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Charity Detox: What Charity Would Look Like If We Cared About Results
Charity Detox: What Charity Would Look Like If We Cared About Results
Charity Detox: What Charity Would Look Like If We Cared About Results
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Charity Detox: What Charity Would Look Like If We Cared About Results

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The veteran urban activist and author of the revolutionary Toxic Charity returns with a headline-making book that offers proven, results-oriented ideas for transforming our system of giving.

In Toxic Charity, Robert D. Lupton revealed the truth about modern charity programs meant to help the poor and disenfranchised. While charity makes donors feel better, he argued, it often hurts those it seeks to help. At the forefront of this burgeoning yet ineffective compassion industry are American churches, which spend billions on dependency-producing programs, including food pantries. But what would charity look like if we, instead, measured it by its ability to alleviate poverty and needs?

That is the question at the heart of Charity Detox. Drawing on his many decades of experience, Lupton outlines how to structure programs that actually improve the quality of life of the poor and disenfranchised. He introduces many strategies that are revolutionizing what we do with our charity dollars, and offers numerous examples of organizations that have successfully adopted these groundbreaking new models. Only by redirecting our strategies and becoming committed to results, he argues, can charity enterprises truly become as transformative as our ideals.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateJul 7, 2015
ISBN9780062307293
Author

Robert D. Lupton

ROBERT D. LUPTON is founder and president of FCS (Focused Community Strategies) Urban Ministries and author of Toxic Charity;  Theirs Is the Kingdom; Return Flight; Renewing the City; Compassion, Justice, and the Christian Life; and the widely circulated “Urban Perspectives” newsletter. He has a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Georgia. To learn more, visit www.fcsministries.org.

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The author of Toxic Charity is at it again. Lupton insists that most of the work we do in the name of charity does more harm than good. Proclaiming that the only effective charity is the kind that asks more from those being served, rather than less, he lifts capitalism onto a pedestal and incriminates socialism and philanthropy as building dependency rather than affirming that the recipient also has something of value to offer.Lupton’s arguments are convincing. His focus is primarily on poor communities, and his conclusion is that the best thing you can do for a person is give him or her a good job. Why capitalism? Only for-profit businesses produce enough wealth to create enough jobs to lift a community out of poverty.Perhaps the worst thing you can do is give a person a handout. Lupton is presumably a Christian, but he’s not a fan of mission trips. They don’t contribute to local economies: mission trippers come to serve, not consume. They spend their money on airfare and projects rather than on merchandise and excursions. They flood local consumers with free goods, naively undercutting local businesses, the very system locals depend on for their livelihood. The research of a friend of Lupton showed that between 1992 and 2006, a half million workers in Nigeria lost their jobs due to the inflow of donated clothing. But perhaps even worse is the effects of repeated “charity”:Feed a person once, it elicits appreciation.Feed him twice, it creates anticipation.Feed him three times, it creates expectation.Feed him four times, it becomes an entitlement.Feed him five times, it produces dependency.So what can we do for the poor? For one, don’t denigrate big business or the drive for wealth. The hope for such communities is investors, business people with the means and knowledge to build jobs, putting the poor on a path to self-fulfilment. Our church missions should be replaced with fact-finding business excursions.I can’t say I agree with everything in Lupton’s ideology, but he does make me think differently about some things … and he certainly has the lifelong get-your-hands-dirty experience to back up his findings. Publisher, © 2015, 196 pagesISBN: 978-0-06-230726-2
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Entrepreneurship as a missionary activity is a revolutionary concept that Robert Lupton proposes in this book. He's not talking about the fair trade charities that don't make a profit, but instead, ethically-run corporations that create real jobs and compete in the same marketplace on the same level playing field as every other corporation, including the unethical and unjust ones.I belong to the minority group that is the least employed and lowest paid in the US. It's legal to pay us less than the minimum wage; it's even legal to pay us 25 cents an hour. My people would be in such a better place if the laws against discriminating against us were enforced, if the minimum wage were required for us, and if the minimum wage was a living wage that would enable you to own a small home/condo, have good medical care, eat healthy food, afford hobbies, and have access to transportation. I can't even imagine how glorious it would be if I weren't actively discriminated against, even by institutions that are required to prove their minority and protected groups hiring numbers.I have never heard a sermon encouraging every business owner (and boss who is responsible for determining wages) to pay a just wage and treat their employees with justice. I have never heard a preacher say, "What you do to the least of your employees, you do to Jesus. If they can't afford to pay rent on the tiniest apartment on your wages, you are casting Jesus on the street. If you choose to only hire beautiful people, you choose to leave Jesus unemployed. If you don't offer potential employees on-the-job training, you cast aside the Jesus who never got a bachelor's degree, MBA, or doctoral degree." Imagine how different it would be if preachers had the spines to preach these sermons to their affluent congregations!As a member of the minority group that is targeted the most by eugenicists, I appreciate that Robert says that pretty much everyone has the ability to contribute something to their community. His suggestions of neighborhood watch, phone-chain participants, and praying for prayer requests are all good, though I believe that he could do better. Assistive technology can enable people with ALS, quadriplegia, cerebral palsy, and similar challenges to do many electronic jobs. They can become authors, build websites, do electronic monitoring of video feeds, scroll through spy images looking for anomalies that indicate military activity, do wildlife counts based upon satellite images or drone images, collate and compile information, and many other things. Just because someone works slower than an able-bodied person doesn't mean that you should hire the able-bodied person. For one, employee turnover is ridiculously high for able-bodied people. Disabled people will stick with a job and employer for a very long time, lessening the HR/talent search costs dramatically. Another reason is that disabled people tend to be more thorough in their work and will do anything to be able to keep a good job.Another topic covered in this book is gentrification which enables the impoverished locals to stay and improve their lives....and not get shoved out of the way to another, more distant ghetto, torn away from all that is familiar. His proven plan for redeveloping a whole neighborhood gets 2 thumbs up from me.The author ends by considering the thought that American Christians might not want the poor to prosper. Christians worry that the poor might become wealthy, materialistic, and selfish if they cease to be poor. Only wealthy, materialistic, and selfish people will project their own faults on others like this! Robert says that the alleviation of poverty worldwide is possible. Extreme poverty has been halved worldwide in the last few decades. This is entirely due to China and India creating massive numbers of new jobs for their poorest citizens. All it takes to eliminate poverty for a person is creating for them a good-paying job [one that enables them to pay all of their necessary expenses with room for savings]. So simple and yet so few are willing to do it!I'd give this book 10 out of 5 stars if I could.

Book preview

Charity Detox - Robert D. Lupton

CONTENTS

Chapter 1: The Bad News About Good Works

Chapter 2: Partnering with Business

Chapter 3: Social Entrepreneurs

Chapter 4: Return on Investment

Chapter 5: Meeting Market Demands

Chapter 6: Reciprocal Exchange: Food

Chapter 7: The Three Rs of Community Development

Chapter 8: Gentrification with Justice: Education and Economic Development

Chapter 9: For-Profit Missions: International Development

Conclusion

About the Author

About FCS Urban Ministries

Also by Robert D. Lupton

Credits

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Copyright

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

The Bad News About Good Works

CHARITY OFTEN HURTS THE PEOPLE it was designed to help. No, I am not a right-wing lobbyist or think-tank libertarian. I am an urban activist who has worked with poor people for over four decades. This fact, that most non-crisis-specific charity is harmful, serves as an indictment of the field I work in, and so it is with a heaviness of heart that I report this sad and surprising truth. In 2011, I wrote Toxic Charity to shine the light of real-life experience on the largely unexamined impacts of philanthropy and aid. It was not my intention to offend generous givers; nor did I want to discourage kindhearted volunteers. But it was high time, I felt, for someone to admit the truth about a highly popular practice that was yielding troubling unintended consequences. I wasn’t being unkind. I was just being honest. And I felt we should be doing much, much better than we were (and are currently) doing.

As a seasoned practitioner in community development work, I have witnessed firsthand how food, clothing, and money given to assist those in need more often than not produce unhealthy dependency and end up harming those the donation was intended to help. After four decades of living and serving among the poor—decades spent coordinating hundreds of volunteer service projects and watching well-intentioned volunteers do for my neighbors what my neighbors should be doing for themselves—I felt it was finally time to take the risk of going public with the dirty little secret that on-the-ground charity workers know all too well but are loath to admit. The hard reality is that it takes more than compassionate hearts and generous gifts to elevate people in need out of poverty. In fact, giving to people in need what they could be gaining from their own initiative may well be the kindest way to destroy them.

My 2011 exposé stirred up considerable controversy. People were surprised by my news. How could any reasonable person claim that charity does more harm than good? How could anyone argue that a hot meal and a clean bed are harmful to a hungry homeless man shivering in the cold? Or that a hot shower and a fresh change of clothes could be anything but beneficial to a woman who has been sleeping under a bridge? To even suggest such things, some people charged, was akin to suggesting that loving one’s neighbor is a bad idea. Some even accused me of sabotaging the noble—indeed, biblical—cause of caring for the poor.

While I was hoping to create a lively discussion by writing Toxic Charity, I didn’t write it to stir up controversy. More than ever, I stand behind the surprising truths I uncovered, not just during the writing of the book, but during my decades of work both with the poor and with charities and ministries that genuinely want to serve and make a difference in the lives of others. The fact is, we cannot serve others out of poverty, no matter how much we may want to. That is a core concept of both my mission and this book. And the reason I am so passionate about broadcasting this bad news about the status quo is that I care deeply about charity’s goals and results: I want to move people out of poverty. That is my life’s work.

My calling first led me to found Family Consultation Service (FCS), an Atlanta-based nonprofit focused on the needs of inner-city youth and families in the community I came to call home. Over time the mission of FCS expanded into transforming entire urban neighborhoods, and its name was changed to Focused Community Strategies to more accurately describe its work. My commitment to moving people out of poverty then took me farther afield as I became an active board member of Opportunity Nicaragua and applied the principles learned in the United States’ urban experience to a developing country.

The insights I have learned through this work—through project after project both here and abroad—are counterintuitive. The truths I have learned are counterintuitive. For example, I believe now, as I did when I wrote Toxic Charity, that the only effective charity is the kind that asks more from those being served, rather than less. Asking for more sends an affirming message to the recipient that he or she also has something of value to offer.

It’s easy to get discouraged about all the poverty in the world. After all, Christ himself said, The poor you will always have with you (Matthew 26:11 and elsewhere). As a result, we may feel helpless in the face of trying to solve the problem of global destitution. But in this book, I will offer inspiring new avenues that are open to us for making true and lasting change, especially through the use of social enterprise. This exciting shift from the traditional dynamic of charitable giving is a powerful weapon in the war against poverty.

In other words, I don’t have only bad news to tell you. Many dedicated people who work among the poor are just as frustrated as I am with the non-results of our traditional methods. Many of them are pioneering new models of charity, ones that keep their eyes focused on what truly makes a difference. I will talk about these new models, and how we can support them, throughout this book. Following their lead is how we can best detox our toxic charity.

The work I have done in the past, and much of what I discuss in this book, concerns organizations that work with giving, but I will also outline how you, as an individual, can bring about meaningful change in the world and in the lives of others. This might take the form of teaching what you know about business to someone who can use this knowledge to better his or her life. Or it may mean being a good neighbor—organizing a crime watch, being active in the PTA, and helping transform your community for everyone who lives there. Or it could be as simple as using the criteria I develop in this book as a guide to what charities and ministries you support financially. All of us, however, need to detox our charities and learn new rules in order for the results to match our ideals.

The Doctor Will Kill You Now

IS HURTFUL CHARITY BETTER than no charity at all? The answer is no. Take an honest look at the outcomes of our benevolence—from the soup kitchen in inner-city Atlanta to the entire country of Haiti—and the answer becomes obvious. Despite our most charitable efforts, the world’s poor are not emerging from poverty. The poverty gap in the United States is increasing; and across the globe, in those lands where our aid is most concentrated, the poor are getting poorer.

I understand how disheartening it can be to discover that one’s sincere acts of caring harm the very ones we intended to help. The truth is disturbing, but if the poor are ever to emerge from poverty, we all have to face this truth, regardless of how it makes us feel.

As a sobering example of how entrenched wrong thinking can be, and why we need to work so hard in order to change our models, consider the eighteenth-century physician. Back then medical doctors were taught that the time-honored practice of bloodletting would help cure sick patients by removing bad or stagnant blood. Unchallenged for more than four thousand years, bloodletting was universally accepted as the most effective remedy for almost every disease. Although it seems archaic today, the prevailing theory before the circulatory system was fully understood was that blood could stagnate in the extremities. A buildup of bad blood was thought to cause all manner of maladies. The cure was to purge.

And everyone bought in. For eons. Ancient cultures like the Mesopotamians and Egyptians. Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, endorsed bloodletting as an effective treatment. As did Socrates and Plato. The Talmud, the central text of Rabbinic Judaism, specified certain days for bloodletting, while early Christian writings offered advice on which saints’ days were most favorable for the practice. Bloodletting was prescribed for everything from cholera to cancer, tetanus to tuberculosis, gout to gangrene. The more blood, the better. In 1799, George Washington, suffering from a throat infection, requested that his physician drain four pints of blood. Not surprisingly, shortly after the procedure, Washington died.

Modern medical advances finally exposed as harmful this once-common practice. Young scientist Louis Pasteur discovered that it was germs, not bad blood, that caused disease. The revelation was a medical game-changer. Imagine the shock experienced by doctors who learned that their attempts to heal had actually harmed or even killed their patients. And yet this misguided model had persisted for four thousand years! That is the power of an entrenched paradigm.

And that is what we are up against when we try to change how we think about charity. Our very models of what it means to be and do good are wrapped up with images of food pantries, homeless shelters, and giveaway programs—despite the fact that no one can show that these efforts help people move out of poverty. Just as doctors did not want to hear that their treatment strategies were not just ineffective but detrimental, neither do charity workers or dedicated volunteers want to hear that their efforts have not only failed to do good but have actually harmed those they wanted to help.

Yes, we have been giving handouts to the poor for thousands of years, but that does not make it an effective strategy for moving people out of poverty—especially now that we have other, proven models that do work.

Recently, I explained the harm of toxic charity to a very active civic group. They had organized a large-scale gardening initiative to grow fresh produce, which they then gave to their city’s homeless. Though their work was rightly motivated, the initiative was fostering unhealthy dependency. I suggested that they detoxify their program by involving the recipients in the growing process—a proposal that was clearly unwelcome.

When I suggested that the positive feelings the civic group received from their participation was at the heart of their program, rather than its effectiveness in helping the homeless, I got this response from one of the coordinators: This is a lot of work. I would have quit a long time ago if there weren’t so many hungry people. If I wanted to feel good, I’d be sitting on the beach with a book. In his mind, the program simply had to be right—look how hard volunteers were working.

Resistance is an understandable reaction to new insights, especially when they call into question traditional methods of care. But resistance can also hinder the discovery of more effective ways to serve. Worse than resistance, however, is denial. Denial is failing to admit—to even consider—that a method of treatment may actually be causing harm.

Just Following God’s Orders

UNFORTUNATELY, ONE OF THE most powerful drivers of American compassion is one of its greatest abusers. American churches are at the forefront of the burgeoning compassion industry, spending billions on dependency-producing food pantries, clothes closets, service projects, and mission trips that serve mainly themselves and inadvertently turn people into beggars. Unexamined charity—charity that fails to ask the hard questions about outcomes—only perpetuates poverty, despite its best intentions. As megachurch pastor Rick Warren states in his foreword to Wayne Grudem and Barry Asmus’s The Poverty of Nations, Having traveled the globe for thirty years and trained leaders in 164 countries, I’ve witnessed firsthand that almost every government and NGO (nonprofit) poverty program is actually harmful to the poor, hurting them in the long run rather than helping them. The typical poverty program creates dependency, robs people of dignity, stifles initiative, and can foster a ‘What have you done for me lately?’ sense of entitlement.

Responsible charity, on the other hand, engages not only the heart but the mind as well. One of the most significant, rational decisions that determine the outcome of our charity is distinguishing between crisis and chronic need. In times of crisis, an immediate emergency intervention is required. When an earthquake devastates Haiti, for example, an emergency response is the right—and only—response. Food, water, shelter, and medical supplies are essential to save lives. But when the bleeding has stopped, when emergency supplies have been distributed, when people are housed in temporary shelters, it is time for rebuilding to begin. The strategy of crisis intervention must then shift to a strategy of development.

And herein lies

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