Double the value and impact of your giving

I got told in no uncertain terms recently to not give food to people on the streets. People who have studied the matter have found that ad hoc ‘acts of kindness’ prevent people getting real help.

Then a refugee drop-in I work with told me about the time and resources they have to spend on disposing of clothes that aren’t fit to wear.

This got me thinking about our desire to give tangibly - wanting to give physical items instead of money. There’s something about dropping groceries at a food bank, donating clothes to refugees, or buying a coffee for a homeless person, that feels more real - like a truly communal good deed.

And yet, it simply is sometimes not the best way to give. Upsettingly, it can even be counter-productive.

Surely, it’s kind to offer a sandwich to a homeless person sitting on a cold pavement in the rain?

Apparently not! Research shows that these daily kindnesses prop up a life on the streets, and the longer people are there, the greater the danger to their long-term health and well-being. It is often only the fundamental need of food that will drive troubled individuals to step through the doors of the support organisations that can slowly help them to turn their life around.

A better way to make a tangible difference:

Homelessness charities ask us to stop and chat - offer human kindness. And if you're able to inform yourself, tell them about local support facilities in your area and encourage them to use these services.

Donating food to food banks

Don’t cut the value of your gift in half. Paying supermarket prices and not applying gift aid makes a parcel of food worth roughly half what a gift-aided donation could buy at a cash-and-carry.

It also produces wastage and inefficiency. Food banks can’t predict or plan for the ad hoc donations of individuals. One week, there’s no fresh produce; the next week, too much to use. Imagine trying to run a professional catering and provisions operation this way. Food bank volunteers having nightmares of unending baked beans cans is one thing, but poor families subsisting on baked beans week after week becomes unkind.

A better way to make a difference:

A gift-aided financial donation that the recipient can spend at a wholesaler on a planned menu is simply worth more, and will create better and more varied meals for those you're trying to help. Ocado enable customers to add a donation of food at cost price; you give £2.50, they donate ‘£5 worth’. It isn’t gift-aidable, but it’s a bigger bang for buck AND the charity gets the goods they want.

Passing on clothes to those in need

A used winter coat in good condition is a great donation. But in among the mountains of clothes that people donate to refugees and homeless people, the quality items are few and far between. There is a cost attached to the storage, sorting manpower and disposal. And again, we come up against not having a predictable quality or quantity of incoming goods.

A better way to make a difference:

One refugee charity in my area shares monthly wish lists for quality used items through local community groups. We might get a request for women’s winter coats in sizes 12-18, buggies or men’s suits. And they are warm but direct about their limited volunteer capacity, and respectfully tell people to only donate laundered items that they would be happy for their family members to use.

Learning from innovators

And there are some really exciting new ways to give tangibly. For instance, I love the pop-up store Choose Love, from helprefugees.org, which was set up in a shop in central London over Christmas. In a beautifully styled shop, customers could browse the essential items they could buy for refugees; donating money to charity as a convivial shopping experience, the feelgood buzz of making a purchase, touching the item that you have directly gifted and then leaving it in the shop!

Critically, Help Refugees got exactly what it needed, in the right amounts, to the right specification, at the best price. And with gift aid!

What I’m doing differently

Because I can’t offer a sandwich anymore, I’ve written down the contact details of Homeless Action in Barnet to hand to the people I see all the time on my local streets. Maybe one cold night they’ll come across it in their things and make contact.

I’m talking to my kids’ school about setting up a Choose Love-style pop-up for our regular food bank and toy bank drives. Children and parents will be able to “shop” together, choosing what they want to give from the list of what the charity needs.

Take away thoughts

Tangible communal giving makes us feel the difference we can make directly to another person. Now we need to find ways to nurture this feeling AND make sure that we are best meeting the needs of those we want to help, and the organisations that support them.

Ilana Jackman is a fundraising coach and consultant. She loves hearing about and sharing smart ideas. If you want to talk about any of the issues raised in this article, or other ways that you might maximise your fundraising, don’t hesitate to contact her: Ilana@IlanaJackman.com