Casting geo-blinkers off compassion

Casting geo-blinkers off compassion

Chances are you’re a geographist and you don’t even know it.

Suppose you care about people experiencing homelessness. You come across a local organisation (let’s call them “House the white homeless”) providing wonderful support, but they are actively excluding “non-whites” from their work. You’d probably hesitate to donate to such an organisation. You might even “like” a witty criticism of the organisation on the Facebook for their exclusionary ways.

This may have something to do with our value system. People in our social bubble claim to believe that we should treat all people equally, regardless of what demographic traits fell randomly upon them at birth. People are people, regardless of race, sex, sexuality, or any other  characteristic. But almost by default, most organisations we do support, including “House the white homeless”, focus on homeless people in our local area. They do not support the homeless in Bangkok, Bogota, or Bujumbura.

Why is geography-based discrimination acceptable while other forms of discrimination are intolerable “-isms” in modern progressive societies?

I don’t believe that this discrimination is about where the people are from, but rather where they are in relation to us. For example, when travelling through developing countries we seem to take our geographical care-bubble with us. All of a sudden Bangalorean rough sleepers matter too. As tourists, our empathy is quickly aroused when we see homeless people in the streets of Banda Aceh. But the care-bubble returns to its geographically roots when our holidays come to an end.

Similarly, when we’re back home, many of us support migrants experiencing homelessness as much as locals experiencing homelessness. Like our first example, I think a similar negativity would taint an organisation which works solely with local-born homeless people, let’s call them “xenohomeless”. So it seems that our compassion is not piqued by race or origin, but by geographical location.

Is the homeless woman in Buenos Aires any less deserving of a roof, food and warmth than the rough sleeper near your office? Can we understand her pain any less? Or is it that locals just have better access to emotional advertising?

I reckon we can muster compassion regardless of where the cause is. Compassion may be easier to muster for the people we see in front of us; and it may take a few seconds to bring up for those in countries we’ve visited, to remember what it felt like when we walked past them during our travels; it may even take some effort to muster for those we’ve never seen face-to-face. But I’m pretty sure that when we picture a person experiencing homelessness, we can sense their pain, regardless of what language their street signs are in.

Geographism is not just related to homelessness. It is relevant to most philanthropic areas. The argument above could easily be made for those in need of food, health, education, or any other philanthropic cause. If anything it is only understandable in context of homelessness as you often give directly to the person in need, while with most other causes there is an intermediary agency.

Where someone is lives is one of the biggest contributing factors to their level of need. It’s also possibly a defining characteristic to whether we help them or not (source needed). And while I doubt many of us can justify it as a means of discrimination, we let our geo-blinkers simplify our decision-making, ignoring the vast majority of the world and focusing only on what’s in-front of us.

We’ve come a long way to recognising humanity goes beyond ourselves, our race, and sexuality. Our geographic boundaries should be no different.

 

 


Feature pic made in part by elmago_delmar .

 

Donating à la carte

Donating à la carte

Decisions are hard. Especially when the outcomes are important, the options are numerous, and relevant information is hard to find.

For many everyday decisions (where to eat, what clothes to wear, what to do tonight), I have a pretty good idea of what I can do, what I’d like to achieve, and how likely I am to do so. And despite most of these decisions being largely inconsequential I still consider them in great detail. I assume others are somewhat similar to me, delicately wasting their processing power on life’s minutiae.

Yet, of all the choices we make, one of the most impactful seems among the least rationally considered: donations.

We can donate to almost anything, anyone, at any time. But do we consider the options available before giving? And if so, how are we to weigh up the pain of a malnourished child to the impact of a polluted river; the needs of our local lifesaving club to the suffering of 100 battery hens; climate change to the housing needs of a woman escaping domestic violence?

We’re so overwhelmed by the immense number of possibilities that we often yield to impulse, emotion and social pressures. But these decisions deserve our most careful consideration. We have the power to change the status quo. And to ignore this is to choose to do nothing.

Thanks to the interwebs it’s now as easy to support locally as it is to support (almost) anywhere else in the world. So, we can cast as wide or as narrow a net as we like when looking to get behind a cause.

 

Modelling donations – a menu of causes

The model below presents the main options available for donations. Its aim is to help us make more conscious decisions, and explicitly remind us of what we’re ignoring.

 

Using the model – 2 paths to better donations

The model can be used in two ways:
1. Proactively – help guide your thinking when deciding on a cause, and
2. Re-actively –  recognise when a charity focuses on a particular group at the expense of others.

 

Method 1 is great for clarifying your personal values and systematically prioritising the areas you’d like to support.

Hypothetical example 1: the proactive method
I could start by acknowledging that I care more for people than animals and the environment. Then, I explicitly recognise a desire to help the local LGBTIQ community. Lastly, wanting to have an immediate impact, I support a charity which focuses on providing every-day services. This gives me the following combination:

Using the model as such can help articulate what I’m after, and find a charity which provides the desired service. If all charities were classified using this framework, then I could easily find an organisation to suit my needs.

 

Method 2 helps remind us of all the things we could be supporting before choosing a particular charity. When donating to a cause, we are implicitly choosing it above all others. The mapping exercise, i.e. explicitly acknowledging what we are focusing on, may highlight an excluded cause which, when considered, we find more worthy.

Hypothetical example 2: Check yo’self

If I’m a long-time supporter of an organisation sheltering dogs, it’s easy to continue doing so by focusing on the wonderful work the organisation does, and feeling great that I could help. However, by mapping their work to the model, I am forced to recognise there are many other animal species in need which I am implicitly ignoring. In fact, others’ need may be greater (either through the amount of cruelty experienced, or the sheer number being subjected to it); for example battery hens or caged pigs. With this realisation I can re-examine my values and act accordingly. If post-introspective I recognise I care more about the suffering of battery hens, then I can go back to Method 1 and better align my donations to reflect my values.

 

The Four Dimensions of Donations

The model has 4 main dimensions (with the key one broken down into subcategories)

1. The who (including ‘which subcategory’)
This helps differentiates between people, animals or the environment. Each of these key categories is broken down into further subcategories. For example, people can be dissected by religion, or sexuality, or age; animals by species; and the environment by ecosystem (rivers vs rain-forests vs oceans vs desserts, etc.).

2. The where (place)
This helps dictate the place and spread of the donating net. Are you interested in all specimens in the world equally, or do you have a particular attachment or concern over a region over all others?

3. The what (aspect)
Within each category there are different aspects which can be improved or supported. For people, helping improve health or education are pretty central, but there is also work done to support the arts, local sports clubs, churches or world peace. Animals and the Environment also have specific aspects which can be targeted, and these are presented in the model.

4. The how (support)
The how differentiates the different types of work which can help your cause. Should we act now, educate, try to change the decision makers, or continue researching to find better solutions? For example, if you want to help the world deal with climate change, would you prefer to support an organisation providing immediate direct work (e.g. decreasing emissions now) or should more funding be provided towards research in the hope that we discover a more efficient solution in the near future?

By combining the four dimensions, you can have a much better understanding of how you would like to help.

 

The why

The model does not cover how we do or should decide which box to focus on. That will form another post, hopefully in the near future. But the aim for now was to raise awareness to the breadth of work available, with the hope that before making quick impulsive decisions, we consider what we can do, and hopefully do more with what we give.

 

To be improved…

It goes without saying that this model is probably missing a whole bunch of stuff. So please let me know what’s missing so I can update it as we discuss.

Updates:
1st: Indigeneity and migrant status – from our UN correspondent! (How did I miss them?)
2nd: Biodiversity – Thanks Ms Sabrewing
3rd: Circumstance – From a recent dinner discussion, mentioning “Legacy”

 


The following documents were used in the development of this model:

NGOs
Guidestar: http://www.guidestar.org/NonprofitDirectory.aspx
Charity Navigator: https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=34
Government organisations
UK – http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2011/25/contents
USA – https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p4220.pdf
Australia – http://australiancharities.acnc.gov.au/

 

What if Joe and Jessie asked you for money

What if Joe and Jessie asked you for money

As you leave the office on a miserably cold night, you walk past two people asking for money on the street.

If you are the giving kind, this appears like a charitable situation.

 

You have enough cash in your pocket, but who do you help? Do you give money to one and not the other? Do you give them both equal amounts? How do you decide?

 

home-4330610901_8d9b3d2f97_b

 

Suppose you know that one of them, let’s call them Joe, lives by themselves, while the other, Jessie, supports a family of 4.

Does this help you decide?

 

 

 

Suppose now, that after observing the situation for a few seconds, you notice that Joe has already collected $85, while Jessie only has $15. Does this help you make up your mind?

 

You then remember that due to societal quirks, Joe has access to a free warm meal, morning and night, while Jessie uses whatever money they collect to feed themselves and their 3 kids.   Does this help you decide?

 

home-canihaveabeerman

 

Should it even matter what Joe and Jessie do with the money you give them? What if Joe ‘invested’ their funding at the casino convinced he’d figured out a way to beat the house, while Jessie was investing in their kids’ education?

Does this make the decision easier?

 

 

 

Lastly, but definitely not leastly, imagine Joe grew a patchy, if not comical moustache.

Would this change your decision?

What if he said he’d walk 10km, or do 20 push-ups for 20 days?

 

 

Deciding who to help is not always easy, but surely we can do better than to be guided by marketing campaigns and gimmicks.

Perhaps we can start by figuring out what we’re trying to do when being charitable, and then working out the best, or at least a half-decent way of achieving this.

 

 

 


Pics:

Feature: Andy Burgess, Homeless guy on Yonge Street, CC BY 2.0

Need Money 4 Food: https://www.flickr.com/photos/9600117@N03/ (no changes made)

Money for beer: AlBErto Gottardo / Alberto Gottardo, CanIHaveABeerMan, CC BY-SA 2.0

Is a breast worth 15 lungs

Is a breast worth 15 lungs

Lung cancer is by far the biggest killing cancer in Australia. In 2014 it claimed the life of over 8,200 people. That’s almost as many as the next three cancers combined (prostate 3 102 + breast 2 844 + pancreas 2 547 = 8 493).

lungs-1

In popstats format, that’s one Australian death every hour.

Fortunately, much like pop, lung cancer’s mortality rate peaked in the early 80s, and has been declining steadily since.

 

Women catching up on the wrong race

This decrease, however, has been entirely gender lopsided.

While the anti-smoking initiatives have helped halve the mortality rate of men’s lung cancer since 1981, women’s has increased by 60% in the same period.

lungs-2

 

The increase in women dying of lung cancer has been so drastic that it has overtaken breast cancer as the biggest killer of women among all cancers. Back in the 1970s, breast cancer killed 4 times as many women as lung cancer.

lungs-3

 

Yet, lung cancer seems to be largely ignored (relatively speaking).

Research conducted by Cancer Australia, shows that even though lung cancer kills about 3 times as many as breast cancer, it receives less than a fifth of the research funding. Similar comparisons can be made with prostate and other cancers.  The graph below from their 2016 Cancer Research Review[1] provides a great representation of the inequality of research funding distribution currently in the field.

lungs-4

 

Lungs don’t sell

The communities’ disdain for lung cancer is also clear in the organizations we support. The Australian Charity and Not-for-profit Commission’s register includes 18 organisations mentioning “Breast cancer” by name, and another 15 mentioning “prostate cancer”.  Yet not one combined the words “lung” and “cancer” in their name[2].

This is not to say that there aren’t any organisations working in the area, but rather suggests that highlighting their cause is not considered a draw card.

 

Who’s to blame

Many suggest the community ignores lung cancer sufferers because a many of them are somewhat responsible for their condition. After all, smoking is linked with about 80%-90% of lung cancer sufferers[3]. But since when have we been so spiteful?

We help countless who have had a hand in their demise.

When the injured arrive at Emergency, triage forms don’t cover culpability.

We help those who drove too fast for the unexpected just as much as careful drivers who became their victims.

We help young men who go clubbing in Sydney, even if they threw the first punch.

People take all sorts of risks. Yet help is at hand when things don’t work out the way they hoped.

If James Dean does it

lungs-6

Not to mention that around 4 out of 5 sufferers took up smoking before the Vietnam War[4]; smoking warnings were not even a thing[5], and ads were the epitome of cool.

 

Not to mention the other 15%

That’s all without even thinking of the roughly 1,500 sufferers who never touched a smoke!

 

Heal the world

This, by the way, is a global phenomena. Lung cancer killed 1.6 million people worldwide in 2014 [7], yet similar under funding occurs across the major economies (or at least the ones I could find on a quick google search). So, any impact local research has in Australia could potentially help millions across the world.

 

So, why not?

Why not indeed.

In this age of cost-benefit analysis, we sometimes forget to put it into practice where it matters most. Lung cancer might be decreasing, but it sure isn’t going away. Smoking rates may have decreased, but they still haunt half as many as they did in the 80s[6]. At this rate, lunch cancer will still be the biggest killer for generations to come.

It’s time to stop victim blaming smokers, and put some money where are lungs are.

 

 


Disclosure:

The author is a reformed smoker… the worst kind.

 

Feature pic by hey_paul:

Human Lung Embroidery Wall Decor

 

References:

[1] https://canceraustralia.gov.au/system/tdf/publications/cancer-research-australia-2016-2018-opportunities-strategic-research-investment-summary/pdf/2016_research_review_highlights_final.pdf?file=1&type=node&id=4442

[2] Based on their 2014 data.

[3] http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/lung/basic_info/risk_factors.htm

[4] Based on their age – over 65s in 2013.  And research showing 90% of smokers pick up the habit before the age of 20 (United States Department of Health and Human Services. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality. National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 2014. ICPSR36361-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2016-03-22. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR36361.v1.)

[5] http://www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au/a12-1-1-history-health-warnings

[6] http://www.quit.org.au/resource-centre/facts-evidence/fact-sheets/smoking-rates

[7] http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs297/en/

 

More charity at home, less in Parliament House

More charity at home, less in Parliament House

While Australians are increasing their personal donations, as a country they’ve been giving less and less to foreign aid.

Charity vs ODA

Is this suggesting a misalignment of sentiments between the community and its leadership? Is there a growing desire to support those closest to us, donating to support local causes, while diminishing our desire to help those abroad?

The period graphed included 9.2 different Prime Ministers so it’s hard to pin point the blame the Australian Government’s diminishing willingness to fund foreign aid. And while the coloured timeline suggests that upon winning office Labour increases and Liberal decreases Australia’s Official Development Assistance, the overall picture is clearly trending south. So much so, that Foreign Aid didn’t even rate a mention during the 2016 election campaign.

Australia’s generosity, as individuals and as a country however, leaves much to be desired.  Australians donate around 34 cents for every $100 earned, and the country spends $1.30 in foreign aid for every $100 spent in the federal budget.

But if charity is starting to take off at home, there’s hope it may influence the political agenda.

 

 


ODA vs Budget not ODA vs GNI

The graph shows foreign aid expenditure as a percentage of the total federal budget.  Most analysis compares foreign aid to Gross National Income (GNI), with governments stating they’re aiming to reach 0.5%. However, as suggested by Angus Barnes[1] the federal budget, which is within the government’s control, is “a more appropriate denominator”.

Either way the line is almost identical, with the only difference being magnitude – 1% of budget is roughly 0.4% of GNI.

 


Sources:

[1] http://devpolicy.org/the-odagni-ratio-does-it-truly-reflect-a-governments-commitment-to-aid-20130521/

http://dfat.gov.au/about-us/publications/Documents/statistical-summary-2013-14.pdf

http://www.budget.gov.au/2009-10/content/ministerial_statements/ausaid/html/ms_ausaid-10.htm

Australian philanthropy improving, yet miles behind

Australian philanthropy improving, yet miles behind

Australians are donating more money than ever.  Based on ATO data, tax deductible donations have increased from as $58 million in 1979 to a $2.6 billion in 2014[1].  This equates to an almost 4-fold increase in donations as a percentage of income. That been said, donations still amount to a tiny percentage of income.  On average, Australians only donate 0.34% of their income. That’s 34 cents for every $100 earned.   Also, while the percentage contributed increased steadily from 0.1% in the late 1970s, it seems to have plateaued over the last decade.

Increasing donations Australia

These figures make Australia look like the scrooge of the Anglo-world.  America’s philanthropic culture sees them donating 10 times as much as Australians do as a percentage of their income. The UK donates 8 times more, Canada 2.5 times, and NZ donates 50% more[2].

Anglophone world donations

(I compared Anglo countries as it was easier to find data online, and also due to the strong cultural aspects of philanthropy.)

According to analysis by the Fondation de France[3], British donors are the most generous in Europe.  But based on their measures of comparable concepts, other wealthy Europeans donate around half what the Brits do, which makes it around 4 times what Australians donate.  “Philanthropy in Europe” also suggests that countries with high taxes have lower individual contributions. High taxes suggest the government is looking after the needy, and thus individuals don’t have to.  It further highlights countries where tax revenue amounts to over 40% of GDP (such as France, Belgium and Italy) having lower donor participation. Yet, Australia’s tax burden is around 25% of GDP[4] and Australians donations are so miserly they round down to 0%.

No matter how many kilometres people run, bike or walk, nor how white, black or pink their ribbons are – Australians donate less than a deconstructed latte a week in $ terms.

Let’s hope they at least donate to the right causes.

 

Who are the givers?

While donations came from across the community, the super-rich gave the lion’s share.  Those with a taxable income over $1m (the top 0.1% of earners) gave 13% of all donations[5]. Those over $250k (the top 1.3%) gave 26% of all donations, and overall, half of all donations came from the top 15% of earners, those with a taxable income over $90k.

Who donates

On the other hand, while the lowest earners (under $6,000) donated small amounts, they gave by far the most as a percentage of their income, donating almost 5% of their income. This seems to be somewhat driven by retirees who may have low incomes but potentially amounted large wealth.

The middle and upper middle classes ($40k to $150k) contributed the least as a percentage of their income (0.25%).

 

 

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Sources:

[1] Table 1:  https://www.ato.gov.au/About-ATO/Research-and-statistics/In-detail/Tax-statistics/Taxation-statistics-2013-14/?page=4#Individuals_detailed_tables

[2] USA: Table 2.1https://www.irs.gov/uac/soi-tax-stats-individual-statistical-tables-by-size-of-adjusted-gross-income

UK: Table 2.6 – https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/charitable-donations-and-tax-reliefs-statistics

Canada: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/gncy/stts/t1fnl-eng.html

New Zealand:  http://www.ird.govt.nz/aboutir/external-stats/revenue-refunds/donation-rebates/

[3]https://www.fondationdefrance.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/philanthropy_in_europe_2015_0.pdf (section D)

[4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_as_percentage_of_GDP

[5] Table 3: https://www.ato.gov.au/About-ATO/Research-and-statistics/In-detail/Tax-statistics/Taxation-statistics-2013-14/?page=4#Individuals_detailed_tables