Preface/Foreshadowing/Disclaimer

About a year ago, Jason Sandler decided he wanted to “help Africa” by sending t-shirts to kids. He started a website, made some videos, and got a mention in Mashable. The initiative was going swimmingly until the “aid bloggers” heard about it. The aid bloggers, a loosely defined group of industry professionals often disagreeing type, unanimously agreed how silly/stupid/ill-advised this initiative was and let Jason know. They said t-shirts were not an urgent need in African villages. They said the cost of shipping would waste hundreds of thousands of dollars. They said good development isn’t about handing things out, it’s about finding long-term community based solutions.

And at first, Jason, like anyone who gets criticism for wanting to help, became defensive. The debate grew tense and personal.

My first post on this site was an open letter to Jason. I wrote in a personal capacity about how my understanding of do-gooding has changed. I asked Jason to reconsider his plans, and proposed a few action steps forward. Jason received my letter and kindly replied. In time, Jason abandoned his plans to ship t-shirts and instead, gave non-profits a platform and a voice through his existing business and internet presence.

At the time of my first post I worked for World Vision USA. l’m humbled and thankful for my time there; the experience, knowledge, and especially for friendships with teammates and mentors. We parted on the best of terms and I remain a donor and advocate. Additionally, it should be said, this is not written from an insider perspective; I did not work with the GIK team and have no more knowledge of the process than what is publicly available online. I intend to write not as a former employee, but as a donor and peer to marketing friends at diverse NGOs.

With that history in mind, it’s a bit ironic to join the 1kshirts conversation. I write this in a personal capacity, but in the spirit of disclosure, I’m dating @RichendaG, who, when she’s not spending her romantic valentines days with me, is the social media manager at World Vision Australia. You should check out her blog. I don’t speak on her behalf.

So, my intention is not to attack or offend, and I hold World Vision USA and my former coworkers in the highest regards. WVUSA is a large organization and the product of years of history and thousands of individuals work; I hope this letter contributes to the conversation in a positive way.

Lastly, I appreciate WVUSA’s public statement to bloggers to continue to raise issues and challenge them to do better. It is the beauty of social media: authentic conversations, transparent debates, learning from others mistakes and successes. In that spirit I encourage World Vision to hyperlink to the blog entries and twitter handles you mention in your blogs–it’s proper etiquette in the blogosphere, and will allow readers to more easily follow the conversation.

–

An open letter to World Vision USA,
cc: @ArnieAdkison

First, thanks for the dialogue. Just as the conversations with Jason, thanks for the response, willingness to listen, and to hopefully continue to answer questions. Cheers too, to Arnie, for the quick response on his blog and for hearing out my question.

My question, which I don’t think has been responded to, is simple: Is handing out shirts and hats good development? and Does it contribute to “alleviating the root causes of poverty”? If so, how?

Or, in the official words, is this a “nuanced conditional strategic use of product in (an) appropriate context“? Continue Reading…

Dear Jason (of #1millionshirts),

First, sincerely, I commend you for trying to make a difference. You’ve been the talk of the twittersphere lately, and while I don’t know you personally, I’ve spent hours contemplating the #1millionshirts conversation over the last few days. I envy your marketing and social media saavy, your web design skills (or designer friend), and your can do attitude. Most start-up 501c3’s never get the attention you’ve received in one day. I first heard of you from Mashable. Mashable. Impressive.

Though not as experienced in social media as you, I work one the marketing side of an international non-governmental organization. We’re committed to sustainable long-term development, although admittedly we don’t always get there.

As a way of further introduction, I’ll share a story about me and a t-shirt.

When I was a sophomore in college (circa 2006) I bought a t-shirt as part of a fundraiser for MSF. It had a silhouette of a woman printed on the front, holding her hand out, with a pained look on her face. Next to her was the phrase “STOP GENOCIDE IN SUDAN”.

The minimum suggested donation was $10, but to better support the organization one could give more (I gave $10).

Every time I wore the genocide shirt people would ask how I planned to stop the genocide in Sudan. Or who was fighting. Or where Sudan is.

I had no idea.

Now four years later, to be honest, I still can’t explain many of the facets and complexities of the genocide in Sudan. I still have nothing more to offer but prayers and the occasional seemingly insignificant donation. But for the last few years, I’ve been privileged to learn from some pretty incredible people: college professors who challenged me to let go of preconceived and racist ideas, friends who have shared books and guided this stubborn white kid from the suburbs to think more globally (specifically Naomi, Bwalya, Michael, Jeich and Randy. Thank you), and certainly not least the authors (and more recently bloggers) who have opened up a world of experience and knowledge.

Your education came faster. Whereas I simply read Easterly, he responded directly to you (…I’m not saying I envy the attention). Snarky or not, you’re in dialogue with some of the brightest minds in development. It looks like things are evolving from pointed criticism to constructive conversation. Historical moment in NPO history? Perhaps a stretch, but it’s been a great thing to witness.

I have no doubt that #1millionshirts was born from pure motives. Sending a shirt from America to a child in rural Kenya makes me smile: it’s a nice gift. Clearly, It’s not long term sustainable development, and it’s not supposed to be. It’s a gift, and it has the potential to make a child smile. So it’s not a stretch to see how you moved from making one child smile, to wanting to make one million children happy. But when you did that, you’ve introduced a massive logistics puzzle that involves shipping cargo, warehouses, trucks, drivers, and lots of money.

Shipping a bunch of shirts isn’t evil, it’s just not good development. It carries the obvious risk of consuming lots of time from the NGO’s you’ve partnered with, along with a myriad of other problems pointed out by other folks with much more experience than I.

I’m not sure why the 501c3’s didn’t point this out. My guess is they were excited by the possibility of a lot of good press and attention, and thought the cross-promotion could help spur new donors for them. Good development practices sometimes get lost in the excitement.

But I digress. The question you’re wrestling with is what to do now. As Chris from MobileActive writes, there are some pretty positive lessons to take away from all of this. And therein lies a huge opportunity. My hope is that you will put the project on hold and invest that time into learning about development and the aid industry. Read everything you can, meet with experienced thinkers and workers, spend some time in a “less-developed country” (or whatever the accepted term is these days).

And then… Become a voice for good development.  Speaker, blogger, social media persona, ect. The (t-shirt) rags to (best practices) riches story about a guy who wanted to help… and then got beat up by the internet trolls of development. Iron sharpens iron, and we’ll emerge better for it.

I’m serious; development advocates could use your help. There are more people that want to start their own non-profit than ever. “Helping Africa” is trendy, but without a knowledge of good development, there will be more negatives than positives. Good intentions are not enough.

My wonderful, amazing, brilliant girlfriend Richenda recently went to a conference called Ideation. There were many, many people there in the process of establishing non-profits. Hopefully those non-profits will follow the lead of speakers Scott Harrison and Eugene Cho and do great at portraying the people they partner with as… well… people. And hopefully new orgs will follow Charity Water and One Days Wage’s example in leaving the development work to organizations on the ground with indigenous staff, community trust, and goals of long-term sustainability. But many people launching NPOs don’t. They don’t know better. They are passionate, they move quickly, and their impact is minimal. Or none. Or worse.

There’s an African proverb that says “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

It’s not so hard to imagine a few years down the road, you, on stage at the Ideation conference, sharing lessons from this experience with a new class of motivated internet marketers who want to make a difference. @meowtree will live tweet, and @bill_easterly will be in the back row smiling.

Anyway, best of luck. If you’re ever in Seattle Melbourne, beers on me.