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.

"Compassion Collapse," or Why is it so Hard to Help Large Numbers of People who are Suffering?

Hurricane Michael. The Indonesian earthquake and tsunami. Hurricane Florence. Tropical Storm Mangkhut. Hurricane Florence. California and B.C. wildfires.

Those are the major natural disasters since July, this year.

Not included are other hurricanes, storms and flooding around the world, not to mention the terrible war and famine in Yemen and the ongoing crisis in Syria.

Is it any wonder people today are experiencing what’s called “compassion collapse?”

That’s the term used by Jamal Zaki, a professor of psychology at Stanford University and the director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Laboratory ina recent article in The Atlantic.

Hearing about these disasters, and the numbers of people killed, injured or made homeless can leave people “strangely unmoved,” he writes.

If that’s your experience, he says “you wouldn’t be alone. For decades, social scientists have documented a troubling quirk in human empathy: People tend to care more about the suffering of single individuals, and less about the pain of many people.”

This “compassion collapse” is morally backwards, he suggests.

When many people die, our compassion and sympathy should rise, he says. Instead, it does the opposite; it dries up.

And why is that?

There are several explanations, according to Zaki.

Some psychologists say that it’s due to evolution. We can’t feel compassionate towards so many who are suffering; our brains are hardwired against it.

“Human empathy has been built, over thousands of generations, to respond to certain triggers—for instance, a child’s cry or an anguished face,” he writes.

“A single victim produces these signs of distress, which tug at us and inspire our help. Groups give us statistics, which land flat, triggering little and thus benefiting less from others’ compassion.”

(I wrote about this earlier in a blog post titled WhyYour Brain Wants to Help One Person, but not Millions.)

Other psychologists say it’s a choice. Some people choose not to care about needs far away, to look away.

They may rationalize their lack of response by noting their small donation won’t make a difference when millions are suffering. Or they are afraid of burnout; how much suffering can one person take on?

Which leads Zaki to ask: “Is compassion collapse a ‘can’t’ or ‘won’t’ problem?” His conclusion: It’s both.

“People do empathize more naturally with one person’s visible, heart-wrenching sorrow than with descriptions of massive tragedies, and human emotion does have a limited range,” he says.

But, he adds, “even when people could extend their care toward a suffering group, they often shy away.”

Which is all fine a good from an academic point of view. What can NGOs do to combat compassion collapse?

Zaki has a few suggestions—none of which will be rocket science to NGO communicators and marketers

First, addressing the “can’t” problem, “evidence suggests that focusing on one of the sufferers can jump-start empathy for the entire group, giving them a vivid case on which to hang their care.”

Second, if someone thinks giving aid is pointless (the “won’t” problem), then telling them about the “difference they can make might inspire them to dig into their empathy even amid great tragedy.”

Of course, those of us who do communications and marketing for NGOs know this; we’ve been dealing with compassion collapse for decades.

We know that the best way to solicit support is by telling the story of one person in need. That’s why we always tell a personal story in appeals.

(For evidence of the importance and impact of this, we need only think of the photo of Aylan Kurdi, dead on the beach after trying to flee from Syria.)

Zaki adds on more thing of interest to those who work for NGOs trying to raise funds for development.

We all know that development is a way to strengthen people, a way to make them more resilient so they can withstand and recover quicker from disasters.

But raising funds for disaster response is always easier than raising money for development. Why is that?

Zaki’s response: “Charitable donations tend to be reactive, not proactive—it’s easier to care about the ongoing suffering of many than the potential suffering of future people that could still be prevented.”

In cases like these, he says, “aid and philanthropy should be driven by something else—for instance, objectively reasoned principles about which policies can make the biggest difference.”

(Hmm . . . I’ve yet to see much money generated by “objectively reasoned principles” about policies. Has anyone given that a try?)

Anyway, more food for thought. Comments?

Zaki is the author of a forthcoming book, The War For Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World.

Canadians and Increased Foreign Aid: Do They Support It?

Do Canadians support an increase in the foreign aid budget?

That’s the question Angus Reid, in partnership with World Vision Canada, sought to answer in March.

They asked the question after the Federal Government increased the amount it was prodiving for foreign aid in the 2018 budget.

The survey concluded that Canadians have mixed feelings about an increase to the aid budget.

On the one hand, 64% of Canadians say Canada has a “moral obligation to help those in developing countries.”

Yet only 28% say Canada should spend more than it currently does. 27% say it should spend less, and 46% say it is about right.

This lack of support for an increase in aid persists even when Canadians are told that Canada’s aid spending is way below the internationally-accepted target of 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI).

Speaking of which, 48% of Canadians think Canada is spending more than 0.7%, or that it has already reached that target.

Only 26% know Canada is below the target for aid spending.

Why Should Canada Provide Aid?

When asked why Canada should provide aid, the top reason is to alleviate suffering (45%), followed by helping people become more self-sufficient (44%).

Other reasons, in order, are more global stability and peace (29%), reducing the threat of terrorism (14%), uniting different cultures and building bonds between people (10%), providing opportunities for Canadian business (8%).

13% said they could see no benefits of government aid.

Concerns About Aid

The main concern Canadians have about government aid is that it doesn’t reach those who need it most (50%).

39% are worried that it is being wasted or used inefficiently; 37% think it will divert funds away from needs at home; 16% think Canada can’t afford it; 11% think it is badly spent on poor projects; 8% don’t think we get enough bang for the buck.

As for who holds these concerns, older Canadians (55-plus) are most likely to worry about aid not reaching the needy, and waste.

Giving and Engagement

As for how many Canadians personally donate to Canadian aid groups, 21% say they make a donation.

When asked how they give, 56% say it is a spontaneous response, likely to a natural disaster or other crisis in the news.

44% say they plan their giving. Importantly for NGOs, those who say they plan their giving also give more.

The most common amount given by those who donate is between $101 and $250 a year, according to the pollster.

When it comes to engagement, 45% say they are engaged with an NGO by receiving mail or e-mail or following them on social media, or by donating.

55% say they have no involvement at all.

Of those who say they are most supported of Canadian aid—what the pollster calls the “true believers”—only 33% have made a donation and 40% say they have no connection to any NGO.

This show, the pollster says, that even among the top supporters of aid “there are still a great deal of people on the sidelines.”

In terms of what causes people personally want to support, the well-being of children is first, followed by health, humanitarian relief, alleviation of extreme poverty, human rights (including the rights of women), economic development and refugees.

As always, surveys like this are to be taken with a grain of salt. 

I'd guess that, for many respondents, the first time they thought about the subject of aid was when they were contacted by the pollster. And the answers people give are shaped by the questions they are asked.

But it is still good information, and corroborates what other surveys have discovered about Canadian attitudes towards aid. 

And if nothing else, they remind NGO professionals that we live in a bubble, and the way we see the world is not the way everyone sees it.

And that's always a good reminder.

Read the full report here.

Also see another report from Angus Reid about Canadian attitudes towards foreign aid.

Recent Survey on Canadian Attitudes to International Relief & Development

When it comes to international relief and development, the two issues Canadians care about most are the safety and well-being of children, followed by humanitarian relief .

That’s one conclusion from a recent survey of Canadian attitudes towards international relief and development.

The survey by Angus Reid, which was undertaken with support from World Vision Canada, was released on March 18. It has some interesting findings for Canadian NGOs.

According to the survey, 72% of Canadians say they are proud of the work being done by Canadian NGOs.

Yet trust in NGOs is perilous, with only 27% saying all or most NGOs can be trusted to use donor dollars effectively.

At the same time, 77% express frustration that no matter what is done, the situation in the developing world doesn’t seem to be getting any better.

Despite that 75% say even helping just one family is worth the effort.

As for the main goal of development work by Canadian NGOs, 45% say it should be helping those in need.

Communicating About Development

When it comes to communications from NGOs, only 28% say international relief and development agencies clearly communicate what they are doing overseas.

Given today’s tough communications environment, it’s hard to fault NGO communicators for not being able to reach large numbers of Canadians.

Yet only 34% of those who say they are heavily involved say “the impact of their (NGO) work is very clear.”

Issues Canadians Care About

When it comes to issues Canadians care about, the safety and well-being of children in the developing world is first at 50%, followed by humanitarian relief following natural disasters (44%).

The others, in order, are refugees and human rights (both at 38%), health (34%), economic development (30%) and extreme poverty (22%).

When asked which of these issues Canada should take a leadership role in, the safety and well-being of children was first, followed by human rights, health, economic development, natural disasters, refugees and extreme poverty.

Based on an average of all seven issues, the pollster says 30% of Canadians believe Canada take a leadership role in international development.

58% say Canada has a role to play, but no more than other rich countries.

Only 12% say Canada should play no role in development.

Millennials and Development

Since the future of Canadian NGOs will be determined by younger people, what do they think about aid?

The pollster found that millennials don’t have much money to give, but the want to help.

They are also the most optimistic about aid, believing aid from Canada can have a positive impact in the developing world.

They are also more likely to say Canada should take a leadership role in development,

Notably, the pollster says, “they are no more likely than other generations to say NGOs . . . can be trusted to deliver effective aid.”

Religion and Development

The survey underscores the importance of religiosity when it comes to supporting efforts to help the world’s poorest people.

According the survey, 71% of religious Canadians say they are “heavily involved” in development issues.

This compares to 29% of non-religious people who say the same.

  

According to the pollster, “the activities of the church have played a foundational role in Canadian society, especially at the community level . . . in the NGO community, religious affiliation has been common as well.”

As always, surveys like this are to be taken with a grain of salt. 

I'd guess that, for many respondents, the first time they thought about the subject of aid was when they were contacted by the pollster. And the answers people give are shaped by the questions they are asked.

But it is still good information, and corroborates what other surveys have discovered about Canadian attitudes towards aid. 

And if nothing else, they remind NGO professionals that we live in a bubble, and the way we see the world is not the way everyone sees it.

And that's always a good reminder.

Read the full survey report here.

Also see another recent report from Angus Reid about whether Canadians support an increase in Canada's aid budget. 

TOFU, MOFU, BOFU and International Development

Last February, communicators and marketers from over 40 Canadian NGOs met in Ottawa.

The subject was international development—and how we can engage more Canadians about it.

At the meeting, we heard from pollsters who told us that the majority of Canadians have no idea what international development is—what it means, why it matters, or who does it.

Kevin Chapelle, Manager of Public Opinion Research for Global Affairs Canada, noted that many Canadians know nothing about development.

“We have a huge challenge ahead of us in terms of getting the word out there,” he said.

Margo Matias-Valencia of the One Campaign noted that issues such as development and foreign aid do not rank highly with Canadians, and that most think Canada is giving too much foreign aid—although they don’t know how much that is.

Julia Anderson of CanWach noted they did two surveys about Canadians and development, in 2015 and 2017.

Their research showed no movement in understanding about international development over the two years.

“The ranking remains the same,” she said. “We haven’t moved the bar.”

She added that 64% of Canadians cannot name one NGO.

What was needed, she said, was a “national framework” for all NGOs to use to engage Canadians.

Matias-Valencia added that this framework needs to employ simple messages, noting that words like “development” and “foreign aid” don’t resonate with Canadians.

“We over-explain what we do and how we do it, we put too much into each message,” she stated. “We’re not engaging the people we need to reach. We shouldn’t be afraid to use simpler messages, not package too many things into stories.”

Later, during a break-out session about communicating with Canadians, it was agreed that NGOs need to work together to increase their effectiveness. But people also agreed it would be hard.

And why is that? With each NGO focused on meeting its budget and attracting new donors, it would be hard to convince EDs and CEOs—not to mention fundraising colleagues—that they should collaborate as a way to lift all boats.

And that’s where TOFU, MOFU and BOFU came in.

It was Katherine Harris, who directs communications at Plan Canada, who brought it up.

TOFU, she reminded us, stands for “top  of funnel.” MOFU is “middle of funnel.” And BOFU is “bottom of funnel.”

The term comes from the world of marketing, and describes the process people go through before making a decision to buy. (Similar to the Communications Ladder.)

TOFU is where people simply become aware of a product. MOFU is where they begin to do research to find out more. And BOFU is where they decide to buy—or, in this case, to make a donation.

Since a majority of Canadians know little about development, Katherine asked: Could we work together to simply get more people into the top of the funnel?

In other words, at the top of the funnel we don’t worry about brand awareness or getting donations.

We simply want to get people to stop, even just for a moment, to think about people in the developing world, Canada's responsibility to help those who are in need—things they might not have thought much about before.

Those who want more information can follow a link (MOFU), and maybe discover an NGO they want to support and be a part of (BOFU).

It was suggested we could emulate campaigns that promote milk or eggs. They are not designed to promote a particular business, but the sector as a whole.

Can NGOs do it? Can they put aside concerns about brand awareness and getting today in order to increase the size of the donor pool over the longer term? 

Or, can they do more TOFU and worry less about BOFU?

Those are the big questions.

Giving for Relief & Development is Up, But Why? And Who is Doing the Giving?

In a previous post, I noted that between 2000-13 there was an increase in the number of Canadians donating to international relief and development.

In that time frame, 1.2 million more people made a donation to an international NGO (from 1.9 million to 3.1 million).

By 2013, 10% of donations were going to international relief and development, up from 5% in 2000.

That made it the fourth most popular cause in terms of giving, after religion, health and social services.

What accounts for the increase? I have a few ideas.

One reason is growing need, both in Canada and around the world—earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, typhoons, hurricanes and hunger emergencies have been in the headlines.

Another reason is that NGOs are getting better at fundraising and marketing.

In the 1980s, when I started in the sector, there were very few fundraisers and virtually no marketers or marketing campaigns.

To be honest, fundraising was considered sort of grubby and dishonorable, a dark and unseemly art.  

Things are very different now. Every NGO employs people today whose main task is to ask for money, and many have sophisticated marketing campaigns. (Bought a goat or chicken recently?)

Then there are the government matches for humanitarian disasters.

Since the first 1:1 match in 2004 following the southeast Asia tsunami, there have been 13 matches to date. Altogether, they have raised over $600 million from Canadians for disasters around the world.

It’s no surprise they’ve worked so well; Canadians love a deal. The prospect of seeing a donation doubled is very appealing.

The rise of social media might have helped, too; it’s never been easier to share information about needs in the developing world.

Anyone else have other reasons to suggest?

Who is Giving?

That’s the why for giving to international causes, but who is giving? What characteristics do they have?

According information supplied by David Lasby of Imagine Canada, the significant predictors of the likelihood of donating to International causes include age, level of education, marital status and religiosity.

As for age and marital status, research shows that married people (or those in long-term committed relationships) and older people give more to charity in general. 

But why to they also give more to international causes? Maybe it's just because married and older people give more, period, and NGOs are among the beneficiaries. (But if anyone has another answer, let me know.) 

In the end, there aren’t huge variances for age and marital status; the groups are separated by only a few percent. (Although older people tend to make larger donations.)

The bigger differences are in education and religion.

It’s no surprise that people with higher educations donate to international causes; they are likely more aware of events in the world.

But what about religion—why is that a predictor?

There are at least two reasons.

First, religion teaches that people have a duty or obligation to help the needy. And almost every major religion subscribes to some form of what Christians call the Golden Rule (treat others they way you want to be treated).

And as a 2017 Angus Reid survey discovered, religiously committed Canadians are twice as likely as others to say “concern for others” is one of the most important things for them.

Second, places of worship regularly tell attenders about the needs of the world, through pastoral prayers, sermons, sharing, Christian education classes or before the offering.

Church mailboxes for members are also filled with appeals from groups that churches support.

This correlation between religiosity and giving is supported by research from Statistics Canada, which also found that religiously-active people also donate far more than others ($1,004 vs. $313, 2010 figures).

But here’s the thing about religion and education; while the number of people attending university has grown since 2000 (currently holding around 2 million students a year), the number of people who attend religious services is falling.

Indeed, the fastest growing “religion” in Canada today is the “nones”—people who, when asked which religion they affiliate with, say “none of the above.”

That figure stands at 24%, up from 1% in 1961. Most of these “nones” are younger people.

Since there is a strong correlation between attendance at worship services and donating for relief and development (or giving and volunteering in general), decreasing attendance is a worrisome thing for NGOs (church and non-church alike, since religious people also give outside their church groups).

So while NGOs can celebrate the rise in giving to international relief and development, there are some danger signs on the horizon.

Graphs courtesy of David Lasby of Imagine Canada. Photo at top: Somali family, 2011. Credit Frank Spangler, ADRA.

Counting Engagement by Canadians in International Relief & Development; are NGOs Missing an Important Metric?

Number of Canadians donating to NGOs rising

Canada’s government recently increased its foreign aid budget. Now Canadian NGOs want to show the ruling Liberal Party they made a good decision—and that lots of Canadians support it.

But how to do that? 

Plans are underway for postcard, e-mail and letter writing campaigns, among other things. The hope is that tens of thousands of Canadians will show the government they care about people in need in the developing world.

And also that Canada should keep moving in this positive direction.

But what if it could be shown that lots of Canadians already do care? Not tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, but millions? And that this support is increasing?

What am I talking about? Giving money.

Now, I've met some people who think giving money is the least important way people can show commitment to the cause. 

Letters, MP visits, e-mails, attending events—those are considered to be far superior.

As a fundraiser, I know that isn’t true. Writing letters and e-mails is important, but so is making a donation.

Giving money to a charity is a serious and deliberate act. People don’t give it away easily.

And when you consider the many other options people have for spending their hard-earned dollars, making a donation—especially a larger amount—is a significant expression of commitment to a cause.

But if giving money is another important way to measure engagement, how much is being given by Canadians to international causes? And is it growing or decreasing?

That’s what I set to find out. I started by searching online.

The only thing I could find was a 2002 a report titled “An Analysis of Canadian Philanthropic Support for International Development and Relief.” It was commissioned by the Aga Khan Foundation of Canada and published by the Canadian Centre for Philanthropy—now Imagine Canada.

That report, based on the 2000 Statistics Canada National Survey of Giving, Volunteering, and Participating, showed that 5% percent of Canadian donors—about 1.2 million people—supported international causes that year, giving about 3.4% of total donations to NGOs.

The report noted that “Canadians provide only modest philanthropic support for international development and relief efforts.”

However, it went to say there “appears to have been substantial growth in the amount of donations provided to international organizations between 1997 and 2000, which far surpassed the overall growth in charitable donations.”

While that was a hopeful sign, data from 2000 wasn’t going to cut it. So I contacted David Lasby, Director of Research and Evaluation for Imagine Canada, and one of the authors of the 2002 report.

I asked him if Imagine Canada had any updated data on giving for international relief and development. 

He said no; they didn’t.

But, to my surprise—and delight—David took this on as a challenge.

He crunched the numbers for giving to international causes in 2013 (the most recent year for which data was available), using information from that year's National Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating.

And what did he find?

“Briefly, things have changed quite a bit somewhat since the earlier numbers,” he reported back to me.

“As of 2013, about 12.8% of donors, or 10.5% of Canadians, donated to International development and relief organizations.”

Collectively, he added “organizations working in this area presently account for about 10% of the total value of donations to all organizations.”

According to Lasby, this totaled about $1.3 billion donated to international NGOs in 2013.

In terms of number of donors, Lasby says his research shows that about 3.1 million Canadians donated that year to help those in need in the developing world—an increase of almost 1.2 million people over 2000.

According to a recent report from Imagine Canada and the Rideau Hall Foundation’s latest report, Thirty Years of Giving in Canada, giving to international relief and development is now the fourth most popular cause for Canadians to give to, after religion (41%), health (13%) and social services (12%).

Or, as that report puts it: "Giving to international causes is increasing, both in terms of the amounts donated and the number of Canadians donating." 

(Above graphic from Imagine Canada; see also this table from Statistics Canada for the donor rate and amounts donated to different organizations in 2013.)

But was that just a blip? Maybe there was a big disaster in 2013 that skewed the numbers.

As it turns out, there was.

That was the year of Typhoon Haiyan in The Philippines, a huge disaster that dominated the news.

Canadians donated over $85 million to international NGOs that year to help victims of that disaster. (Spurred on by a government match of 1:1.)

Despite this, Lasby says the data shows there has been a steady climb in donations for relief and development since 2000.

“Looking at the intervening surveys, the increases in percentage of total donation value have been quite consistent,” he says.

His comments made me wonder; could his information be supported by an increase in donations to Canadian NGOs?

With David’s help, I checked out giving to some of the country’s largest and best-known NGOs.

It turns out the answer is yes.

Of the nine major NGOs I looked at, all except one saw their giving increase between 2003 to 2016-17. Some of them increased quite a lot. (See list below.)

So: What does this mean?

When it comes to demonstrating to the government that Canadians care about foreign aid and international development, maybe NGOs have been selling themselves short.

Perhaps there are many more people engaged in our mission than we thought—people who care whether Canada’s aid budget goes up or down.

So maybe instead of only counting postcards, petitions and e-mails—all important things—we can also show politicians our fundraising totals.

That might also tell a very important tale.

Examples of giving to NGOs, 2003-16 (individual donations)

Save the Children: 2003, $3.3 million; 2016, $7.1 million.

Oxfam Canada: 2003, $5.3 million; 2017, $7.1 million.

Plan Canada: 2003, $44.7 million; 2017, $93 million.

Red Cross: 2003, $25.8 million; 2017, $224 million.

Islamic Relief: 2007 (first year of operation), $40,765; 2016, $18.5 million.

World Vision: 2003, $145.1 million; 2016, $348.7 million.

Samaritan’s Purse: 2003, $8.4 million; 2016, $30 million.

Compassion Canada: 2003, $10.5 million; 2017, $61.2 million.

CARE: 2003, $5.4 million; 2017, $5.4 million.