Going the Extra Mile with Advocacy

Logo for
"The Extra Mile" podcast

I recently started listening to the Extra Mile podcast hosted by Charity Miles founder Gene Gurkoff. He interviews people going the extra mile for health and to make an impact. It made me reminisce about how I started using Charity Miles (a walking/running app that donates money according to your distance to causes you select) to “go the extra mile” for global immunization and hunger causes. I already gave money to organizations working on those issues, and Charity Miles became another way to contribute. But the biggest way I know how to go an extra mile for global health is to advocate.

Most people don’t really know what a volunteer advocate does, how it’s different from service volunteering, or how impactful the work can be. That’s why I started telling people the story of the river metaphor that I first heard at a Bread for the World conference. Here, I’ll tell it to you…

The River Metaphor

Image: A rocky river with a sharp 
dropoff ahead

Imagine you are having a picnic near the banks of a river. You hear a cry for help and see people fighting for their lives in the middle of the current. Mothers try to hold their babies above the water, but they are drowning. Children are being sucked under with exhausted parents.

You and your friends toss ropes into the raging waters to reach as many people as you can, one by one. The survivors are grateful, but they point upriver where even more victims are swept helplessly along. Maybe your buddies devise a brilliant system of ropes and pulleys to rescue multiple people, but there are far too many to save.

While your party is fishing people out of the raging waters, you turn your eyes upriver and wonder: “Why is this happening? Did a bridge collapse? Is there someone pushing people in the river? Is there some terrible danger up there that makes a perilous plunge the better choice?”

You hike upstream to prevent people from falling into the river in the first place. Because you are a change-focused advocate, you hike that extra mile to find the root cause of the suffering and strategically use your influence to eliminate that cause so that no one has to drown. Once you figure out a strategy to save the most people, you will speak up and convince your community to follow your plan.

Direct Service Versus Advocacy

The river illustrates the difference between “direct service” and “advocacy.” Direct service workers give of their energy and talents to help people in crisis. Disaster relief workers, soup kitchen servers, and polio vaccinators are examples of direct service providers. On-the-ground relief work can be incredibly satisfying as it connects volunteers directly to individuals who need help. Most people think about direct service when they think about volunteering and charity work.

Change advocates go the extra mile. They look for preventative solutions. They rally even more help for the long term.

At its best, advocacy is about seeking out root causes, finding effective solutions, and persuading other people to help implement those solutions.

I admit, the work can feel far removed from the people you are trying to help, which some find less rewarding than direct service roles.

Working to change a system requires an ability to delay desires for instant gratification and personal thanks. But when you know that no more people will fall into the metaphorical river or—in the real world—that children in your community are no longer need to go to a food bank for meals, it feels good knowing that you saved many more people than you ever could have if you never took the mental leap to leave the riverbank.

Serving Millions, Not Hundreds

As a busy mom, I have learned to ask myself: “Since I’m just one person, what’s the best use of my volunteer time to help the most people?”

When I was childless and single with lots of free time, I served dinner in a church soup kitchen. Standing behind serving tables, scooping casserole and welcoming hundreds of people became a highlight of my month. It warmed my heart to hear their words of thanks and to see children happily munching.

Over time, I worried about what soup kitchen clients did on days when they couldn’t get hot meals from the church. So, I moved a little farther upstream and began volunteering with the Greater Chicago Food Depository to supply food pantries all around the area. Although I felt like my work was making a difference, my personal efforts seemed dwarfed by the immense need. Unfortunately, even those efforts ended after my first baby was born. I stepped away from hands-on projects they weren't compatible with the hands-on work required for baby care.

Bread for the World
logo

Eventually, I learned from Bread for the World that I didn’t have to give up the battle against hunger even if I could no longer spend hours in a soup kitchen or food pantry. In fact, I learned that the work I had been doing was addressing only a symptom—hunger—without addressing its root cause—poverty. Lack of a living wage, mass incarceration, lack of affordable housing, and even food subsidies in the U.S. Farm Bill all play a part in perpetuating a cycle of poverty resulting in hunger.

If I wanted to help more people, I could use my voice to change the systems that perpetuate poverty. Plus, I could do that even while caring for my children. Of course, moving my efforts further up the river meant that I would never meet most of the people my work would benefit. But I soon discovered that I am okay with that because I know not everyone has patience for the congressional work that I do.  

Both Roles Are Vital

Even if you prefer to work as a direct service provider, you’ll probably find it satisfying to take a simple advocacy action now and then, such as writing to Congress or signing an online petition. You could also team up with an advocate who is working on a similar issue. Advocates can set up meetings with elected officials, write newspaper pieces, or arrange for public awareness events that create opportunities for direct service volunteers to tell their stories to the right people at the right time.

RESULTS advocates taking a turn at direct service 
by packing food to be shipped to people in need
with St. Louis World Food Day

Similarly, being an advocate does not mean you can never be involved in direct service. Hands-on work frequently provides inspiration and personal stories to fuel advocacy. You don’t have to choose between one and the other!

Food donations AND better government policies are needed to feed our communities, so we need direct service providers AND advocates to solve the complicated problem of hunger—and many others like it.

What kinds of direct service do YOU like to do? 

Can you combine it with advocacy, too?

Save Kids' Lives with #MarvelStudios #HeroActs

Saving kids lives? Marvel Super Heroes? Movie premiere contest? Let's GO!!!

From now until the end of February you can be a hero to kids around the world AND enter a contest to win a trip to the movie premiere of "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2"  All you have to do is upload a picture of yourself to MarvelStudiosHeroActs.com to win a chance for you and a friend (ME, presumably because I told you about this thing in the first place, yes?) to walk the red carpet at the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 world premiere. For every post, Marvel Studio will donate $5 (up to $1 million!!) to one of my favorite charities, Save the Children. Save the Children provides learning materials and relief to kids in need around the world.

Finally! A chance for me to put some of our costume race photos to good use! I mean if you bother to make your family wear these costumes in public once for a fundraiser to save lives with RESULTS, we can get a little more milage out of them again. Just sayin'.

But wait, there's more! Just for this week, they are donating $15 for every photo. PLUS, they will donate an extra $15 if you post to Facebook or Twitter. So, don't procrastinate on this one. And if you win...well, just remember who sent you there, okay? 

Would you prefer to hear all that same information said by the very handsome and articulate Chris Pratt on a video instead of typed by me? Yeah, me too... Here you go!

Note: I am no way compensated by Marvel Studios or Save the Children. I'm just fond of them both. Also, Chris Pratt. I'm fond of him as well.

The Life You Can Save by Peter Singer

There is a book making the rounds of media reviewers right now called "The Life You Can Save." I would review it, but it seems that a lot more eloquent people than me are reviewing it now. Perhaps we'll do an online discussion group on it here soon?

Here is an excerpt from what Dwight Garner of the New York Times about it yesterday:

"Mr. Singer is far from the world’s only serious thinker about poverty, but with “The Life You Can Save” he becomes, instantly, its most readable and lapel-grabbing one. This book is part rational argument, part stinging manifesto, part handbook. It’s a volume that suggests, given that 18 million people are dying unnecessarily each year in developing countries, that there is a “moral stain on a world as rich as this one.” We are not doing enough to help our fellow mortals.

Human beings have an intuitive belief that we should help others in need, Mr. Singer writes, “at least when we can see them and when we are the only person in a position to save them.” But we need to go beyond these intuitions, Mr. Singer declares. And so, early in “The Life You Can Save,” he proposes the following logical argument, one I’ll quote in full:

“First premise: Suffering and death from lack of food, shelter and medical care are bad.

Second premise: If it is in your power to prevent something bad from happening, without sacrificing anything nearly as important, it is wrong not to do so.

Third premise: By donating to aid agencies, you can prevent suffering and death from lack of food, shelter and medical care, without sacrificing anything nearly as important.

Conclusion: Therefore, if you do not donate to aid agencies, you are doing something wrong.”

To reject this argument, Mr. Singer writes, “you need to find a flaw in the reasoning.”

It’s pretty tempting to try to toss Mr. Singer’s argument back in his face. The counterarguments well up in your mind: The economy is tanking. Charity begins at home. I work hard for my money. Charity breeds dependency. Some charity groups waste too much money on overhead. And doesn’t everyone hate a do-gooder? (In a 2008 Reuters poll, Madonna was voted the least-liked celebrity do-gooder. Mr. Singer strongly defends her.)

Mr. Singer convincingly dismisses these counterarguments, and his logical conclusion above is well-nigh irrefutable. Helping the world’s poor will bring “meaning and purpose” to our lives, he suggests, through financial adjustments that will mostly “make no difference to your well-being.” "

Zip up your Snuggies to fight HIV & TB:Snuggie Pubcrawl 4/18

As of this posting, 1521 people are registered to put on the "blanket with sleeves" and go on a Chicago Pub Crawl. Honestly, this is so up my alley, I'm ashamed I didn't think of it...drinking beer, walking around Chicago, wearing a blanket, fighting extreme poverty. (singing) These are a few of my favorite things...!!!!

The SnuggiePubCrawl.com team is donating proceeds from the event to the AC-Orphanage in Arusha, Tanzania. AC-Orphanage rescues orphans from the streets of Tanzania whose parents have been victims of HIV and TB. Your donations will go directly to providing food, clean water, clothing and schooling for these children.

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Attend the First-Ever Snuggie™ Pub Crawl in Chicago
In response to the stunning public embrace of the warm and cuddly Snuggie™, the SnuggiePubCrawl.com Team is hosting the first-ever Snuggie™ Pub Crawl in Chicago. Even though it's just a blanket with sleeves, we're sure that you'll enjoy a winter evening spent drinking with friends and the Snuggie™.

What: A pub crawl in Chicago wearing Snuggies™

When: Saturday, April 18th
(Note: The date has been changed from March 21st to allow for additional time for our guests to acquire their Snuggies™ and for the bars to prepare for our volume)

Where: To-be-announced.
There will be multiple bars, entertainment, bands and drink specials.

BYO-Snuggie™ Bring your own Snuggie™
We are not providing our guests with Snuggies™. Purchase your Snuggie™ before February 28th to ensure it will arrive before the event.

How To Pick a Charity

Some of you may remember we had a recent book discussion in the Let's Talk Bread series run by Bread for the World members in Oak Park, IL. The last one was centered on Paul Colliers' book, "The Bottom Billion." One of the aspects of the discussion seemed rather timely as many of us prepare for making decisions about end of year giving. The question came up, "How do you pick a charity for your donations?"

I'll admit to not having read "The Bottom Billion" (I just acquired it yesterday), but we talked about the idea that to solve the thorny problems of extreme global poverty, risks must be taken. The same old solutions are not working, so some organizations are going to have to go out on a limb and probably make some mistakes. Other solutions that are working need to be scaled up in order to build capacity and reach the bottom billion people. In either case, risk-taking or capacity-building, that doesn't bode well for the criteria many of us use for deciding where we give our donation dollars. Program expenses and administrative expenses are data points we look at when we use tools like Charity Navigator to help us know how a prospective charity might use our hard-earned cash. But if a good org is scaling up, might it look like it has abnormally heavy administrative costs for a while? If a ground-breaking org is taking risks, would those numbers look pretty iffy when it makes mistakes?

What do you think? How do you pick a charity? Will you use different criteria this year? Feel free to shamelessly plug your favorite charities here!