Dignity: The Heart of What We Do

Most people working in the aid sector, like myself, are doing so with a drive to achieve positive change. We desperately want to help some of the countless people living in unimaginable conditions due to issues including poverty, war and natural disasters. For those of us working in Communications and Marketing, our job is centred on informing the public about the devastating circumstances people are living in, while giving them the power and understanding to do something about it – mainly, but not always, to donate money.

Our job is not about depicting extreme poverty or starving children in Africa and asking for money. Our job is to tell powerful stories without trivialising people’s lives or their suffering – and to promote a more sophisticated narrative about how to achieve lasting change.

Over the last 30 years, non-profit organisations have faced increasing scrutiny about approaches that raise awareness and money, with the rise of terms such as “poverty porn”. The real task for our sector is not just to get as many Facebook donations or ￡5 JustGiving text donations as possible, but to transform this beautiful desire to help that resides in so many people, into well-thought-out and sustained action. It means somehow finding a balance between telling compelling stories, without trivialising people’s lives, or impacting the long-term prospects for social change such as affecting somebody’s decision to donate or sign a petition.

Poverty, disease and conflict are all heart breaking, and many charities believe that for many of the public, donating is a way to diminish the discomfort or guilt felt. Perhaps there is some truth to this as no one wants to see children on the street in Senegal or anywhere else, or to learn about people who do not have enough food to eat. However, there is a great deal of dialogue and work that can be done with donors to facilitate behaviour change, long-term sustainable change and activism. Organisations can invite their supporters to learn more and dig a little deeper. They can also help to challenge preconceived notions that donations will automatically bring relief to people in poverty – or that charity itself is the only way to address it. 

The issues we deal with in the field such as war, hunger, and child abandonment are never simple to understand or break down. For example, the reasons why children are left without care are varied and, whether due to domestic, economic or social disruption, they are unique to each child’s situation. Often more than one reason is behind the situation, and has a deeper history. Organisations can discuss these issues with their supporters, and explain how donations can be used for more than just food packs or school bags. For example, we know that we must also support the local leaders who work to ensure a better future for these children and those in need, as well as working to improve government institutions such as regionally defined health services, schools and transport services. We also know that often requires a return back to the very source of the problem and a holistic approach to support. For example, if we take children not attending school as an issue, part of the long-term solution would be to strengthen the family unit and provide the child’s mother with a form of sustainable income. In this instance, the provision of a schoolbag, or even payment of school fees would not have tackled the problem or helped this family break out of the cycle of poverty. We must highlight the grey area between our interventions and the reality of how social change actually occurs, for solutions are complicated and multi-faceted. We need to trust the public with a little more nuance – they can handle it.

The second step in striking this balance is to be honest and deemphasise the role of our own organisations. Charities can only do their work through partnerships. But non-profit organisations rarely highlight that they have a supportive role rather than a leading one. Instead, the equation too often presented to the public is that the organisation plus your money will equal the end of poverty. Instead of making donors feel as though they are directly ending poverty with a simple donation, we need to make all our supporters and various actors feel as though they are part of something big and wonderful. We need to ensure people feel part of a wider and larger movement to bring about positive change and to eventually eradicate poverty without seeing immediate results or believing it is as simple as calling a hotline.

Research has shown that stories written in the first person are more effective when it comes to communication. First person narratives gives the person being interviewed power, strength and the ability to tell you exactly what they want you to know. By encouraging more people to tell their own stories, we ensure that our communications is accurate of their lives. When it comes to case studies, organisations are tempted to depict the worst possible scenario and show the person to be in desperate need, unable to do anything to improve their situation. However in most cases, the reality is completely different. Those we aim to support through our programmes are already doing everything they can to improve their lives. People hold down multiple jobs so their children can go to school, women will literally risk their lives to collect water or food, and children will support their parents or do some manual labour to earn a small wage. These people do not need sympathy, but they need support. They need a hand up, rather than a hand-out, and are the best people to tell their own stories. They are their own saviours.

Nobody likes to feel helpless, incapable, or desperate, and they certainly don’t want to be portrayed in that way in charities’ reports or advertising campaigns. Charities have a responsibility to root out damaging stereotypes that are antithetical to our missions or that contribute to white saviour syndrome. As Theo Sowa, chief executive of the African Women’s Development Fund has said: “When people portray us as victims, they don’t want to ask about solutions. Because people don’t ask victims for solutions.”

For me, I will always see our job as the following:

‘The challenge is to create a persuasive case for feeling empathy, not sympathy;  admiration, not pity; and balance the need to generate donations with the requirement to preserve dignity.’

It is a challenge we can all take head-on when we come together, accept our limitations and bring the right people to the front of our conversations.

If you’d like to improve your narrative or learn how to communicate with more nuance, get in touch with me ??