The World Vision controversy continues
Posted on February 23, 2011 at 12:53 pm
World Vision has been writing a series of posts explaining their gifts-in-kind (GIK) program on their blog. Their posts have been polite and provide a little more detail about their programs. Unfortunately, their explanations raise as many questions as they answer.
For instance, in their latest post The financial costs and benefits of sending shirts overseas, World Vision says that these particular t-shirts cost $0.58/shirt to send. This means that World Vision is paying approximately $0.58 x 100,000 or $58,000 to send these unwanted shirts overseas.
World Vision states:
“A quick survey of some of our staff overseas shows that the cost for medium-quality shirts ranges between $2-$3 (Myanmar) and $3-$8 (Mongolia) each. Comparing the World Vision GIK costs shown above and the most conservative estimate for local purchase of $2, there would be a difference of $1.42 per shirt. In this case, a person in need of the shirt would theoretically save $1.42 that could then be used to purchase other needed goods in the local market.”
This begs a few questions. First, where is the research that proves that without receiving these shirts the recipients would indeed purchase $2.00 shirts from the marketplace? Is there clear evidence of the critical need for a shirt per person or is it just one more shirt that they will now own? If these were really poor people, would they be purchasing “medium quality shirts” or something cheaper? And given the choice, would they purchase clothes at all or would they instead make do with what they already have and spend the money on something they felt was more critical? It’s a pretty big claim World Vision is making and they need a little evidence to back it up.
World Vision has already admitted in their response to Aid Watch that the quality and rigor of needs assessments vary from country to country and that they have not done an overall assessment of the need for gifts-in-kind. They also admit to having no overall evaluation of the impact of their GIK programs.
I am still shocked that World Vision has never done a multi-country evaluation or meta-evaluation of the impact, efficacy, and efficiency of their GIK program which is one quarter of their annual “revenue”. Although they claim GIK is not a program but part of other program, at $251 million a year, or more than $1 billion over the course of three years, it would seem both prudent and professional to evaluate such a large part of their work – however you want to classify it. At $251 million per year, the amount World Vision claims in GIK is more than the annual revenue of most nonprofits in the United States.
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See Tracking the World Vision / NFL Shirt Donation Controversy for all posts on this debate.
« Awaiting World Vision’s Response • Interesting articles and posts – February 2011 »
Seems to me they’re comparing apples and pears. The donated shirts cost $0.58 to send (I’ve not looked in detail as to the breakdown of what is included, but I suspect there are major costs to be added) in bulk. A comparable shirt costs $2, individually on the street. Even if this is true (which I somehow doubt in a countries where the day rate is somewhere near $2), the cost of procuring 100,000 shirts is not going to be $2 a shirt or anything near to it.
[...] post, World vision has been attempting to use arithmetic to justify their Gifts in Kind programs. Saundra Schimmelpfennig makes some good points, but it seems to me that there are actually more fundamental questions [...]
Also, haven’t they just admitted that rather than each donated shirt being worth $20 each – or whatever ridiculous number they originally thought of – their convoluted and suspect logic calculates the value at $1.42?!?
Yes, WV hasn’t mentioned the “fair market value” of the shirts yet. They say they’re going to talk about it later on, probably putting it off ’til last. It’s a mighty big question still.
What concerns me the most about all this is that GIK has never been evaluated. World Vision is making a huge assumption that GIK is “working”. How do we know the program is really benefitting anyone at all? It seems like an easy way for corporations to dump stuff they don’t want for a tax write-off (NFL), and for World Vision to have a lot more “revenue”. I really think the fact that they’re not even checking up on how well this program is doing says a lot about World Vision’s priorities.
I agree. It really is shocking. Now perhaps they have evaluated their GIK program and just not sharing their findings – which I would guess means there are real problems with the program. Either way I find it highly questionable.
I’m just waiting for World Vision to give us these “local market values” of the t-shirts. They haven’t given us a clear indication of where they come up with their numbers. Also, I agree with some of the questions that they have to answer to. I think it’s a great idea that they are saving $1.42 from the “market value”, but in these countries who would even buy a $2 “medium quality shirt.” I think that the people of these countries have bigger concerns pertaining to their life rather than the quality of a shirt that they have on their backs. Until I can see how World Vision and their GIK program impacts multiple countries on a personal level rather than a broad spectrum, I’m going to continue to believe that WV as well as the corporations like the NFL are only benefiiting themselves from these GIK’s.
Why does WV think it is at all helpful to mess with the local economy via cheap shirts????
I don’t think the local economy is the main motivator here, it truly appear to be their own economy that’s the priority with these GIK programs.
I am concerned. I started a organization called World Loves, we did an international event called World Loves Japan. It was basically about just sending are well wishes and encouraging people to donate…then I found out how few non-profits are really transparent and totally ethical, now our mission is to FIND ethical non-profits in order to recommend them. So please anyone, tell me of any non-profit anywhere in the World
you feel is truly ethical and transparent in how they work, Thanks so much.
[...] The World Vision controversy continues – [...]
[...] is a gift-in-kind charity (GIK). The pitfalls of GIK giving have been well documented. Pretty much any large non-profit organization that provides GIK gets flak from the relief and development community (yet the US government still [...]
I arrived at your site through a Google search on World Vision Controversy, just to see if there’s any reason I should not be donating to World Vision. This page is very unclear. What, exactly, is the problem with donating shirts? The impression (and maybe I’m stupid, but it’s just not clear to me) that I have is that World Vision is sending shirts overseas donated by corporations and you all have some problem with that because corporations are getting tax write offs or something. Maybe you’re thinking the 58 cents spent on the shirt is better spent on something else and you expect World Vision to somehow justify the shirts beyond the fact they’re only 58 cents (which I think we all have to agree is a fairly cheap price).
Which strikes me as a bit of hyper-criticism. Surely people need shirts? Should we really be looking a gift-horse in the mouth like this? The writer and commenters come across as the type who always assume the worst of everybody. In America there is a presumption of innocence. Instead of demanding World Vision justify its attempts to do good, isn’t the onus on you, as the accuser, to show that what they’re doing is a waste of resources? It seems this web site is proof no good deed goes unpunished. You are all so busy patting yourselves on the back for being so superior.
For shame.
World vision waste the resources as lately is more focus on his own staff rather the poor people. There are lot of trainings, meetings, traveling, etc for the staff only, which use valuable resources instead of working with and supporting those in need.
There is no balance in this issue. Don’t look only to the surface! one example: search a little bit about the costs for the national directors (rent, meals, travels, , national/international board members costs, etc, World Vision became to complicate and sofisticate, and I would direct my donation to smaller and more transparent ngo
But I want to talk about World Vision cuz I’m tired of viewing this
colossal Internationale scam every time I click on a site. Even if you go
to LinkedIn’s home page U will see a World Vision Promotion… and what R
they promoting… child hunger… and why R they promoting that…
FOR THE MONEY! … oh… but there Christian… the only over sight they
need is from God… but then one day a good thing happened… a reporter
finally met his 14 year sponsored child:
In a report on famine in Ethiopia, reporter Andrew Geoghegan, from
Australian TV programme Foreign Correspondent
, visited
his 14 year old sponsor child. The girl has “been part of a World Vision
program all her life” yet says (in translated subtitle) “Until recently, I
didn’t know I had a sponsor.” and when asked about her knowledge of World
Vision sponsorship says “Last time they gave me this jacket and a pen.”
Geoghegan was disconcerted to find that despite being “told by World Vision
that [the girl] was learning English at school, and was improving…she
speaks no English at all”.
In response World Vision states that they take a community approach where
the money is not directly provided to the family of the sponsored child.
The ‘direct benefit’ approach would result in jealousy among other
community members without children and would not work.
Foreign Correspondent replied to World Vision concerning child sponsorship
. In part, that response
reads: “Foreign Correspondent sought answers from World Vision
representatives on why the organisation’s literature creates the impression
that donated money goes directly to the sponsor child. The World Vision
representative failed to adequately respond to the questions and instead
outlined the community projects where sponsor money is spent.