?)
To the question of asking members to
give something extra for Haiti he answered, “Absolutely.” The next question
about how they were collecting the ‘something extra’ for Haiti he answered
vaguely, “special donations.” How? He already said they only pass the plate
once, and that they don’t send dunning letters. As to a target figure, he said
they have no target, but that when the tsunami hit southeast Asia, they raised
over $30,000. As to the percent of the funds for Haiti he expected to reach
Haiti, he too replied, “100%.”
On the question of where the funds are going he
answered, “We send them through our national church office, to a related
organization set up to handle disaster relief around the world: Lutheran
Disaster Relief. No overhead, all to direct aid.” That sounds great!
However, I searched for “Lutheran Disaster Relief” and found no such organization. I
did find an organization called Lutheran Disaster Response. When I clicked on
that, it took me to the website of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, where
asking for money for Haiti is clearly their top agenda at the moment. At the
bottom of the page, in really tiny letters was this caveat: “Any funds
not needed for this relief effort will be used for other disaster purposes as
determined by LCMS World Relief and Human Care.” As with the Baptists, if their
ministers and staff are salaried, they are not sending 100% to Haiti.
The next reply I got was also from a Lutheran church:
"We have 3 services per week with an average attendance of
a little under 500. We do pass collection plates in each service and that
offering supports the overall ministry of [our church.] We have some
staff people including myself (Senior Pastor), an office staff, and we operate
a pre-school.” (Wait a minute, I’m just guessing here, but isn’t it
likely that parents who make use of the preschool are required to pay for that
service, rather than it being supported by the collection plate? Hmmm.) “We
continue to encourage our members to contribute financially for the aid of the
people of Haiti by supporting LCMS World Relief and Human Care. This
organization has had workers on the ground in Haiti from very early on after
the disaster helping with food, water and medical needs, emergency housing and
spiritual needs in many ways.”
I finally got an honest answer regarding
the percentage of donations that would actually reach Haiti. “I don’t know the
exact percentage of administrative costs verses dollars directly to services
and resources but you can likely find such information through their website.”
No, actually, you can’t. What I did find, in addition to the warning already
noted about how they can use your funds however they see fit, was some salary
information.
As of 2006, the President of the LCMS received a
salary of $158,870. The First Vice President, $129,160. The Secretary: $147,263. Vice President/Treasurer:
$147,263. Chief Administrative
Officer: $129,160.
Executive officers of major legal entities (Corporate Synod, CPH,
CHI, Church Extension Fund, Foundation) received an average annual salary of
$133,864. Executive directors of Corporate Synod, WBP, other boards,
commissions and departments including LCEF and LCMS Foundation) and CPH VP and
other officers received an average salary of $122,350.
The Lutheran minister
continued: “We have published [the website]
information for our members and encouraged them to give personal donations in
addition to what we do collectively as a congregation.” (You might want to be
careful about that… if they start poking around like I did and discover where
their money is going your donations might dry up.) “We do not require specific
amounts of donations but we do know many of our members are quite generous in
giving for a number of needs.” Let’s do some math, shall we? 1500 visitors a
week. Since I’m not a church-goer per se I have no idea what a ‘generous’
contribution is, but If each one drops a $5 in the collection plate, that’s
$18,000 a month, $216,000 a year!
The next reply I got was from
the executive assistant to the pastor of City of Grace Church, who declined to
answer the questions herself, and advised me that the pastor was unable to do
so as he was in Haiti with the City of Grace Disaster relief team.
The last reply I got was
from an elder at a Jehovah’s Witnesses Kingdom Hall. He wrote: “Our kingdom hall is used by four congregations to
avoid crowding and to allow us to get to know each other better. Each
congregation meets twice a week, attendance averages 110 per meeting. No
collections are ever taken in any kingdom hall anywhere in the world. No plate is passed, no dunning letters are sent
out. We do not tithe. We have no paid ministers or staff. Each congregation is
presided over by a body of elders, none superior to any other. We have a box at
the back of the hall with a slot in
the top where people can anonymously contribute
what they can, if they wish, to pay for the
utilities and maintenance of the building. We keep costs down by all of us –
elders and publishers – jointly working together on cleaning and maintenance
projects. We have another box where people can drop a contribution, if they wish, to the worldwide work of Jehovah’s
Witnesses. That money supports the printing of millions of copies of The
Watchtower and Awake! magazine, Bibles, and other study aids. These publications
are not sold; they are given freely to any who agree to read them. The brothers
and sisters who live and work at the world headquarters in New York and in
branch offices around the world are all volunteers. None – from the newest
laborer to the members of the governing body of Jehovah’s Witnesses – receive a
salary. The funds sent in for the
worldwide work also support thousands of missionaries in other lands. Our
missionaries are not school teachers or social workers. They devote their full
time to teaching people the Bible. As all our
meetings are about studying the Bible, money is not mentioned. Occasionally a letter is read thanking the
congregation for contributions received. Every penny contributed is
scrupulously accounted for, and any member of the congregation is free to ask
any of the elders for an accounting of what the money was spent on. There is no special collection for Haiti; there is
no need for that. (What? Why not?) Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide consider ourselves a brotherhood, and
the problems of our brothers in Haiti are the same as if they happened to our literal family members,
so there is no need to urge anyone to contribute. (Oh.) Jehovah’s Witnesses in Dominican Republic were on
the road to Haiti with relief supplies
within hours after the quake hit. Several Witness doctors from Dominican Republic and
elsewhere have been working almost
nonstop since the quake. Money and
other supplies from the Watchtower Society headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, were sent immediately to Haiti and Dominican Republic, and supplies
and money are still pouring in.
Of course, no repayment will ever be asked
for or expected… we know they would do the same for us.”
Well, that was refreshing. I went to jw.org and searched it for references to money, donations, charity. All I found were
Watchtower articles such as “Is money your master or your servant?” and “Is
pursuit of money making you sick?” Try as I might, there was no way to donate
any money to the organization, nor any request for donations. The only mention
of money I found, in connection with Haiti, was in a public news release entitled “Witnesses’ relief
efforts well under way for victims of earthquake in Haiti.” A single line at
the bottom read, “The Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses is caring for these
expenses by utilizing funds donated to the Witnesses’ worldwide work.”
Follow-ups:
1. Since people do, in 2018, like to be able to do their baking online, jw.org does now have a way for a person to contribute. But you do still have to look for it. You can browse their site for hours and never notice any request for funds.
2. One Haitian
customs official, while approving the importation of the construction
materials, commented: “Jehovah’s Witnesses were among the first ones who came
across the border to get help for people. They don’t just talk about helping,
they really do it.” In the first six months following the quake, 1,700 homes
had already been built by the Witnesses for those who had lost theirs.
3. The Red Cross says it has provided homes to more than
130,000 people. But the actual number of permanent homes the group has built in
all of Haiti: six.
The Red Cross’ initial plan
said the focus would be building homes — an internal proposal
put the number at 700. Each would have finished floors, toilets, showers, even
rainwater collection systems. The houses were supposed to be finished
in January 2013.
None of that ever happened. Carline Noailles, who was the
project’s manager in Washington, said it was endlessly delayed because the Red
Cross “didn’t have the know-how.”
4. Another signature project, known in
Creole as “A More Resilient Great North,” is supposed to rehabilitate roads in
poor, rural communities and to help them get clean water and sanitation.
But two years after it started, the
$13 million effort has faltered badly. An internal evaluation found residents were upset because nothing had been done to improve water
access or infrastructure or to make “contributions
of any sort to the well being of households,” the report said.
When a cholera epidemic raged through Haiti nine months
after the quake, the biggest part of the Red Cross’ response — a plan
to distribute soap and oral rehydration salts — was crippled by “internal
issues that go unaddressed,” wrote the director of the Haiti program in her
May 2011 memo.
5. "Brittany Koper, a granddaughter of Paul Crouch Sr., [founder of Trinity Broadcast Network] alleged in a
lawsuit... that top bosses in the
organization threatened her life with a gun and fired her and her
husband Michael after she refused to illegally funnel some
$100 million of charitable assets to their personal accounts."
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Bill K. Underwood is a columnist, consultant, photographer and author of three bible-friendly novels available in either ebook or paper at Amazon.com.