Charity Workers Are “Addicted to Nice”

Alanna Skaikh, an expert on global-health issues, says that international-development and aid work is stuck in a “culture of nice.” Writing on her blog Blood and Milk, she says that a reluctance to label shoddy programs and poor-performing organizations as “bad” keeps bad programs from being cut and good ones from being improved.

So why are people who have no problem calling out a “bad” product — she cites Windows Vista — unable to stomach outing poor charitable projects?

One reason, according to Ms. Shaikh, is that when good people are trying to serve others, it’s difficult to point out that they’re not doing the best job of it. Also, every project benefits at least one or two people. And she says that no one wants to be the person who says that handful of individuals aren’t worth the effort.

Also, charity employees tend to move around among different jobs and organizations.

“You don’t want to talk smack about a potential employer, and a potential employer could be just about anyone,” she writes. “So we all shut up, and organizations that everyone knows are sinkholes of mismanagement and despair just keep on getting grants and contracts.”

Ms. Shaikh says she isn’t sure how to fix the charity world’s obsession with nice. Do you have ideas? Click on the comments box below to share your thoughts.