Posing for ‘poverty porn’: The murky ethics of NGO fundraising ‘hero shots’

[geovalin]

Audrey Wilson

The young girl in Sunrise Cambodia’s recent fundraising campaign has been labelled a “sex worker” in glossy typeface. Her face is smeared with dirt. She is accompanied by a “trafficked kid” and a “homeless teen” on the page. The campaign, launched on April 17 to capture donations through the end of the fiscal year, had raised $162,956 at press time for the Australian organisation. But the ads – which say the money will go to vocational training programs – have earned ire from Sunrise’s peers.

Weh Yeoh, the director of OIC Cambodia, ignited a social-media firestorm last week when he tweeted the images. “I’m pretty sure this breaches all kinds of standards around positive portrayal of children,” he wrote. (Yeoh declined to comment for this story.) Sunrise’s chief executive and fundraising mastermind, Lucy Perry, quickly fired back: the models were paid, she said, and the ads drew donations.

Others soon piled on, labelling it “poverty porn”. The campaign and ensuing discussion raised a familiar question for development NGOs: When does a photo portraying local context – and children – do more harm than good?

LONG AND EXCELLENT ANALYSIS http://www.phnompenhpost.com/post-weekend/posing-poverty-porn-murky-ethics-ngo-fundraising-hero-shots

[northernboy]

How many decades has this sort of fundraising being going on, is no surprise to anyone who has been in the fundraising NGOs or an expat overseas.

Now they get upset about it because a speech therapist organization paid director who is Austrailian born is perhaps a little envious his online fundraising is not as effective? Maybe his new American fundraising expert will teach him when it is not the time to make comments about others questionable techniques. Is not as if they do not have their own look at these children we help photos and stories.

Just a thought from a student who has had much-needed speech therapy and family members are deaf to different degrees.

[Ulic]

Personally don't trust any of the NGO's. 99% are scams with 98% of the funds raised going

to overhead and 2% reaching the end line needy. Most justify this saying well....2% is better

than nothing.

[losworld]

Seriously need to look at these organizations. This sunrise does not release its salaries in its financial statement but spends ridiculous amounts on admin expenses etc. Maybe time they came clean.

[Emster23]

Personally don't trust any of the NGO's. 99% are scams with 98% of the funds raised going

to overhead and 2% reaching the end line needy. Most justify this saying well....2% is better

than nothing.

Care to give us some back up facts, or is this just you gut feeling? Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. Fox News is not credible source, btw. https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=48#.V0l9dOR1duE

[markdesmondhughes]

The CEO of Shelter, a charity for the homeless in the UK, earns well in excess of £100,000 a year. That's a public fact.

[12DrinkMore]

On a trip to Laos I came across a report of one of these NGO's. I'll try to dig out the photos I took.

It seemed like it was a proforma copy of other stuff they had done, so I doubt it took long to cobble together.

But I was completely gobsmacked by the accounts.

There is a clear hierarchy of who gets paid how much. It wasn't even fudged.

And by far, about 70% or so, was going to some "advising consultant" who came for a couple of days and then presumably flew off to the next important NGO bullshit.

Of the rest, only some 15% was actually going to the locals, so they could buy some signs and put up some fences after listening to the "deliverance of wisdom" by the Great NGO Bullshitter.

I am sure that there are some good and efficient NGO's around. But there are a hell of a lot of self-serving, ego-boosting tw4ts in there as well.

And there is, I guess, absolutely no regulation and control over these guys.

[Suradit69]

Personally don't trust any of the NGO's. 99% are scams with 98% of the funds raised going

to overhead and 2% reaching the end line needy. Most justify this saying well....2% is better

than nothing.

Many years ago I signed on to sponsor a child in an African country with one of the US based organizations that advertised heavily and is very well known. At the time I was actually living & working in the same country, so then I wrote that I'd like to visit the child and his family. Got a load of excuses why that would be impossible. Pretty obvious the kid in the photo I was sent had no connection with the organization. Who knows where the money was going.

Also someone I knew in that African country got a job with probably the biggest international organization that collects money to feed children in Africa and elsewhere. He got a nice new Range Rover and spent at least some of his time selling "free" milk powder in the area I lived to people who could have easily afforded to buy it in the shops.

All the markets there had women selling used clothing that they bought in large bales from organizations that sent out donated clothing intended for free distribution to refugees and others who were in need.

One of the best cons was someone who solicited money to build a new classroom at a primary school. He got multiple donations to fully fund the construction 10 times over. If any of the donors visited the school they were shown the same classroom, totally oblivious to the fact that many other organizations had fully paid for the same one.

And any UN connected projects were a major joke. Those foreign aid workers lived in newly constructed, gated communities in air conditioned western styled accommodations, went about in chauffeured Range Rovers and had literally tons of food and other supplies air freighted in for their personal use and probably sold to them at greatly subsidized prices.

There were a lot of organizations & people that did good work and, as far as I could tell, put money to good use, but the scams were plentiful too.

Edited May 28, 2016 by Suradit69

[Saastrajaa]

Personally don't trust any of the NGO's. 99% are scams with 98% of the funds raised going

to overhead and 2% reaching the end line needy. Most justify this saying well....2% is better

than nothing.

Care to give us some back up facts, or is this just you gut feeling? Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. Fox News is not credible source, btw. https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=48#.V0l9dOR1duE

Oh, be quiet. He doesn't need to give "back up facts," it's common knowledge what a scam and rip-off MOST OF those NGOs in places like Cambodia are.

But if you're going to be a whiner about it, here's one for you, recently busted and exposed, that made liberal use of "poverty porn" (in this case, they claimed to "save" women from sex work, often manufacturing the women's "stories": just do a Google search for "Somaly Mam".

[Happy Grumpy]

My only run in with an NGO was a long Cambodian taxi ride with Sunny, a South Korean NGO in Cambodia.

We stopped at a restaurant. I went to the toilet after her.

She left a floater.

Been turned off ever since.

[Jeremy50]

It usually turns into a scam in the end. The plentiful booze, long lazy lunches by the river, the chunky 4 by 4 to drive around in, and the cheap sex, and easy to find 'hire a girlfriend' to show off around town and make your friends jealous with. It must be hard to give it all up after a while , poor dears.