Poverty Pimping

The ethical dilemma of scam charities

On the 7th of April, I came across a TikTok of a couple of foreigners flying into Kenya as part of some charity work they were doing. What started out as one of the numerous travel-style vlogs on the internet quickly became a bit more interesting. About 40 seconds into the video, what struck me was the charity house these volunteers were being housed in while in Kenya. It looked to be a lavish property located in one of the affluent neighborhoods in Nairobi, complete with a nice food spread, and a massive lawn with gazebos - the works. For a charity house, these lads and lassies were certainly living it up. (I shoehorned in that lads and lassies reference only because the TikTok narrator had an English accent.) 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1644611864343478273

The video I saw had been reposted on Twitter and the main comment underneath the video was about how most of these foreign charities are scams, how these people dupe philanthropic organizations and individuals to donate to none existent causes in some remote parts of a developing nation where it would be difficult to trace the impact of their work. On TikTok, there were more comments, and in as much as a significant number were positive, quite a few shared the same sentiment expressed on Twitter - that this was another example of a charity purporting to do good only to profit from the good intentions of donors. This practice of taking from the rich (and non-rich) by orchestrating some cause that people would donate to, was not something new but what was new to me was how someone in the comments referred to it as poverty pimping.

Why poverty pimping.

Granted, I too was taken aback when I saw the term, but the more I looked into it, the more it made sense. Pimping can be defined in a number of ways, but one of the definitions relevant to the situation at hand is “the act of deriving financial gain from the prostitution of another”. Pimps often serve as the agents or brokers for prostitutes, by creating an environment where this transaction takes place and for their role in facilitation they collect part of their earnings from the real money makers. So in this scenario, the “charity workers” were playing the role of the pimps.

While it's rude, unkind, and unfair to refer to the vulnerable groups and charity workers engaged in these practices as prostitutes and pimps, especially since these vulnerable groups are innocent bystanders, unknowingly used as pawns in some elaborate get-rich-quick scheme - I could see why the term was used. Moreso, when you realize how these so-called charity workers act, almost perfectly embodies the role of “pimps”. 

Pimps get a cut for providing services such as: 

• Advertising services, 

• Physical protection, or

• Providing access and possibly monopolizing a location where the prostitute may solicit clients.

Similarly, some of these charity scammers feel entitled to a cut because:

• They are creating awareness for their cause (advertising)

• They claim their work is integral to protecting these vulnerable groups (protection)

• Or for acting as the sole entity that can provide convenient access directly or indirectly to these vulnerable groups (monopolized access)

But whatever you may choose to call it is all a matter of semantics, poverty pimping is what it is -  a situation whereby individuals or groups come up with a cause (or vulnerable group), which they proceed to parade or pimp out to wealthy or non-wealthy individuals in the hopes of raising money that will go toward this “worthy cause”... (that is, after they take their cut).

My Feelings About This.

There have been a number of instances where individuals have been named and shamed for running scam charities, where they fundraised a bunch of money only to deliver a sliver of the total proceeds collected to the charity. And while many would balk at the idea I oddly don't harbor too much resentment for it.

Before you tar and feather me for my egregious sentiments, let me make my case. First of all, I’m talking about the charities that are doing some actual work however inefficient it may be, not the full scams that outrightly steal the entirety of the proceeds collected. Now that’s clear, as someone who rarely donates to charity, if I was to be a “victim” of a charity scam or poverty pimping, I wouldn’t be too offended. If I donated $10 to some cause and later learned that only $3 made it to the intended recipient, while I wouldn’t be ecstatic about it, I wouldn’t be raging mad. Maybe it's cause I can find some reprieve knowing that it's the thought that counts or maybe because I would be content with the fact that at least someone is doing something about it cause I certainly wasn't doing anything. So 30% of my $10 is way more than 100% of nothing - I consider the other 70% just a transaction charge.

Charity work has always been that thing a lot of people know is a positive and necessary act, however, hardly anyone seems to have the time for or want to do it, and I personally have been guilty of not doing enough. For instance, my local supermarket has this initiative that asks customers when it's time to pay to round up their order, with the topped-up amount going to charity. So if your bill is kshs 657 you’d round it up to kshs 700 with kshs 43 going to some charity. It's a pretty frictionless way of getting people to donate, and saves customers the hassle of carrying around coins that, let’s face it, most people normally just let pile up in the home or car.  But back to not doing enough, I checked and over the last 2 years I have rounded up my bill about 3 times and I shop at that supermarket every week or every other week. Other supermarkets have their own methods of getting people to donate - some have containers of sorts at the cashier where customers can drop in coins after their shopping and I don’t do that either. While others have volunteers who wait by the exit to capitalize on the foot traffic of shoppers leaving the store. However, despite all these measures I (and to be honest many others) still do not donate or even go out of our way to not give anything. FYI - this is an example of Cause Marketing, not to be confused by Poverty Pimping.

Now, does that mean I wholly support the activities being perpetuated by charity scammers or Poverty Pimps? No, I don't. In a perfect world, of course, I would like for all the money collected (if not most of it) to go the intended recipients - heck, in a perfect world there wouldn’t be any need for charities to begin with. But the world we live in is not perfect, and neither are the systems we put in place. The people who run these charities are people just like you and me. People who would be doing some other job, or some other thing if they didn't have their own incentive to help keep them motivated. Additionally, I’m not gonna sit here and tell you that immediately I hit publish, I’m gonna quit my job and go work for a charity as a volunteer for no pay. Running charities is hard work, and someone’s gonna do it - and harder to do if society expects charity workers to live as paupers or in the same condition as the people they are purportedly helping. 

It may sound like I’m being apathetic to this poverty-pimping business, but I’m not, I’m just trying to be a bit pragmatic. While we can collectively agree that the charity scammers that outright create fake causes and steal proceeds are wrong, the inefficient, wasteful charities like the one described at the beginning of this article should be cut a bit of slack - just a bit. We can demand accountability and more transparency from these charities, while requiring them to be more efficient in their spending, however, what entitles us to these demands? Donors can make these demands because it's their money, but if you or I never donate, why are we so irked about others’ maybe misspending money that was never ours in the first place? And if we have a problem with the current system in place we can either do something about it or come up with a better system before we rush to destroy the somewhat functioning and flawed system that we have.

So Why I’m I Writing This?

This was something I asked myself several times. What did I hope to get out of this blog that’ll be seen by 10s of people at best? This was not going to be some hard-hitting expose that forced us as a society to rethink how charities work and usher in a new era of more transparent charities mandated to keep publicly accessible records of all the money they received as donations as well as providing a breakdown of their expenses. Neither was it a call for more regulation of charities. Rather, it was more of an attempt to make sense of how I felt about this whole situation. I first began with a kind of anger and resentment towards this poverty-pimping business to a more resigned indifferent attitude towards the whole. As much as these poverty pimps might be skimming a lot from the top, they are at least doing some work, much more than I ever did. So maybe it was a letter to myself to do more charity work, to give back, and a gentle reminder to myself not to hate the player, but to hate the game because if they don’t do it, someone else will.

What are your thoughts on Poverty Pimping, I’d like to hear what you think about charities and their spending. Leave your comments below and I’ll try to get to them.