Donating to Haitian relief efforts

So, I made a donation–well, By Light Unseen Media did–to Doctors Without Borders for the Haitian relief effort.

I considered carefully before I made this donation. It is a very unpleasant fact that scammers, crooks and con artists swarm like maggots when disasters like this occur. You don’t even want to know how much aid money and other donations intended for victims of Katrina really went to hoaxers and swindlers. 🙁 They’re very clever, convincing, technically savvy and keenly aware of psychology. Americans have a tendency to throw money at bad situations out of guilt, or peer pressure, or memes (“dial this number on your cell phone!”) and not always think about where their donation is really going.

I checked The American Institute of Philanthropy and Guidestar. I already was familiar with Doctors Without Borders, and highly respect them. They’re on the ground in Haiti right now–literally, since they were unable to land at the airport there and had to land in the Dominican Republic with an inflatable hospital and truck it overland into Haiti. I also felt I owed them something for all the free maps of the world they’ve sent me in their direct mailings over the years. *wry smile*

Everyone should follow their own conscience, of course. But if you want your efforts to really be helpful to the greatest possible extent, do some research, double-check your recipients and select your options judiciously. Don’t allow yourself to be bullied or pressured into taking action–and please don’t do that to other people. I really get impatient when I’m essentially ordered to “donate money now!” or when I hear self-righteous, patronizing importunings about “just give up your Starbucks lattes for a week and donate the money!” and that kind of bullshit. I live a very frugal lifestyle and I never make impulse or frivolous purchases. (I’ve never set foot inside a Starbucks and I don’t even eat out.) I do make donations to good causes. That doesn’t mean I have money to burn. These days, that’s true for a lot of us. We’re digging through the lint in our pockets anyway because that’s what what principled, empathetic people do. That doesn’t make it easy. That’s why we want to be sure that every penny will count.