Seth Godin had the greatest article today about a different view on poverty and “charity.”
This morning, I donated a little bit of money to a food pantry called New Horizons in Manchester, NH; apparently I’m all about the charity this week, which is great – give what you can, when you can, I always say.
Seth Godin’s article made me think about “charity,” such as it is, and made me wonder if there isn’t a bigger way to go about all this.
Here’s a quote from the article that I feel sums the idea up pretty well:
How to prime the pump of the system … enough that things get better?
Markets.
When two people trade, both win. No one buys a bar of soap unless the money they’re spending is worth less to them than the soap itself.
When someone in poverty buys a device that improves productivity, the device pays for itself (if it didn’t, they wouldn’t buy it.) So a drip irrigation system, for example, may pay off by creating two or three harvests a year instead of one.
What does that do for the family that buys it? Well, if you have one harvest a year and you’re living at subsistence, it means your income is zero, or probably just a little below.
If you can irrigate and get two or three harvests a year, though, your income goes up by infinity. Now, instead of making -1 pennies a day, you’re making 100 or 200 pennies a day. That’s a surplus of $700 a year. That’s enough to participate in other productivity or life-enhancing investments, like a well, or a roof, or health care. Now, the edge is a lot further away.
Read the rest of the article here.
The article then goes on to explain that a fund called the Acumen Fund is basically providing the funds for people in third-world countries to buy these small but life-changing devices. These are devices that let them help the people around them have a better quality of life (awesome), and then provide income for their own families (bonus awesome). It’s the old “Givers gain” philosophy.
When I’m rich enough to let my money make itself, I want to create a local program – either fund it myself, or get together a little brain trust to help with seed money – to grow food specifically for our Food Bank and help make it at least partially self-sustainable.
I want the program to create a purpose behind the food line; turn it into something that benefits the community, the Food Bank, and most importantly, people’s self-esteem.
Time for my little, local Utopia dream.
What if, instead of the Food Bank taking our donations to buy food and giving it to the people lining up (short-term solution), a harvesting program is created that grows food specifically for the Food Bank and provides a set number of short-term, “help farm our land for __ weeks for $__ per week,” low-paying but paying jobs for people who might otherwise have nothing (long-term solution)?
The Food Bank would have access to fresh produce – to do whatever they want with: use in their kitchen, distribute to other food pantries, sell, etc. – and with the money they save from not purchasing this (or by using donations for this program) they could provide short-term general farming jobs – family mealtimes provided for all workers as added incentive – for people who might otherwise be standing in line.
The program could give people a responsibility, food throughout the program, plus a recent job listing to put on a resume. That in turn would give them a better shot at finding steady work when their short-term job comes to its end.
Also, free help would be available from people not in need, who just want to pitch in and make their community better. I’d go at least once a month, and I can think of ten friends and colleagues who would come along, just off the top of my head. Methinks it would also be an effective discipline for children with a major case of the “I wants,” but I digress.
I’m sure people can come up with a million reasons why I’ll be told this idea couldn’t work – insurance concerns, safety issues, etc, but if community gardens in New York City can be successful, why can’t a food pantry grow some of its own food and do some bonus good deed-ness along the way?
I think Seth Godin and the Acumen Fund have got the right way of it; I’m ready to stop throwing money at the problem and start growing solutions.
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One Response to “And I catch myself, yet again, dreaming of ways to save the world”
Good idea! I don’t know about other towns, but Goffstown’s land made available for the residents to farm is not fully utilized. I would expect there are other towns with unused land that could be used in such a plan. Within many cities there is land designated as “park”
land that is largely unused. What a great use for it. Maybe Boys/Girls Clubs or Boy/Girl Scouts could farm it as community projects, with participation from the eventual recipients of the produce. An seed of an idea worth fertilizing.