Not all NGOs supported by Community Chest

IT IS not in my nature to publicly differ with good people, but the article in the Weekend Argus of March 17 where Lorenzo Davids paints a bad picture of NGOs, suggesting that all donors should channel funds for good causes through his organisation, made me so mad.

I agree there are many problems in the NGO sector, but we should rather be encouraging and assisting those that are struggling. I served as a leader in an NGO for 40 years, and continue to serve on many NGOs where my expertise and knowledge of the sector is being tapped to make them function better.

Davids bad-mouths the NGO sector as if his organisation is the only one worthy of support. In this article he advises NGOs to be positive in their approaches to donors, yet he does not follow his own advice. He is subtly suggesting that because others are so bad his organisation must be supported, and in his wisdom he will distribute funds to the rest.

The organisation I ran could never receive funds from his organisation, because we did direct fundraising and therefore did not qualify for a share of the funding his organisation collected from the public and corporates. The public is under the impression that if they donate to his organisation, all the NGOs I serve, for example, will also get a share.

The donor public should be alerted to the fact that the funds they give to be distributed do not reach all the good causes they think they should reach unless the donations are ringfenced. At one stage it was necessary to declare in publications that “this organisation is not supported by the Community Chest” so that potential donors could understand that not all organisations were supported by Davids’s organisation.

I am afraid that gatekeeping in the fundraising arena is a bad thing. Donors should be allowed to exercise their good judgement and not be scared into giving to gatekeeping organisations through articles like this where NGOs are portrayed as being badly managed. I am left with no alternative conclusion but that Davids wants to be the “super” chief executive of all welfare in this town.

Why would he not encourage donors to support organisations directly? Let the donor make a choice not based on the bad-mouthing of NGOs that mean well and seek to make a difference. My suggestion to NGOs not supported by Davids’s organisation is to let the public know that they are not supported by him. Times are tough and we need to be supportive, rather than shooting others down.