Are you paying to perpetuate poverty
[Music]
think
of yourself at your absolute
worst what does it look like what does
it
feel like what would it look like
wrapped up
in a short story and a photo
what if without your consent a
well-meaning
organization is using that story and
photo of you
at your worst to raise money for their
mission
to help people like you
do you like being the poster child
for this organization i mean they’re
making
money off of your sad story
your sad photo
how do you feel about them trading your
dignity
for their financial gain do you think
that maybe there was
a better way to fundraise
what i’ve just described to you is our
current model of
poverty marketing one which perpetuates
poverty
but in this talk i would like to propose
a better model
one which will maintain dignity and
promote
progress we have an issue
as a human population we have the need
to create
an us versus them are we
versus they we
are able to help they
are helpless we have
resources they lack
what they need we are
educated they are uneducated
we separate ourselves because we have
the need to play
the savior so we created them that we
can
save with images and stories
that set them apart this technique of
using
sad photos and awful situations for
fundraising has become known as
poverty porn images of
children with distended bellies
homelessness
dirty faces and tattered clothes it’s
not the images themselves that are the
issue
the issue is the exploitation of the
lives of the poor in order to
generate dollars through sympathy and
pity at its core it sells
poverty while claiming to solve
poverty and as a fundraising technique
it
works we are completely mesmerized by
the distressing photos and awful
situations
it drives a knife of guilt into our
guts and opens our wallets
but this model requires a steady stream
of malnourished children inadequate
housing
detailed trauma and crippling disease in
order to maintain
a steady cash flow
it is not okay to fund service to the
poor
through the direct exploitation of the
poor
we have shifted from eliminating poverty
to commoditizing it and poverty
is not for sale when we
sell what is we perpetuate what is
instead of promoting what could be
i believe that we can either perpetuate
poverty or
promote progress and to explain i want
to use the common proverb when life
gives you lemons
make lemonade the lemons
are the real world issues the lemonade
is the progress made toward the solution
when we perpetuate poverty we
concentrate on the lemons
when we promote progress we concentrate
on the lemonade
to give a real life example let me tell
you about my dear friend salome
salome was my host father in el salvador
and i do
have his permission to use him as an
example i’ll give you two
very real stories about salome and i’ll
follow each with a financial ask
just like in a fundraising campaign so
here’s the first story
salome labors for 12 hours under the hot
sun every day to grow corn and beans to
feed his family
at best he can make five dollars a day
and after he walks the long three miles
back to his humble home
he doesn’t even have running water to
take a shower
the water only flows through the pipes
for a few minutes to a few hours
every two to six weeks and when it does
his family rushes to fill every bucket
every barrel every basin every container
they have
to tide them over for however long it
takes to get water again
and if that wasn’t bad enough the water
is infested with parasites
and salome suffers from extreme
digestive issues
a well and water filters will cost eight
thousand dollars
can you spare just twenty dollars to
help salome
now you might be thinking to yourself
sure 20 bucks no big deal great cause
but all i told you about were the sour
lemons
of salome’s poverty so the next time i
want to get you to donate
i’m going to need another sad story and
another
and another and this is exploiting
the poor for charity this
is perpetuating poverty
so here’s the second story salome is an
incredibly intelligent and innovative
man
because his running water is extremely
inconsistent
he used appropriate technology
techniques to collect rainwater on high
ground and
pipe it to lower ground using gravity so
that he and his family can have a
working
rain water shower now this does not
supply all of their water needs
and there is an issue of parasites in
the water
but salome is a well-respected
individual and he
sits on a council board that makes
decisions to impact and better the lives
of his community
and salome and the council have decided
that they would like to tackle this
water issue
with community input they have
determined that the most appropriate
long-term solution to their problem
is a communal well and water filters
the well and water filters will cost
eight thousand dollars
the community will pay for the upkeep
and maintenance of the well
would you like to be a financial sponsor
at twenty dollars
could you hear the difference in the two
stories
notice that they both talk about the
lemons
those are the real issues they both have
the same financial ask
but in one i perpetuated his poverty and
in the other
i promoted his progress we have a choice
in what we support and what we promote
it is so much harder to raise money with
dignity
it takes a big commitment but here are
some things we can do
first we need to change the way in which
we define
charitable success too often charitable
success is defined by
the number of people served or the
number of mouths fed or
the amount of clothes given away but all
this measures is how consistent
the need is it does not measure the
progress
toward the solution so we have to shift
our mindsets
to measure success as consistent
progress
instead of consistent need
next we need to stop the cycle of
perpetuating
poverty we know that the sad stories and
photos
pumped out by charitable organizing
campaigns raised hundreds
of thousands if not millions of dollars
and yet
year after year they continue to vomit
more sad stories and more sad photos
why because we’re
paying them to do it by paying into it
we are churning out a cycle of pity and
advertising
and obsession with poverty but we have
the power
to change the cycle take a look
at the organizations that you support do
they
perpetuate poverty or promote progress
good organizations will listen to their
audience
so through our words our actions our
letters and our dollars of support we
need to tell organizations that we want
to support
hope and change ask them to support
strength ask them to support
resilience ask them to empower
demand positive branding over
poverty branding if selling poverty no
longer works
organizations will have no choice but to
change
we don’t want organizations to
perpetuate the lemons of
life we want them to promote the
lemonade
because humanity is worth more than the
poverty we sell
every story deserves to be told with
dignity and the change begins with
us it is my hope that the slogan of this
generation
will not be that we perpetuated the
injustice of poverty
instead let it be that we promoted
the justice of progress
thank you
you