Mennonite Central Committee and the End of Famine Pornography

It’s Christmas, a time for giving—and also a time for Christmas appeals.

Over the next few weeks you will see lots of ads and appeal letters asking you for money, including from aid groups.

While you will see lots of photos of people who need assistance, one thing you won’t see is famine pornography.

Famine pornography—the use of terrible images of dying children, with flies in their eyes and distended bellies, in order to raise funds—was very common in the 1980s and 1990s.

Use of the images was widely criticized by many for the way they promoted a negative stereotype of people in the developing world as always being needy, starving, desperate, and helpless.

But even though academics and some NGOs denounced the practice, famine porn continued to be used on TV, and in print for one simple reason: It worked.

At that time, I was directing communications for Mennonite Central Committee Canada.

Like many other aid agencies, we were upset by the constant use of famine porn, including by some leading Canadian NGOs.

But instead of just joining the chorus and criticizing the practice, we decided on another approach.

We decided to set the bar higher.

In 1992, we created the first Canadian code of conduct for reporting about needs in the developing world.

According to the code, MCC would portray people in the developing world in ways that affirmed their dignity, promoted their skills and abilities, and revealed them as active participants in efforts to improve their lives.

At the same time, we would report honestly about urgent needs, such as for food. But we would not use language or images designed to shock donors into giving money.

We announced the new code of conduct at a press conference on November 25, 1992. It received widespread media attention.

Immediately, the bar was set higher not just for MCC, but for all Canadian NGOs.

The code was a game-changer. For the first time, the media and donors had a yardstick against which to evaluate NGO fundraising appeals.

It would be wildly simplistic for me to suggest MCC's code of conduct was solely responsible for the demise of famine pornography in Canada.

But it played a significant part.

As was reported by Esther Epp-Tiessen in her history of MCC Canada, in 1995 a leading authority in the Canadian humanitarian sector credited the agency with raising the bar for other NGOs.

Of course, it didn’t stop all at once. But over time the use of famine porn lessened.

Today, you would be hard-pressed to find any famine porn in fundraising appeals. And any reputable NGO has a code of conduct to govern how it reports about and uses images of people in the developing world.

I’m not saying images of extreme need should never be used. Sometimes we need a picture of starving children to shock us out of our complacency—as with what’s happening in Yemen, right now.

But they should never be over-used, and they should never be the only kinds of images NGOs share about the developing world.

Today, the big challenge facing the NGO sector is not famine porn, but things like short term mission and service trips and Christmas shoeboxes—both of which are very popular, but are poor ways to address the issue of global poverty.

Maybe it’s time for another NGO to step up with a new kind of code of conduct.

The fall, 2018 issue of MCC's Intersections is dedicated to the issue of how the agency represents relief and development. Find it here.

Amazon Isn't Too Big to Fail, and Neither Are Non-Profits

Amazon is not to big to fail.

That’s what owner Jeff Bezos told staff recently.

Despite the fact the company is the largest retailer on the planet, it’s future is not guaranteed.

What would cause Amazon to fail?

Not caring about its customers.

“If we start to focus on ourselves instead of focusing on our customers, that will be the beginning of the end,” Bezos said.

“We have to try and delay that day for as long as possible.”

What’s true for Amazon is true for non-profits.

When more time is spent talking about in-house things—what language, messaging, images and words to use to describe the need to be addressed—they are started on the road to trouble.

Don’t get me wrong; all those things are important.

The people non-profits want to serve be described in a way that affirms their dignity and self-respect.

But when more time is spent coming up with the perfect words that will make program staff happy about an appeal, rather than the words that will motivate people to give, an organization has begun that inward and downward spiral.

Hey—I’m not saying the concerns of program staff shouldn’t be heard. There can and should be vigorous discussions.

But there’s a reason why program people do programs, and fundraisers to fundraising: Both know best how to do their jobs.

When it comes to programs, fundraisers shouldn’t tell them how to do their jobs. And vice versa.

But that’s often not what happens. People who know nothing about fundraising—who know nothing about what motivates givers to give—insist on being involved in writing and approving appeals.  

(A former fundraising colleague called this “brilliant spillover;” people who are good at one thing think they are good at other things, like fundraising.)

When programmers start to act like they are the targets of the appeals, an organization is in trouble.

The truth is they are the worst people to approve fundraising copy. They know too much.

Fundraisers need to attract the attention of people who know little, or even nothing, about the need at hand.

People who have a dozen opportunities to give.

Who are distracted by a hundred things in their day.

And fundraisers have to do it in a few hundred words.

Of course, the situations we appeal for are way more detailed, nuanced, and complex than can be described in an appeal letter.

But appeal letters aren’t educational documents. They can inform, but that’s not their main purpose.

Their main purpose is to raise money.

Anything that gets in the way of that reduces their impact.

When more time is spent discussing how to make program staff happy, rather than what will raise the most money, then the discussion has turned inward.

And that can lead to failure.

If a huge company like Amazon is worried about turning inwards, then non-profits should be, too.

The Future of Newspapers, or Can You Love a Foul Slum?

Many newspapers today are looking for ways to replace the their old business model of advertising and circulation revenue.

The thing that seems most attractive is the membership model.

It's an intriguing idea. People aren't customers any longer, but members. But what does membership mean?

Newspapers are struggling to find an answer to that question. 

From what I can tell, many are simply taking the old business-customer model and adding a few perks, things like special insider information, e-mails from the editor, access to journalists, or tote bags and mugs with the company logo. 

Nice, but I don't think that will do it. If the membership model is really going to work, newspapers (and other news platforms) are going to need to re-think their relationship with their readers.

They need to offer something else besides a newspaper, in print or digitally, or other inducements. 

And what is that?

They need to offer something that provides an emotional, or even a spiritual, payoff, something that provides a sense of having done the right thing, of being part of something bigger.

Say what? Why would anyone give money for something like that? 

Actually, it happens all the time. It's called giving to charity.

When people give money to charity, they don't expect to receive something in return.

They give because they want to help others, improve the quality of life on the planet, advance research into a disease, or some other charitable purpose.

Sure, they get a tax receipt, but research indicates that is not a prime motivator.

They may also benefit indirectly because they gave to groups that work to clean the oceans, do medical research, or help panhandlers get off the streets. 

But aside from those things, there is no direct benefit.

People give because it's the right thing to do, and because they believe, or hope, it will make the world a better place. (Or maybe make them into better people.)

Can something similar work for newspapers? I think it can.

After all, people already value something intangible made possible through journalism: Democracy.

A survey done earlier this year by Angus Reid found that 94% of Canadians believe journalism is important for the flourishing of democracy.

The New York Times seems to have figured this out.

When they send me e-mails, they don't just offer me X number of days of a subscription for Y number of dollars. 

Instead, they invite me to hold power to account.

They offer me something real, but intangible, in other words, something I cannot do myself. And that's the essence of charity. 

If I am moved by the plight of starving people in South Sudan, I give to an NGO that can use my gift to provide them with food.

I will not benefit from this gift. But others will. And I will feel better for it.

Can newspapers take a lesson or two from the philanthropic sector and apply it to their model?

I think they can. But it will require a change of perspective.

It will require editors and publishers to do what British author and philosopher G. K. Chesterton wrote about over 100 years ago to fix a foul London slum called Pimilco.

Today, Pimlico is a nice place to live. But  back at the turn of the last century it was a vile place. 

Chesterton’s solution was novel.

“The only way out of it seems to be for somebody to love Pimlico,” he said. “To love it with a transcendental tie and without any earthly reason.”

If that happened, “then Pimlico would rise into ivory towers and golden pinnacles,” he wrote.

“If men loved Pimlico as mothers love children, arbitrarily, because it is theirs, Pimlico in a year or two might be fairer than Florence.”

Some people, he noted, “will say that this is a mere fantasy.”

His answer? “This, as a fact, is how cities did grow great . . . men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.”

What does this have to do with newspapers?

If we loved our community, then we would want the best for it. And for a community to be its best, it needs a vibrant and robust local press.

That's why people should become members of a newspaper. Not because they get comics, sports and the crossword, but because it makes their community a better place to live.

In other words, what I might do for starving people a world away is something I can do for people in my hometown—and, indirectly, for myself.

In what Christians call the Old Testament, and what Jews call the Tanakh, the story is told in the book of Jeremiah about the people of Israel being taken captive to Babylon.

As it turns out, they will stay there a long time. What should they then do?

Says the prophet Jeremiah: “Pray to the Lord for it,” he said. “Because if it [Babylon] prospers, you too will prosper.”

I would say the same thing about local newspapers.

If it prospers, the city it serves prospers, and then we all prosper.

For more information about membership models for journalism, visit the Membership Puzzle Project.