Responsible International Giving

In Mark Schuller’s book Suffering and Structural Violence, he discusses the ways that international aid (particularly aid coming from the US) has affected the prevailing situation in Haiti.  He discusses especially how donations of different kinds cause certain kinds of practices in terms of NGO priorities and autonomy.  This brings up for me the question of what kind of practices people in the US have in regards to international aid and where they spend their money.  

As someone who went to Catholic school, I remember receiving cardboard boxes to hold donations for the international missions of the Catholic church.  These were printed with pictures of children looking happy and information about how much rice or how many pencils the money in the box would buy.  While the missions were always framed in a religious context, little time was spent discussing whether or not schools set up by the missionaries taught Catholicism along with other subjects, and no time at all was spent discussing the ways in which the teachings of the Catholic church interfered with its self-defined mission of helping people.  In addition, every reaction shown was that of gratefulness for the kind assistance of the Catholic church.  There was no discussion of any other kind of reaction or even of the possibility of one.

The issues with whether the local organization or the one providing the funding has control that run through Schuller’s book come to the forefront for me in this situation.  Wanting to help people who have been negatively impacted by some sort of natural disaster or political situation is all well and good, but I feel it is important to consider carefully what kind of impact any donations I might make would have.  For example, I would not want to fund an organization that dictates to the local organizations to which it gives its money how they can use said money.  Even if I agreed with the solutions mandated by the organization, I do not understand fully the situation in some other country, and neither, I would argue, do US-based organizations funding organizations in other countries.  

How, then, might we donate responsibly?  What is it possible to do to change the ways in which donations paid for through taxes are spent?  How implicated are we if our tax dollars are used to reinforce a system of US imperialism?  How could we deal with such things as language barriers when researching local organizations to decide where to give money?  What could we do if we decided we wanted to help but did not have enough money?  What effect might this have on our implication in the system?