Kym Shumsky questions the U.S.’s need for charity
Serge Bastien, who works at the Hard Rock Café in the ByWard Market, donated his entire two-week paycheque – $702.12 – to the Canadian Red Cross and the victims of the U.S. tragedy.
“It was the right thing to do. I trust that the Red Cross is going to use it wisely,” he says.
Girls in Edmonton started a ribbon campaign and consequentially dispossessed their hometown of red, white and blue ribbons with all the memorial pins they were able to sell.
In the U.S., ad campaigns state that the only way to help in this terrible time is to make a donation – not food or clothing, according to the answering machine on the donation line, only money.
But what about the Afghani refugees?
In a twisted irony, the U.S. government is dropping both bombs and food on Afghanistan in the form of air strikes. The double-standard extends into humanitarian aid as well, since the U.S. recently signed off on over $300 million to help with a UN-lead mission to help Afghani refugees.
Which raises an interesting question: If the U.S. government is donating money to a country they’re also bombing, why do they need our spare change?
Martin Rudner, a professor at Carleton University who specializes in international assistance explains that charity donations and government money are completely different. He says when you donate to a charity like Bastien did, you’re donating private money through a non-governmental organization that will in turn use that money according to its mandate.
Public money is government money, such as the $40 billion the U.S. government allocated as an initial fund for rescue, recovery, airline bailout and restitution for the victims of the families.
Two weeks ago, private charity dollars in the U.S. reached over $500 million. In Canada, the Red Cross alone has raised $5 million. And the phone lines at the American Red Cross are still jammed.
$40 billion? Over $500 million? Isn’t that a lot? No, says Rudner. “While $40 billion is a lot of money, it’s a very small component of the U.S. budget and a very very small component of the U.S. economy. It’s enough so that the people can feel it addresses the issues they’re concerned about.”
In other words, it’s a token sum to make people feel like they’re being helped. Wait a minute, isn’t this the cause that has a jar in every store and ads on T.V.
Does the U.S. need our money? “It doesn’t need it,” says Rudner, because the U.S., unlike countries that typically receive charity assistance, has an economy that can sustain itself.
Why are charities like the Red Cross still fundraising? To understand why, Rudner says we only have to look at the Canadian Blood Services. He says during the crisis, “the Canadian Blood Services got a lot of blood donors. Very large number, unprecedented.”
“We do not supply blood to the United States and the Americans did not ask us for blood” he says.
So, the blood donations weren’t used to help Americans.
Jirina Vlk from Canadian Blood Services confirms this. In the week following the attack, donations doubled, but there was never a transfer of Canadian blood south. “But the bottom line is that someone got blood,” she says. And she’s right.
So where are the millions of dollars raised by the hundreds of charities going? Rudner says Canadians assume charities use their donations honestly but when incidents happen, many non-governmental organizations are of the same view.
Rudner explains that emergencies give charities the chance to raise their profile and many of them feel that “our organization should be out there, demonstrating our profile that we care,” he says.
Interestingly, no one has said how much private money each family will be receiving. Unlike nations that depend on donations from other countries, the U.S. has already invested some of its public funds into relief for the families of the victims.
How much? A recent article in USA Today has estimated that the U.S. government will give on average, $1 million to each family who lost someone in the attacks. Imagine if each starving child in Ethiopia got a million dollars. There would be fewer infomercials at least.
Here in Canada, things are slightly different. Suzanne Charest from the Canadian Red Cross says some of its donations are in part going to the families who suffered losses in Canada. The rest will be filtered into the American Red Cross.
Charest says there’s no way the donations will go to anything but the relief and support efforts in the U.S. and Canada.
But for the millions of dollars raised by other charities, some interesting questions will need to be answered, such as who decides where this money is going. The danger lies when charities donate money to a cause that may not reflect the wishes of the donors.
It’s too early to tell where the money from the many charities will go. Most will undoubtedly be used as humanitarian aid for the many rescuers and victims of Sept. 11. Serge Bastien, who gave half of his monthly income to the Canadian Red Cross, hesitates when asked if he would mind if the money he pledged as relief was spent elsewhere,
“I don’t know. That’s a tough question.”
But after a moment, his genuine good-nature resurfaces. So long as it’s going to help people, he says he doesn’t mind where it goes.
As for the 3 million Afghani refugees who stand the risk of starvation, loss of shelter and worse and will likely not get $1 million from the ruling Taliban as a federal handout, they’ll have to rely on their own significantly less popular charity funds.
But no collection cups in coffee shops.