Our Unintended Consequences
“Charity creates a multitude of sins.”
—OSCAR WILDE
Life is rife with unintended consequences—predicaments, really—that we veneer with easy answers.
My best dictionary starts with this.
- “Charity: Christian love: the virtue or act of loving God with a love which transcends that for creatures and of loving others for the sake of God.
Later on we read,
- “An act or series of acts of aid to the needy.”
What possible sins here?
- Creating dependencies rather than empowerment.
- Reiorcing their helplessness rather than their potential.
- Maintaining an unequal relationship of power between supplicant and potential benefactor.
- Acknowledging oppressive social contracts rather than changing them.
Traditional charity tends to be doing it to them or doing it for them.
Manaus is building a model of charity where we do it with them. The
model may not be entirely sin-free, but there is a conscious effort to build
a partnership of equals.
If supporting an organization’s commitment to the double bottom line were zero sum, focus on earned income would detract from focus on the social bottom line. This would not be desirable and we are learning how to design, with our partners, simultaneous improvements to both bottom lines.
This is exploratory work. We must learn from mistakes as well as successes.
“Caminante no hay camino, se trace el camino al andar.”
—ANTONIO MACHEDO
{“Never do for others what they can do for themselves. Never.”}
—George Stranahan—