From WE to ME and Why I Don't Believe in Charity

Soooooo, I am not sure if you have been following the latest Trudeau scandal with WE Charity or not. If you haven't, I suggest you look into it. It's truly riveting stuff. I have been watching this unfold over the last year when #Canadaland podcast started their investigation in WE Charity and Me to We Social Enterprise - whatever the hell that is. 

++ On an aside, I really do recommend subscribing to Canadaland and donate $5 a month as I do. The journalism is excellent..albeit Jesse Brown can sometimes get on my nerves. ++

Haven't heard of WE before? The organization was founded by a 12 year old kid and his brother as "Free the Children" - saving child labourers from making my $10 t-shirts and iPhone - fucking do-gooders!

Fast forward 25 years later, Save The Children has changed its name to We Charity and enjoys easy access to tens of thousands of Canadian students through their school curriculum and We Day events which attract A list celebrities and certain Prime Ministers (despite being non-political). WE also operates schools in Africa, probably has some orphanages somewhere and portends to do good in the world.

So what happened? You know, what always happens when organizations become run by ego driven ideologues who lose sight of their original purposes. Think Komen Foundation - you remember Run for the Cure right? Maybe not. It's no longer a thing because some religious zealot managed to get the top dog job and started implementing her Christian Taliban biblical law, alienating employees, volunteers, funders and participants. I thought they were done when the Run for the Cure sold out to KFC with it's pink chicken bucket, but what do I know? 

So why am I telling you all this? Simple. It reminded me why I don't support charity. Now, I am not saying charity is necessarily a bad thing or not necessary in society but it is something I can't support.......unless there is a big house as the grand prize....ya it's a bit hypocritical but I really want the estate home at the end of the day and buying a ticket is cheaper than buying the house. It works for me. 

I guess my point is that I never could reconcile the fact that charities tell us every year the need for their services are in more demand than ever thus more dollars are required but despite all that helping, the need never seems to decrease. The trajectory is always upward with no end in sight.

Further, charity (think United Way and WE for that matter) seems to have become big business. CEO's making 100's of thousands of dollars a year, spending enormous sums of donated money on slick ad campaigns (looking at you United Way). Thinking that capitalism via for-profit "social enterprises" is a way to solve problems created by our capitalist system (looking directly at you, WE).

Here is a bit of a dated list of charity CEO salaries:

• George Habib, $342,831, Ontario Lung Association, President & CEO.
• John Rafferty, $326,300, The Canadian National Institute for the Blind, President & CEO.
• David Samuel Hillier, $322,877, Shepherd Village (seniors' care), President & CEO.
• Conrad Sauve, $321,299, The Canadian Red Cross, President & CEO.
• Barry Bisson, $316,731, Shad Valley International (education), President.
• Medhat Mahdy, $305,303, YMCA of Greater Toronto, President & CEO.
• Paul Goodyear, $303,956, The Governing Council of the Salvation Army, Territorial financial secretary. 
• Kevin Frey, $268,836, Right To Play International, CEO.
• Julia Dumanian, $268,749, Canadian Hearing Society, President & CEO.
• Catherine Macdonald, $264,953, Ontario Society For the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, CEO.
• Susanne Gillespie, $264,300, Pathways to Education Canada, President & CEO.
• Sharon Broughton, $258,411, Kids Help Phone, President & CEO.
• Geoff Cape, $255,329, Evergreen (urban sustainability), CEO.
• Deborah Sevenpifer, $253,784, YMCA of Greater Toronto, Chief financial officer.
• Andria Spindel, $252,709, March of Dimes Canada, President & CEO.

I think someone forgot to remind these CEO's that pay in the non-profit/charitable sector is NOT equivalent to the pay a CEO in the private sector may make. Just ask the rank and file who work for these organizations - they can make peanuts in comparison. 

There is also the issue of how much money actually is spent on the charity's stated mission and how much is not spent doing their good works. There is a great website you can review at https://charityintelligence.ca/. But when donating to charity, I shouldn't be worried that only 37 cents on the dollar is directed to charitable programs. It should be assumed that overhead is low as the default position, but it is not. 

Did I mention I also hate it when I do my shopping and every store asks me to donate at the cash register?

It also occurs to me that at some point in our not too distant past, we did do, or at least tried to do the right thing to alleviate societal ills like poverty and disease, drug addiction etc. The governments at various level provided those services to the people that needed them and took care of those who couldn't care for themselves. Was it a perfect system...hell no. But after government decided to abdicate its responsibility to its citizens in favour of lining the pockets of the already rich and let corporations run the country, the current system, or lack thereof can't honestly be said to be doing a better job of caring for the those who need help. 

So instead of properly funding social services required by Canadians, the government decided to download this responsibility to the charitable/non-profit sector, creating a charitable industrial complex which requires ever more resources to satiate itself. This in my opinion has turned us into a society of victims and victimizers instead of responsible citizens getting the care they need when they need it. 

I happen to have some thoughts on how we can improve the lives of all Canadians, leading to better outcomes for everybody and nobody has to go appealing to a charity fatigued populace for money. Instead of having thousands of charities begging for my last $1 or used clothes to sell to a for profit entity for money, how about the Feds institute a job guarantee, administered at the local level, aimed at promoting a care society. These jobs are available to all who want a job would offer meaningful work,  job training on the job, decent pay and benefits and resources required to address, health, addiction or other problems. Instead of instituting such a common sense policy, we let generations waste away, lost in a labyrinth of sub-par social programs that promote victimization and stigmatization. How many potential Einsteins or Van Goughs have fallen through the cracks?

Then there is the question of what good the charity actually does in the world. In the case of WE, I think its the height of arrogance to send privileged white kids to somewhere in Africa to build a school or something and make them feel better about themselves. Africans can build their own schools, orphanages etc. They don't need our help. They are more than capable but there is an international order that keeps these people poor and dependent. I have been to Africa...they have lots of food and resources.The problem is most  Africans don't have enough money to buy said food and that is a whole other discussion. Maybe instead of selling voluntourism at a profit to willing 20 somethings, maybe they can address the damage done in Africa by the current neo-liberal system that robs them of their resources and keeps them poor so we can continue to enjoy our gluttonous lifestyle while they toil in abject poverty?

So to conclude,  lets get the government at all levels back in the game of doing what they are meant to do - take care of their citizens. Lets dump the neo-liberal ideology as it has failed to do as was promised - to lift all boats - it was a lie but that's an entirely different rant. Lets adopt a care agenda - caring for other people, ourselves and out planet. Lets just do better people. Our goal should be to put charity out of business, not continually increase its size and scope. 

Remember, there is no "me" in Charity unless you spell it incorrectly - Charitme.