In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief • Hacker News Board

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#181

Post by uxp » Fri, Jun 05, 2015, 10:04 PM UTC

yardie wrote: post #169

jimrandomh wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's good to do things where you can witness and verify what's going on, but soup kitchens are many orders of magnitude less effective than distributing insecticide-treated bednets to combat malaria, or Givewell's other recommended charities.

Wait, are you saying that soup kitchens are ineffective at combating malaria (which goes without saying)? Or are they simply ineffective at the problem they are trying to solve, hunger?

We're obviously Min/Maxing charitable giving. Why would you give to a local soup kitchen where you can see the effects, and even donate time and labor when the cost/benefit ratio is so much less than giving money to far away lands for cheap materials that protect against incredibly deadly diseases, which is obviously a better option?

Or, every one of us could do something different, instead of loading all our eggs in one Red-Cross basket? Sorry. I don't see a reason for this disagreement. Anyone that donates time and/or money to help other people, whether they are on the corner of the street they are standing on right now, or literally thousands of miles away, is a good person in my book.

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#182

Post by jacquesm » Fri, Jun 05, 2015, 10:11 PM UTC

badsock wrote: post #133

taki1 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His post isn't ideological. Yours is.

One of jacquesm's central assertions is extremely broad: governments are inept at spending money. No qualifications. Brakenshire's contention is that there is clearly a broad spectrum of efficiencies (and offers an empirical example), which is a call for a more nuanced view of things. I think you may need to revisit your definition of ideological.

> One of jacquesm's central assertions is extremely broad: governments are inept at spending money.

Yep.

> No qualifications.

Indeed. I've seen enough of government projects on all levels (Municipal, Provincial, Country and European) to know this to be factually true and if you would so much as read the freely available news sources you'd probably agree with that unqualified statement.

Government projects that are on-time, within the budget, useful and good value for the money spent are very rare.

> Brakenshire's contention is that there is clearly a broad spectrum of efficiencies (and offers an empirical example), which is a call for a more nuanced view of things.

There is indeed a broad spectrum of efficiencies, though I'd rather re-word that as 'there is a broad spectrum of in-efficiencies', since efficient would indicate something close to the theoretically achievable.

Really, I don't know what your experience is but I've been fairly interested in the machinations of the various governments that I've found myself a subject of over my life-time to date and efficient is just about the last term that I would use to describe any of them, and most of the literature seems to agree with that.

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#183

Post by rwallace » Fri, Jun 05, 2015, 10:29 PM UTC

jimrandomh wrote: post #134

mlrtime wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great, as if I didn't need more excuses not to give money. I think I stick to the local community soup kitchen/churches even though I'm not religious.

It's good to do things where you can witness and verify what's going on, but soup kitchens are many orders of magnitude less effective than distributing insecticide-treated bednets to combat malaria, or Givewell's other recommended charities.

The problem with all the talk about 'effective charity' is that it invariably focuses on magnitude while ignoring sign. The great thing about donating to local soup kitchens as opposed to interfering in other people's countries thousands of miles away where we know little or nothing about what's really going on is that there is a much better chance of being able to verify that all the activity is doing more good than harm.

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#184

Post by ytdht » Fri, Jun 05, 2015, 10:31 PM UTC

avar wrote: post #16

The biggest revelation to me in that article, which I feel should be highlighted more, is that the Red Cross provides almost zero information about how it spends its money. It refuses to provide more than very vague information about how the money was spent in Haiti (information like "35% of $488 million on shelters"), with no specific details about what projects they spent the money on, how those projects went etc.…

most charities appears to use up the money given to them for purposes other then their stated primary goal... it is always better to donate directly to the people who needs help (unless maybe if you are only doing it for a tax break)

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#185

Post by badsock » Fri, Jun 05, 2015, 10:57 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #182

badsock wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of jacquesm's central assertions is extremely broad: governments are inept at spending money. No qualifications. Brakenshire's contention is that there is clearly a broad spectrum of efficiencies (and offers an empirical example), which is a call for a more nuanced view of things. I think you may need to revisit your definition of ideological.

> One of jacquesm's central assertions is extremely broad: governments are inept at spending money. Yep. > No qualifications. Indeed. I've seen enough of government projects on all levels (Municipal, Provincial, Country and European) to know this to be factually true and if you would so much as read the freely available news sources you'd probably agree with that unqualified statement. Government projects that are on…

I have a hard time taking your unqualified assertion seriously if your source is "freely available news sources". If that's the best you've got, you are almost certainly the victim of confirmation bias, at the very least.

There's a reason that published, peer-reviewed studies are important. They're the antidote to people like you who hang around the water-cooler chat of newspapers and figure they've got a handle on extraordinarily large systems such as governance and economies. Turns out these things are nuanced and very complicated, and the fact that you don't recognize that is what makes you an ideologue.

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#186

Post by icc97 » Fri, Jun 05, 2015, 11:57 PM UTC

swombat wrote: post #76

jacquesm wrote: post #3

I stopped giving to 'big charities' twenty years ago and since then have only helped people locally where I can see what happens to the money. That's a real pity because of course on a relative scale those are probably much less in need than the people in Haiti (and Nepal and other areas devastated by natural disasters). But the red cross - once a paragon of virtue - and a number of other big time charities that were…

There are some large-scale charities which I think do use the money well. For example, I felt no hesitation in donating to Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) at the beginning of the Ebola outbreak, when they were the only ones with boots on the ground actually helping people.

I was always impressed by them too. They used to display the amount of administration costs on the homepage of their website. IIRC it was 10% then and it's under 20% now [1], but it's still a very good figure and they're open about it:

> More than 80 per cent of the money you donate goes directly to our humanitarian activities.

[1]: http://www.msf.org/donate

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#187

Post by bretthagler » Sat, Jun 06, 2015, 12:14 AM UTC

droithomme wrote: post #178

bretthagler wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey - the CEO of http://newstorycharity.org (YC S15), we fund houses in Haiti and are radically transparent and accountable. See where 100% of donations go: (1) http://newstorycharity.org/roseline *be sure to click on the home cost breakdown. The 33 families we've funded in 6 months: (2) http://newstorycharity.org/families-page#funded-families Example of a video every donor gets: (3) http://newstorycharity.org/maria-…

This looks very interesting. So donors can pick a family and fund a house directly. Your spreadsheet shows a total building cost of about $6000 including everything and the houses are clearly not pressboard shacks. Is your agency having problems dealing with title claims like the Red Cross is claiming is the issue that prevented them from fulfilling any of their promises to build? Also, another source claims that the…

Yes exactly! re: So donors can pick a family and fund a house directly.

We haven't seen those Red Cross homes, but we are focused on building sustainable homes that will last for decades. Much different than quick temporary aid.

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#188

Post by bretthagler » Sat, Jun 06, 2015, 12:15 AM UTC

earless1 wrote: post #179

bretthagler wrote: post #152

We could fund 83,000 homes in Haiti with $500,000,000. We're Newstorycharity.org - a current YC nonprofit working in Haiti to crowdfund homes - 100% of public donations go to home construction - donors see exactly who they give to before they donate and a video of the EXACT family they funded in their new home after We're launching a summer campaign "100 Homes in 100 Days" [newstorycharity.org/100] in Haiti, and woul…

Do you guys ever need volunteers that speak English and Creole fluently?

yes - we're always looking for competent translators! brett@newstorycharity.org

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#189

Post by astrofinch » Sat, Jun 06, 2015, 3:02 AM UTC

rwallace wrote: post #183

jimrandomh wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's good to do things where you can witness and verify what's going on, but soup kitchens are many orders of magnitude less effective than distributing insecticide-treated bednets to combat malaria, or Givewell's other recommended charities.

The problem with all the talk about 'effective charity' is that it invariably focuses on magnitude while ignoring sign. The great thing about donating to local soup kitchens as opposed to interfering in other people's countries thousands of miles away where we know little or nothing about what's really going on is that there is a much better chance of being able to verify that all the activity is doing more good than…

A priori, it seems quite plausible to me that Sub-Saharan Africans find insecticide-treated bed nets significantly helpful for guarding against malaria, and rather implausible that they find them significantly harmful. You can invent far-fetched stories about how anti-malaria nets are somehow harmful, but you can do the same for soup kitchens.

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#190

Post by astrofinch » Sat, Jun 06, 2015, 3:12 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #3

I stopped giving to 'big charities' twenty years ago and since then have only helped people locally where I can see what happens to the money. That's a real pity because of course on a relative scale those are probably much less in need than the people in Haiti (and Nepal and other areas devastated by natural disasters). But the red cross - once a paragon of virtue - and a number of other big time charities that were…

>It would be a lot more efficient to mail an envelope with cash to a random address in a disaster area than it is to expect these organizations to make a go of it.

Interesting that you mention that. Charity evaluator Givewell has evaluated hundreds of charities based on whether they actually deliver results for your money. One of their top rated organizations is GiveDirectly, which does almost exactly what you describe. Here's their evaluation page for it:

http://www.givewell.org/international/top-charities/give-dir...

Givewell is a bit bearish on disaster giving, by the way. See #6 in this list:

http://blog.givewell.org/2013/11/12/6-tips-on-disaster-relie...

If you're interested in this sort of thing, you might look in to the Effective Altruism movement, which I consider myself a part of:

http://www.effectivealtruism.org/