The New Wave of Charities.
Charities seem to be different these days.
I mean, I think about charities that have been around forever (relative to my 20-some years of awareness outside of my own family) like United Way, Goodwill, Salvation Army, Christian Children’s Fund, and Worldvision, and I think about rocks within my community – stable, unobtrusive, and fairly low-key. I see them as the charities of my parents: heirarchical, top-down, Modernist, and somewhat outdated. First, let me say that I’m not trying to put down any of these organizations – I’ve donated to almost all of the above charitable organizations without regret – but I don’t see a spread, a growth, or a story.
Each one of the above have pretty much done things the same way, organizationally and communicatively, for as long as I can remember. If something isn’t broke, don’t fix it, right? This worries me because as we move into an ever-evolving post-modern internet culture where information is in excess and meaning is in short supply, I’m not sure these organizations know how to tell their stories to a new generation.
The reason I’ve been thinking about this is because I’ve been thinking about a few charities of late that have really touched me. Let me outline a few:
- Love Knits: Love Knits was started by a friend of mine, Julie Rains, who sat down one day and decided that she had a talent for crochet and knitting and a passion to help the impoverished, so she started Love Knits as a grassroots-level movement to have people come together to make knits for those who need it. One thing I love about the site is that the blog is dedicated to highlighting other organizations and telling their stories too.
- To Write Love On Her Arms: This charity is almost a phenomenon, especially amongst Christian teens and twenty-somethings in the harder genres of music scenes. TWLOHA is a non-profit that is centered around getting young people help for addiction, depression, and self-injury. It all started with a story about spending 5 days with someone who was waiting to get into a rehab clinic. They started selling t-shirts to support their friend in rehab. It has exploded since then, by grabbing onto the music scene and touring with bands left, right, and center.
- Treaures: This one is a group of women who are reaching out and helping women trapped in the sex industry in the Los Angeles and Las Vegas areas. It started when an ex-stripper just felt led to put some postcards in a stripclub parking lot, each one written with love and an invitation to church that weekend. It bloomed from there.
I think what’s different about these charities is not that they are hip, attractive, and cutting-edge in website design (though that helps), but I think its because they have all centered themselves around, and deeply invested themselves in, meaningful stories. Meaning and purpose drip from these charities, and catch my eye because they speak my language.
The vet charities will hopefully be around forever because of the need they fill, and people fill that need because of what they know it does good, but it seems that they are organizations and not people; faceless constructs intent on supplying the world with good. My fear is that without change, these might indeed become relics in history.
Luckily there are a few that have picked up on this for the vets too and have done something about it. My friend, Tim Bailey, decided to see for himself what Compassion does with the money he donates to sponsor a young one, and he went to Haiti and made a movie about it. The movie is great. It connected with me and gave meaning to sponsoring children. I hope to do the same in a few years in Thailand with Isaiah 61 Project.
Where do we go from here? Well we need to find our way into these giants of charity work in North America (primarily) and help them regain a story and a meaning that will connect themselves with the generation at hand.
WK
This entry was written by , posted on November 15, 2008 at 2:58 am, filed under Activism, Culture and tagged Charity, Christian Children's Fund, Compassion, Goodwill, Isaiah 61 Project, Love Knits, Meaning, Millenials, Salvation Army, Treasures, TWLOHA, United Way, Worldvision. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Blog Action Day: Isaiah 61 Project
Today is blog action day, and in the spirit of Blog Action day, I’m going to write about a project near to my wife’s, and now my, heart: The Isaiah 61 Project.
The Isaiah 61 Project was founded in 2004 by Albert and Carolyn Hudson to break the cycle of poverty and sex trade rife in Thailand. They coordinate educational sponsorships to keep pre-teen girls from being sent to the city ‘for a better life’, that ends with them in the sex trade.
Carolyn Hudson is a friend of my parents-in-law and we’ve had the blessing to adopt a thirteen year old girl named Ning. Our funds go straight to keeping her in school and out of the brothels. This makes me really happy.
What I also love about Isaiah 61 is that Carolyn is really pro in bringing people to Thailand to meet their sponsor kids and to educate about the endemic poverty of Thailand.
Please. Check them out. They are good people doing great work.
Isaiah 61:1-4
1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
3 to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified.
4 They shall build up the ancient ruins;
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.
WK
This entry was written by , posted on October 15, 2008 at 7:12 pm, filed under Christianity, Life and tagged Christianity, Isaiah 61 Project, Poverty, Social Justice, Thailand. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.