Peter Singer

You remember Peter Singer, the utilitarian ninja who seemed poised to sink our listing hearts before we'd even really started? I don't remember a great deal of affection at our first meeting for Singer's pitch, but I think we agreed with him that we have to do something. Singer has recently extended his ideas on giving into a book, but Bill Easterly is unimpressed. He writes:

Unfortunately, there are several differences between these two situations. The most important is that you know exactly what to do to save the child, whereas it is not at all clear that you (or anyone else) knows exactly what to do to save the lives of poor children or how to get them out of extreme poverty. Another difference is that you are the one acting directly to save the drowning child, whereas there are multiple intermediaries between you and the poor child — an international charity, an official aid agency, a government, a local aid worker.

I think that using the excuse that institutions are not 100% efficient is a major dodge. Certainly, there are some massive inefficiencies at some of the world's largest charities. But if giving money is like paying, say, $10 for an 85% of chance of saving someone's life (or giving them some food, or medicine, or shelter), that's still a bet we should take every time!

At the same time, it is certainly true that some of the world's most prominent aid organizations often do not act in the interest of their constituents, or betray some destructive institutional conceit. Although I don't think it was Tracy Kidder's explicit intent in writing the book, I think one of its great strengths is the numerous places where we learn what makes a highly effective service provider. I think many of these traits are common sense that are difficult to institutionalize, and maybe even harder to identify for those of us on the outside, the potential donors. But things like a patient/client/constituent/others-first ethic ("You can't sympathize with the staff too much or you risk not sympathizing with the patients," p.20) are the things that make an aid organization effective.

What are the things you look for in an organization when you give money? Can we compare churches to international or domestic NGOs?