Following recent sermons on God’s call to care for the vulnerable and disadvantaged, Becky Silver caught up with Steve Penfold, SJE’s Mission Team Lead, to ask how, as disciples, we can best respond to that call.
Becky Silver: Is giving money the best response, rather than local groups collecting goods and delivering them straight to the point of need?
Steve Penfold: In the UK, food banks and charities that have high street shops benefit enormously from collecting food and secondhand items. Oxfam for example, generates around 27% of its UK income from their high street shops.
For international humanitarian aid, it’s a different story. At best, sending clothes and supplies from the UK is grossly inefficient, and at worst it involves inappropriate items, or goods that receiving-countries prohibit (such as second hand medical equipment). Conversely, sending cash to UK-registered charities allows them to claim an extra 25% through Gift Aid and enables them to buy appropriate items in-country. This supports the local economy, with labels and instructions normally being in a local language.
Becky: What’s the most effective way to donate? Is it through development aid organisations or relief aid, or through sponsorship plans to support individual children or families?
Steve: Read the small print. Charities routinely use child sponsorship as a way of generating general funds for that community or area. You could also consider supporting charities that reflect your passion, such as those specialising in development in a sector, such as women and children, human rights, or the environment.
Becky: Is it better to give through Christian organisations, or do national/global charities have greater impact?
Steve: If you want your funds to spread the gospel, give to a Mission organisation. If you want to spread God’s love and mercy through social justice, then non-Christian charities have multiple benefits. First and foremost, they can recruit the best people for the job, without having to filter people out by their faith. Second, they often pay better, and retain staff and expertise for longer, resulting in well defined outcomes. Third, Christian NGOs are often ambiguous about how they combine social justice with evangelical expectations of staff or individual supporters, which deters more professional, secular NGOs and donors from partnering with them.
Of the NGOs I’ve worked with and for in Cambodia, Afghanistan, Jordan, Haiti and Kyrgyzstan, the most effective ones were all non-faith based. That said, the SJE Mission Team has hand-selected a few brilliant, highly focused Christian NGOs that we support as Mission Partners.
And above all: God loves a cheerful giver. (2 Corinthians 9:7).