Toxic Charity: The Gamechanging Way to Engage Charity & Community Service

While my heart has been stirred towards community impact and development in recent years, I just read a book that spoke to my heart in a powerful way. Toxic Charity by Robert Lupton is a gamechanger for real.

I don't have time to share every single point of this book, and you certainly don't have time to read every single point either, but I just have to share a few highlights. First of all, this book is for anyone who has the desire to effect change in his or her local community. It's for anyone who wants to see people living in poverty empowered, children being taught in substandard schools enfranchised and disintegrated families restored.

This is the change I want to see in my local community, in all 50 states of America, and all over the world. This is the change you want to see too, I'm sure.

However, there is an enemy that's been working against this kind of family and community empowerment that you might not know about. At the heart of this enemy is a desire to do good, to serve those less fortunate, to make a real lasting difference in the world.

And this heart to do good is what makes it so hard to see its error.

The enemy I'm speaking of is something we Americans are asked to participate in almost every day of our lives. It's something that I have personally participated in my entire adult life and maybe you have too.

This enemy is named CHARITY.

I know what you might be thinking. Isn't charity a good thing? Aren't we supposed to give to those less fortunate than ourselves? Doesn't the Bible tell us to be charitable?

The simple answer to those questions is YES. We are supposed to give to those less fortunate than ourselves. However, we must give mindfully, purposefully and responsibly. We must give in a way that improves the lives of our beneficiaries. We must give in a way that doesn't harm the very people we want to help.

The opening paragraph of Toxic Charity runs out the gate with these words...

In the United States, there's a growing scandal that we both refuse to see and actively perpetuate. What Americans avoid facing is that while we are very generous in charitable giving, much of that money is either waisted or actually harms the people it is targeted to help.

The old preachers used to say... If you can't say Amen, say Ouch! I said "ouch!" over and over again while reading this book thinking about how often I've gotten charitable giving wrong.

AND how often our nonprofits get charitable giving wrong.

Toxic Charity repeats an "Oath for Compassionate Service" that can serve as a measuring stick for our charitable giving programs.

The Oath for Compassionate Service

• Never do for the poor what they have (or could have) the capacity to do for themselves.
• Limit one-way giving to emergency situations [like natural disasters].
• Strive to empower the poor through employment, lending, and investing.
• Subordinate self-interests to the needs of those being served.
• Listen closely to those you seek to help, especially to what is not being said.
• Above all, do no harm.

And from there Lupton, who has spent decades of his life in Atlanta partnering with communities neighborhood by neighborhood, proceeds to explain why our typical acts of charity harm the very people we want to help.

I'll give an example that spoke volumes to me, especially because I read it at the same time a local ministry in my city was sending emails about a Christmas program they've been doing for years. Lupton describes an initiative he began when he first moved to urban Atlanta. The program was simple. Well-meaning folks in the community would "adopt a family" during the holidays, buying toys for the precious children from lower income families. Sounds beautiful, right?

During these "Santa's helpers" deliveries, the children were ecstatic, ripping open their packages. The parents, on the other hand, were less thrilled, and the dads were often MIA. When Lupton inquired about the fathers' absences during these deliveries, this is what he discovered...

...After organizing these kinds of Christmas charity events for years, I was witnessing a side I had never noticed before: how a father is emasculated in his own home in front of his wife and children for not being able to provide presents for his family, how a wife is forced to shield her children from their father's embarrassment, how children get the message that the "good stuff" comes from rich people out there and it is free.

And this is the challenge of most of the charitable giving programs that we in the US organize and support. This kind of giving is heartfelt and gracious, but it can also be emasculating and disempowering to the recipients. And over a long period of time, it can actually do more harm than good.

Another way to approach the Santa's helpers initiative? A nonprofit can set up a Christmas "store" where community families shop for toys and gifts for their children at a very low cost. These toys and gifts are donated by those same Santa's helpers, then sold (not given) to parents at a cost way below market price. This way parents come home with those gifts as if they've shopped at the local WalMart, wrap those gifts and present them to their children on Christmas morning. The parents are now Santa's helpers, instead of local middle and upper class strangers from the community.

Everybody wins.

And that's the bottom line of responsible charity. EVERYBODY wins, especially those who desperately need support, encouragement and empowerment.

It only takes a little more thought, a little more planning and a LOT more conversations with the people we're wanting to help. You and I can help detoxify the charity in our communities and our churches.

Step one is reading this book.**





** Step two towards supporting and engaging effective community development is watching Poverty Inc., an equally powerful documentary currently on Netflix.