The fact is… there is no single magic bullet to donor acquisition, PR, or marketing, and I don’t see Global Giving’s efforts at increased promotion for our projects as being competitive or counter productive to our own PR/Marketing efforts.

Global Giving is about embracing and extending the reach and message of our work. As for the 10% overhead… that’s a no brainier. They reach a wide, diverse, national audience. Have you looked at costs for national advertising on radio, tv, or print? Using Global Giving as just one part of a donor acquisition strategy is, well… a bargain for us AND the donor.

Further, at one location online they allow a donor to leverage multiple donations across several different organizations that may be working in a region or on an issue that that donor cares greatly about.

Also, Charity Navigator is a good source of information, but they are not the absolute dogmatic source of truth. Many extraordinary organizations have 3 star ratings, but most do not realize exactly HOW Charity Navigator ranks organizations. They essentially rank based on straight data from an orgs audited IRS 990 form. This fact is important to put into context with how, exactly, most non-profits manage to get down to 10% overhead ratios. Most organizations leverage significant gift-in-kind programs. If you’re an organization for whom a gift-in-kind program might be at cross purposes with your mission, then your overhead numbers will simply be higher. I know many execs at major NGO’s who will tell you that if you removed their gift-in-kind program, their overhead ratios would be in the 20-30%. That is, perhaps, more information that many care to know.

At any rate, we’re glad for Global Giving and recommend them without qualification simply because we care about having as many people as possible learn about and encounter our efforts to serve and empower the rural poor. Global Giving is just one part of our overall marketing strategy, but given their national reach — they are a very important part.

There are a number of charitable organizations which help children in need and they do so without the political issues raised by UNICEF’s international adoption-unfriendly positions. Lets support those organizations and leave the politics and judgment aside.

The issue of UNICEF and international adoption is complicated. Its hard to ignore the good that UNICEF does in the world and its intentions seem good, but its also hard to ignore the fact that so many families formed by international adoption feel justly maligned by UNICEF’s positions.

The weblink below will take you to a position paper written by an organization that supports international adoption. That paper reproduces an email from UNICEF in which UNICEF states: “While UNICEF does not strictly oppose international adoption, we believe that international adoption should be considered only when the child cannot be suitably cared for in his/her home country. If a child has been abandoned, biological parents or extended family should be located. If that is not possible, placement for the child with a foster or in-country adoptive family should be looked into. When all other options have been exhausted, inter-country adoption should be considered.”

This approach ignores the reality — especially of extreme poverty and government failure — in so many countries around the world. This policy among other problems, is akin to prior US law/policy indicating that African American children should or must be placed with African American families. That approach — now largely discredited — simply wasn’t in the best interests of the children and it was almost entirely political in nature.

I understand that reasonable people can disagree on these topics and I also understand that adoption is complex and emotional. It is, though, very hard for me to believe that children should have to wait months or years in an orphanage while folks try to find some biological family member to care for them. If UNICEF wants to make family placement of children a priority, they should focus on addressing the poverty-related needs of families around the world. The current approach undertaken by UNICEF is seriously misguided, does not respect the realities faced by birth parents in some countries and is actually somewhat racist.

http://www.familieswithoutborders.com/FWBstudyGuatemala.pdf