give to MSF.

Medecins Sans Frontieres.  Medicos Sin Fronteras.  Doctors Without Borders.

I can’t speak to the merits of the world’s NGO’s, because I don’t know most of them.  I am certain that many do wonderful work, and that on the strength of these efforts, the world is rolled to a slightly better place.

I can, however, speak to MSF.  I have worked for them before, and will work for them again.  I will leave it to those interested to discover MSF’s history, and it’s direction.  I posted something during my sudan blog, back in the day.

When I first started doing this type of work, I walked into an NGO library in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, determined to find the best way to support the existing health system in the rural area where I was working.  I found a shelf titled “primary care” and, on it, forty thick bundles of slightly different recipes about how to build a better health structure.   Many seemed incomplete, petering out after a few years’ description of their work in different areas.  I learned a valuable lesson.

Qualities of NGO’s, or charities, differ.  I suspect their genesis is in the same, good place.  Realities, however, are often different.  A small grant to start a school somewhere is not renewed because of different funding priorities by USAID.  Families who moved closer to the school now find themselves farther from one.  A health clinic’s doors are closed because the woman in charge, the one with the institutional knowledge and her heart firmly in the right place, left to care for a friend who had a stroke.  Three days after she left, a man shows up in an ox-cart, his child sick with malaria in the back.

As is evidenced by economic headlines this past year, one should know where his money goes.  It’s true of the companies we invest in as it is of the organizations we supports philanthropically.  I am confident that the majority of money that gets to MSF has the same destination: the field.

Mostly, MSF doesn’t tie donations to a particular project.   One has to trust it is going to a place, or a mission, that needs it most.  There are exceptions.  MSF used to allow money to be directed to Darfur, but with the recent expulsions and a deteriorating security situation, that is becoming tricky.  MSF is still heavily involved in South Sudan, so it is possible to direct dollars there that will find their way into the country.    As much as it is possible, the money you give will go towards efforts that ameliorate the suffering that is a consequence of the war there.

If you prefer to give money to MSF, in general, I think that is equally as wise.  You can do that by visiting your country’s donation site.

I am certain that you, like most people, don’t have a cash surplus.   Give what you can.  Think of money as a resource, poorly distributed.  By giving something, even a small amount, you can repair that disparity, and with it, some of the world.