Reasons for Not Giving to Haiti

----Young Haitian men, carrying water to those in need----

When moments of disaster strike close by, near in geography or near to our hearts, it’s fashionable to give and talk about how much we should be doing for the people affected by the disaster. It’s hard to find reasons not to give our time, money and effort towards our hurting human family just a short distance away.

We feel good about ourselves when we retweet something, share a post on facebook, publicly question why our governments or big companies aren’t doing more. We tell ourselves that Haiti needs more advocates like us on their side. We might even silently compare ourselves to others who aren’t doing as much as we are to advocate aid for the tragedy. But the main reason we all aren’t giving more, is that we simply don’t have more to give.

According to Barna Research, the average American gives a shade over 1% of their income away. According to this article on MSN, 43% of Americans are spending more than they make each year.

But what if you knew the earthquake was going to strike Haiti. What if you had three years to prepare for your response to the disaster. What if you knew that your personal gift of $1,000 would save 20 lives? What would you do differently?

Would you organize your finances? Would you limit yourself and put a focused effort together to make sure you had a surplus to help those in need?

I’d like to think that we all would.

Here’s the harsh reality, most of us aren’t.

We care enough now to make a lot of noise and make some sacrifices, but we don’t care enough to sacrifice our long term spending habits. There will be another disaster somewhere in the world in the next few years. The statistics are clear (there have been 31 disasters that have killed 20,000 people or more in the last 100 years).

So what?

Should we do what we can to help the people of Haiti and then sit back, do nothing and wait? Or should we actually prepare for the next disaster? For the next time someplace needs us? Put a plan in place to track how much we spend? Purposely spend less so we can give more? Convince others to do the same?

This site is about challenging the status quo when it comes to spending and consumption. The normal pattern is to make more money in order to spend more money. What if we decided to be different and alter our spending patterns and begin to move from consumers to contributors? How much more could we do the next time someone needs our help? How much more could you help next time around?

————————————————————————–

If you would like to give to the Haiti relief efforts, please join me in giving to World Hope. They are a reputable organization that will do a great job serving the people of Haiti. Click here to give.