Toxic Charity #4.5: Making charity less toxic:

• Try to sensitize the group, perhaps through role play, to not making comments that show how much money they have.
  
  • Such as: “I go to at least one big concert each month;” “I only buy my jeans from the best stores;” “I got a new car for graduation;” “after I get home, my family is taking a vacation to the Bahamas...”
    
  • Encourage your kids to listen more than they talk. Get them to ask questions of their new friends. (family, favorite music, do they play “football,” what is school like?) The less they talk about themselves the less they are likely to make their new friends feel inferior.
    

Toxic Charity #4.4: Making charity less toxic:

• Limit, as much as practical, visually obvious markers of coming from a different cultural or socio-economic group.
  
  • If the local group is not warning shorts, neither should the visiting group. These kinds issues can be determined ahead of time by asking people, such as the receiving agency, blunt questions. Beware that often the receiving agency, not wanting to offend the group, will hedge on their comments. Insist on “what do your people do, not just what is acceptable.”
    
  • No expensive clothing, jewelry, electronics. (I know, you can't wrest the cell phone from their hands – but you can forbid their use on the work site – “you don't want it to be broken so you can't use it the rest of the week.”)
    

Toxic Charity #4.3: Making charity less toxic:

• Focus on relationships
  
  • As mentioned (several times) before, some of the best aspects of service projects and mission trips are relationships. It is not just “making new friends” which isn't to be sneered at, but is not the whole story.
    
  • In working together, from different cultures greater understandings occur in both direction. And “different cultures” isn't just different countries but different parts of the country or different socio-economic neighborhoods. Anything where stereotyping occurs.
    
  • Make sure work teams include people from both cultures
    
  • Try to make sure someone from the receiving culture can do something the sending team cannot do. They will appreciate being able to teach others their skill. Learning a new skill is always beneficial.
    
  • It always did my kids good to see elderly women (in Mexico) able to outwork and outlast them.
    
  • Require that every grouping including meals have a mixture of both cultures.
    
  • Under the topic of “trips” in this blog are a number hints on preparing a group to work with a different culture in a culturally sensitive fashion.
    

Toxic Charity #4.2: Making charity less toxic:

• Make sure that what is done and left behind is sustainable
  
  • One agency had a policy that we could not bring or leave behind a cement mixer
    
    • They had a couple of stated reasons (but I think there were some unstated reasons having to do with cultural differences)
      
    • They didn't want a machine that worked for awhile and allowed the people to forget how to mix cement on the ground – or become spoiled – and then have the machine break.
      
    • Such devices require maintenance and parts. If these are not provided on a continuing basis they are stuck with a piece of junk
      
    • This policy drove my performance oriented adults crazy. They never got the logic of why they had to do things in an unproductive fashion.
      
  • To use such a device and take it home with you is even worse, emphasizing the difference between rich and poor and makes the people yearn for such devices
    
  • Putting in a water well is, of course, immensely valuable. But you haven't actually provided a well until you have provided training in usage, maintenance and repair and provided funds on a forever basis.