Six Roles in Global Poverty Work
When giving talks to college students at different universities, I find that most students are looking to align their lives with a cause greater than themselves. Among these, many could not be more enthusiastic about playing a role in global poverty alleviation. Enthusiasm isn’t the problem. The problem is what role. Particularly for young adults who are making challenging vocational decisions, the maze of options and opportunities today can become paralyzing. In response, I have developed some vocational bins in the larger space of international development and poverty work that represents a condensed excerpt from a chapter in my forthcoming 2019 book, Shrewd Samaritan. Each, if engaged with head and heart, represent important and legitimate roles that individuals can play in the larger effort of helping people to flourish and live with dignity across our planet. These roles I call (a) investigators, (b) givers, (c) advocates, (d) creators, (e) directors, and (f) practitioners.
Investigators
My primary role is as an investigator, so I’ll begin there. Among all the different approaches, policies, and programs aimed at reducing poverty, the role of the investigator is to find out which actually work. Investigators are often academic researchers with an interest in global poverty, for whom the balance of their time not devoted to research is given to teaching. Other development researchers are based at institutions such as the World Bank, regional development institutions such as the Inter-American, Asian, or African Development Banks, or other research institutions. The work of many investigators working in the poverty area is in trying to answer questions related to “what works.” Others create frameworks for issues related to ethics, meaning, and motivation that organize our thinking about global issues. Many of the latter with backgrounds in theology and philosophy, such as Ron Sider, Peter Singer, and Bryant Myers have made monumental contributions to our understanding of our responsibilities and relationship to the poor.
Most investigation in the “what works” area is carried out by people with masters or doctoral degrees in economics, statistics, political science, sociology, public health, education, and other related fields. People with PhDs tend to take the lead on research projects, leading teams of people with masters degrees and field assistants. The work of the modern poverty investigator increasingly lies in trying to figure out if x causes y. This sounds rather banal, but for the genuine poverty investigator, nothing could be more exciting. Here the x’s are often poverty interventions such as providing access to clean water, vaccines, vitamin supplements, child sponsorship, credit for small enterprises, money to mothers to keep their kids in school, textbooks for schools, reducing class sizes in rural Kenya, and so forth. The y‘s are outcomes like infant mortality, schooling, wages, and happiness. Interesting and relevant combinations of x‘s and y‘s create the basis for research papers.
There are a number of statistical techniques we use to ascertain causality, but once investigators begin to get a handle on the causal relationships—and the context in which these relationships are operative—then the investigators job is well done and the ball lies in the hands of those in other roles. Even when we know what works, the often-difficult task remains of motivating givers and practitioners to carry out effective global poverty interventions. There are several excellent masters programs that train investigators, including the one I direct in International and Development Economics at the University of San Francisco.
Givers
The job of the giver is equally as challenging as the investigator. The problem is that the normal relationship that exists, say, between the consumer and seller of a product differs substantially from the relationships between actors in the world of charitable giving. In the former, if consumers buy a product or service that is dissatisfying, the market mechanism feeds this information back to the seller, who either improves the product, lowers the price, or goes out of business. With charitable giving the “buyer” (the donor) is distinct from the “consumer” (who may live far away overseas). So even if the product or service is mostly ineffective, this information may not be transmitted back to the buyer/donor, replaced instead by a handful of warm anecdotes of some who did claim to benefit. Since most development NGOs fail to carry out rigorous impact evaluations on their own work, even they themselves may not fully understand the impact of their program.
How does a giver know what works?
Whereas investigators depend on givers to provide funding for interventions (and maybe for their own research too), givers must depend on investigators using rigorous impact evaluation techniques for information about effective giving. Anecdotal information from other sources, even from practitioners, is unlikely to be reliable.
The bottom line to givers aspiring to be Shrewd Samaritans is this: Focus giving on programs that have scientifically demonstrated impacts. This is the approach of the Gates Foundation and others who truly understand effective giving. The Gates Foundation does not give unless there is evidence of impact, or their grant is part of the effort to provide such evidence. There is no other reliable way to make sure that your giving will make the difference that you intend. GiveWell.org is an outstanding resource for small donors who want to make sure their charitable donations are used in ways that genuinely benefit others.
Givers also need to beware of the “warm glow”. Clair Null, an economist at Mathematica Policy Research conducted an experiment for her dissertation at Berkeley in which she studied to what extent people give to charity to maximize the social benefit of their giving, or to maximize the “warm glow” effects from giving.[1] She allowed subjects to make donations across a number of well-known poverty-fighting organizations: CARE, Mercy Corps, and Oxfam America. Subjects in the experiment tended to diversify their donations across the organizations despite their similar work. Even when Null made one of these donations for one choice clearly more “productive” (by substantially increasing the matching rate for donations made to that organization), subjects continued to diversify their contributions across the charities based on the positive feelings derived from making donations to multiple charities. Results from Null’s experiment challenge givers to think about impacts on others rather than their own warm glow.
Advocates
The book of Proverbs, that ancient Hebrew text written nearly 3000 years ago, contains these inspiring words about those who would stand with the poor:
Speak out on behalf of the voiceless,
and for the rights of all who are vulnerable.
Speak out in order to judge with righteousness
and to defend the needy and the poor. (Proverbs 31:8,9)
An advocate is one who “pleads the case of another,” one who “publicly supports or defends the interests of a group.” It is a role distinct from the investigator or the giver, from the creator or the implementer. The proverb talks about two aspects of being an advocate, of 1) voice and 2) defense. First, those living in poverty often do not have a voice. Or if they do, it is often ignored. One role of advocates is to publicly articulate—give voice—to an impoverished community whose concerns have been overlooked by the larger society. The second role of an advocate is to defend. If you are part of the great middle class in a wealthy, democratic country like the United States, you probably encounter minimal obstacles defending your ability to obtain sufficient food, shelter, a life free from violence, and other obstacles to a life of human dignity. Those called to be advocates for the poor are not content with having secured these things for themselves, but go out of their way to defend the poor in their struggle to lead lives of dignity. The masters program in Global Human Development at Georgetown University is an excellent program for those who aspire to become advocates for the global poor.
Creators
Investigators search for solutions to poverty. Givers mobilize resources to fund solutions to poverty. Advocates give voice to those experiencing it. Creators develop something new to address it.
While many creators have created innovative non-profit organizations, others have created social businesses, enterprises whose objective is a “double-bottom-line” (a social objective along with profit) or a “triple-bottom-line” (a social objective, an environmental objective, along with profit). Others maximize a social objective subject to a constraint that the business breaks even on the profit side, the reverse of the standard objective, which is more typically to maximize profit subject to complying with legal constraints and environmental laws.
Many of these social entrepreneurs are noteworthy including Tom Szaky, who grew his small fertilizer company into TerraCycle into a multimillion dollar recycling enterprise that works in 20 countries and has diverted 4 billion pounds of recyclables from waste dumps across the globe and donated $22 million to charity in the process.[2] Sanjit Roy, raised in a wealthy family in India, created Barefoot College, a network of schools in 80 countries founded on the principles of Mahatma Gandhi and dedicated to making education available to those in poverty and to environmental sustainability.[3] Notre Dame graduates Xavier Helgesen, Kreece Fuchs, and Jeff Kurtzman created Better World Books, an online bookstore funding global literacy dedicated to the triple bottom line, and most especially to promoting literacy worldwide. Many social enterprises with double and triple bottom lines are now labeled as “B‑Corp” businesses, a certification which ensures that they with rigorous and specific standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. One example of a program that trains people to be creators is the MBA in Social Impact at Eastern University, specifically designed for those who wish to be social entrepreneurs.
Directors
I use the term directors to describe those who are not investigating new types of interventions, not creating new NGOs, and whose role is not primarily in advocacy, but those whose work lies in the day-to-day task of overseeing and administrating the good work of organizations. The apostle Paul describes administration as one of the spiritual gifts (1 Cor 12:28). The Greek word he uses in this passage is kubernēsis, which connotes not only a gift of administration, but of leadership, which is why here I prefer the term “director.”
The most effective NGOs have great directors. These are women and men who are passionate for work among the poor but who are not necessarily functioning on the front lines. Instead they fill vital administrative roles, at the top, middle, or bottom, of an NGO’s organizational chart. In a poverty-focused NGO, work is often chaotic and unpredictable. It is common for people to be asked to fulfill a variety of administrative and leadership roles and to interface routinely with givers, investigators, advocates, creators, and practitioners. It is a vocational calling for the multi-tasker who might consider him or herself to be a jack off all trades, but master of none—none that is except administration, where the ability to work well with others, organization, and follow-through are keys to an NGO’s effectiveness. There are excellent masters programs that are specifically geared toward training directors, including the Masters of Development Practice I have taught in at U.C. Berkeley, also excellent training for those who aspire to be practitioners.
Practitioners
Finally, there are those whose role is to be the hands of the body that touch those in need. In development circles, we tend to call people in this role “practitioners”. Anyone can be called to the practitioner role, whether as a full-time professional, or as a calling outside of one’s profession. Practitioners are those who are on the front lines, as missionaries, teachers, social workers, health workers, agriculturalists, water specialists, people in logistics, community development specialists, microcredit officers, people running programs that work with children, low-income families, refugees, and victims of disasters.
Good practitioner work is primarily about creating and redeeming relationships. Being able to grasp this fundamental idea is what makes Isabeth Zarate, one of my favorite practitioners, a Shrewd Samaritan. The impoverished women with whom Isa works at Fuentes Libres in Oaxaca, Mexico have weak economic relationships—with lenders, with buyers, with markets as a whole. They often are single mothers who have been abused in relationships with men. Their relationship to extended family is often strained. They lack defined roles in the community.
At Fuentes Libres, practitioner work is about encouraging an impoverished female entrepreneur to develop a better relationship with her customers in the market, teaching them to thoughtfully study their customers’ needs. It is about fostering quality relationships between she and other women in the community bank—the trust and social capital that they jointly build to overcome the obstacles that they face together. Isa understands that the most successful interventions are fundamentally about relationships: business relationships, social relationships, and family relationships–creating them, strengthening them, deepening them.
Healthy relationships are the genesis of prosperity and human flourishing. They manifest in the positive expectations of supportive family, in the emulation of the successful behaviors of parents, in trust-filled networks that extend beyond the family. People like Isa have taught me that at its root, successful development practitioner work is about helping people to create successful relationships and doing so in a spirit of love.
Which Role?
The following table may help some who are considering which of the various vocational roles in international development and poverty work—investigator, giver, advocate, creator, director, practitioner—may be best suited for them. In the second column is a short summary of what each role involves professionally, and the third column shows the most common types and levels of university training that are associated with each. The last two columns try to match personality types (based on the Jungian-based traits found in the Myers-Briggs categorization with which readers may be familiar) and the well-known“Big Five” personality traits identified in psychology that are vital to each role.
Some people may feel called to multiple roles. In my own case, I’m mainly in the investigator role, but also to a smaller degree as a giver and to as a co-creator and practitioner with Mayan Partners. I don’t do much advocacy work and administration only when I’m forced to. Let’s reflect for a moment on the roles played, for example, by the Good Samaritan—yes, roles plural. Initially he was a spontaneous practitioner, the hands that provided succor to the injured man. But then his role transitioned to a giver, as he provided the financial resources for the innkeeper to house and care for him, who then in turn became the practitioner. Especially if we are working with the poor informally, we might find ourselves helping individuals to whom we help directly in tangible ways, to whom we give, and for whom we advocate. But it also may be wise to refer individuals to others, for example, who are better advocates or practitioners than we are. Whether formally or informally, laboring in the diversity of community is nearly always the best path to meaningful and effective poverty work.
Follow AcrossTwoWorlds.net on Twitter @BruceWydick.
[1] Null, Clair (2011). “Warm glow, information, and inefficient charitable giving.” Journal of Public Economics, 95(6) 455-465.
[2] See Terracylce.com: https://www.terracycle.com/en-US/
[3] See BarefootCollege.org: https://www.barefootcollege.org/approach/