Bruce Wydick, professor of economics at the University of San Francisco and visiting professor at the University of California – Berkeley, wrote the cover story for the February 2012 edition of Christianity Today. In this piece, he ranked the effectiveness of the most popular ways Christians seek to overcome global poverty. Rather than taking on the task himself, he recruited sixteen researchers to respond to a survey he developed. Each respondent ranked each option on a scale of 0 to 10 “in terms of impact and cost-effectiveness per donated dollar” (p.26). The results follow:
- Get clean water to rural villages (8.3)
- Fund de-worming treatments for children (7.8)
- Provide mosquito nets (7.3)
- Sponsor a child (6.9)
- Give wood-burning stoves (6.0)
- Give a microfinance loan (4.2)
- Fund reparative surgeries (3.9)
- Donate a farm animal (3.8)
- Drink fair-trade coffee (1.9)
- Give a kid a laptop (1.8, p. 26-29)
So What?
Christians want to make a real difference, and anticipate their giving to help the poor achieves this outcome. Some of the ministry organizations that fall under categories ranked low on this list have incredibly effective marketing campaigns. Donors should consider all of the details associated with a potential gift prior to funding it.
- Have you or has your local congregation funded one or more ministry group that would be categorized in the bottom half (#6-10) of the list in the past year?
- Do you feel data such as that provided by Wydick should be considered when developing giving plans for the coming year? Why or why not?