A Call to Aid the World’s Poor

A growing number of politicians, foundation watchdogs, and people in the nonprofit world have been making the case of late that not all philanthropy produces equal value to society. Now Peter Singer, a prominent philosopher, asks Americans to consider just how far even small contributions to fight global poverty can go — and argues that not giving to help the poorest people overseas is morally indefensible.

Mr. Singer is a bioethics professor at Princeton University who has written on charity since the 1970s. In his new book, The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty, he says that many nonprofit organizations working overseas have proved they can use modest donations — the kind most Americans can afford — to prevent diseases, provide safe drinking water, and meet other basic needs. In short, the donations save lives.

Contributing to charities that help the poorest people overseas, he says, is an ethical imperative. For Mr. Singer, not giving to save a child abroad from a preventable disease is akin to not trying to rescue a child who is drowning, something very few people would hesitate to do.

Mr. Singer, perhaps best known for writings that fostered the modern animal-rights movement, is aware that donors are drawn to different causes. He says he doesn’t want to discourage some other kinds of giving, particularly to environmental groups and other organizations that also help to reduce poverty. But he says that lavishing donations on museums, for example, doesn’t make sense when there are far more urgent needs.

“People in philanthropy really ought to be thinking more about priorities and where we should encourage donors to put their money,” he said in a recent interview.

Donors Respond

Some groups that help poor people overseas are thrilled with his call.

“Most Americans are unaware of the problems that exist and their ability to make a difference,” said Kate Grant, executive director of the Fistula Foundation, a charity whose efforts to provide surgical care to women suffering from obstetric fistula are discussed in the book. “I think what Singer does, better than anyone else, is distill the data to show that those of us in this country can make an amazing difference to save and improve lives.”

Mr. Singer’s high profile means his call could have some impact. Groups featured in his writings in the past, for example, have seen donors respond. After Mr. Singer published an article in The New York Times Magazine that listed telephone numbers for Oxfam and Unicef, the two phone lines brought in about $600,000 more in donations that month than they usually did, he writes.

But critics of foreign aid contend that Mr. Singer’s views are overly optimistic and that eliminating extreme poverty is a much more complex endeavor than the book suggests.

Mr. Singer says he agrees that some money may be misused, but that’s no excuse for tight-fistedness. “Even in a case where half of the projects don’t work, the other half make a big difference,” he said. “And we have to put that up against what spending the money would have achieved, which is not nearly as much as that 50 percent that gets to poor countries. And that’s if the percentage is as low as 50 percent, and I don’t think it’s anywhere near as low.”

Effective Charities

He urges donors to give more to groups such as GiveWell, which identifies nonprofit groups that are most effective at providing services. “We need more of that meta-philanthropy,” he said.

To encourage more people to give, Mr. Singer calls for the creation of a “culture of giving,” one in which helping needy people is normal and expected. Publicizing one’s philanthropy, even if it feels self-promotional, is a key way to foster such a culture, he says.

Mr. Singer also sets forth a “public standard for giving.” The sliding scale suggests that those earning at least $105,000 give 5 percent of their income to aid groups, while the very wealthiest give even more. He encourages those making less than $105,000 to give what they can. Mr. Singer writes that if everyone gave at that level, the money would far exceed the amount Jeffrey Sachs, the Columbia University economist, has said is needed to end extreme poverty.

The publisher of Mr. Singer’s book has created a Web site, where people can pledge to meet that standard. As of last week, more than 1,700 people had done so.

Mr. Singer says fostering a philanthropic culture will require overcoming psychological barriers that prevent us from giving. Among them: our sense of futility, our parochialism, and our assumption that others are helping so we don’t need to.

In an interview, Mr. Singer discussed what charities can do to overcome those barriers, as well as other ideas he raises in the book:

Has the recession changed your thinking?

Not really. We are still extremely affluent compared with the global poor. There are still a lot of very affluent people and I think ordinary middle-class Americans who’ve managed to keep their jobs are still affluent. They are still buying a whole range of luxuries. They may be slowing down a little bit on those purchases, but I’m sure it’s going to get back up there before very long. Some people are rethinking their values and priorities because of the recession. They are realizing that the consumption they were pursuing and their lifestyle wasn’t all that important to them, really. Their family, friends, health, and living in accordance with their values are really important.

So is there an opportunity here? Are we entering into an era of more giving?

Well, maybe into an era of reflecting on our values, which could be helpful for the message I’m getting across. And maybe even caring for others and feeling the need for more empathy. It could actually be a helpful time, if that is what happens.

You call arts philanthropy “morally dubious.” Isn’t it also vital to the well-being of society?

No, I don’t think it’s vital. I think it’s nice. I’m not against it if there are no more-pressing priorities. I’m not talking about art, as such, I’m talking about financial support for art. People will make art. There will be graffiti artists who grab a spray can and paint. The kind of large-scale philanthropy for building museums or buying a Duccio for the Met, I don’t think that’s vital for society.

You say people should give overseas because it’s particularly cost effective. Some people would say, So what? I see poverty in my own backyard.

I can understand if people give something for domestic poverty because they feel strongly and they see it around. But, at present, there’s a huge imbalance. We give far more for domestic poverty issues in philanthropy, generally, than we give to foreign poverty. That seems wrong because the dollars go so much farther.

One of the barriers to giving that you identify is people’s sense of futility. How can charities overcome that?

They can talk about specific successful projects that help a group. It helps if you identify a problem. For example, in this village, women have to walk two hours a day to bring water, and even then it isn’t safe to drink, and they have to boil it. And we can solve this problem if the $10,000 we raise can drill a well that will provide safe drinking water. Then you have a problem that is solved. It’s partly a matter of presenting the issues in doable increments and focusing on the people who we do help.

That gets to the “identifiable victim phenomenon.” Explain how charities can use that idea.

There is lots of research that shows that people are more likely to give if they can identify to whom they’re giving, even if it’s just a photo and a name, such as a description that says, “This is Rokia, she’s a 7-year-old, and she lives in Malawi. She’s often short of food. Her parents can’t afford to send her to school. You can help her.” That’s more effective than saying, “There are thousands of children in Malawi who don’t get enough food to eat and can’t afford to go to school.”

The ethical dilemma here is we don’t want to raise funds to give to Rokia specifically. It’s been shown that’s not an effective way of helping the poor. Organizations that do this now do tell donors their money is going to the village.

But obviously there’s a fine line to be drawn between using the appeal of individuals — which is legitimate as long as people are informed the money is going to help them and their community — and creating the impression that they’re asking money to help that individual child, which would be really misleading.

You also talk about how publicity helps encourage giving. But doesn’t that run counter to what we’ve been taught, values of humility?

It runs counter to the saying attributed to Jesus that we should do our alms in private. But we now know that atti-tude has bad consequences, that more people give if they know others are giving. We talk about swallowing your pride. Here we have to talk about swallowing your humility.

You say we shouldn’t be so skeptical of people’s motives for giving? Why not?

People criticize Madonna because she’s adopted a Malawian child and she’s also donated to orphans in Malawi. And they say she’s just doing it for publicity or to give herself a good reputation.

Similarly, some people say of Bill Gates, he’s doing this because he’s used these monopolistic practices with Microsoft and he’s salving his conscience.In a way, I don’t really care whether Madonna was influenced by publicity or whether Bill Gates was influenced by feeling he hadn’t always done the right thing in building up Microsoft.

What I care about is whether Malawian orphans are helped, or that the fight against the global burden of disease is helped by the enormous amount of money Gates is putting in.

Should we be shunning and shaming people who don’t give?

Shaming I would definitely go along with. Shunning is a matter for people to decide, and perhaps we’re not quite ready for that yet. The idea of being a billionaire who gives little or nothing to the really important causes, of which world poverty is one, is really a cause for shame, especially if you’re living lavishly and spending money on huge yachts and private planes and so on.

One should be ashamed of doing that in a world in which 27,000 children are dying of poverty-related causes each day and that amount of money could have made a life-or-death difference.