On Eggs in Rwanda

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And so on...

One Day Without Logic

I’ve made it clear time and again the disdain I have for TOMS Shoes and their in-kind giving practices. If you want detail on why, please read some of my older pieces here, here and here. Today, though, is a special day as it relates to TOMS.

Each year, one day is set aside by the company for awareness building through an event known as “One Day Without Shoes”. In short, supporters of TOMS and their mission are asked not to wear shoes for a day, in solidarity with impoverished individuals who might not be able to afford shoes. Brilliant marketing, as it makes the brand and the mission that much more relatable.

Brilliant, that is, until you stop and think about it. Does it get much more ironic than for a company focused on ending shoelessness, especially one that speaks out about the health risks of barefoot living, to encourage people to go shoeless for a day?

Well, no. I honestly don’t find this to be ironic at all. Rather, this is exactly the kind of break in logic you would expect from a company and a movement focused more on appearances and popularity than effectiveness and sustainable solutions. This is exactly the type of idea you would anticipate from a group more concerned with raising awareness about a familiar problem than finding real solutions to its underlying causes. The problem is not shoelessness, the problem is poverty. The sooner society and organizations like TOMS recognize this and act accordingly, the better.

And so on...

Coming Clean

I've never been to Africa.

There, I said it. Not that I'm ashamed of it. In fact, I'm actually rather proud of it. (Proud might not be the best word, but its the best word I can think of for anti-shame. Satisfied, maybe? I'm sure you know what I mean.) I bring this up because of a question I was asked recently by someone interested in many of the same things I am, if not more so.

Let me provide a little bit of context. In April, I wrote a piece arguing that TOMS shoes and the perpetual phenomenon of in-kind donations are more harmful than they are helpful, and are ideas that the giving community should seriously reconsider. There's a lot more to it than that, but you can read the piece yourself if you're interested. Through a series of events and links and whatnot, that post exploded (both relatively and metaphorically speaking). In mid-July, I was approached by the editor of a soon-to-be-launched magazine focusing on localized innovation throughout the world who thought that my piece would be a good fit for the magazine.

Le Sigh

I was hunting around tumblr earlier today looking for something when I stumbled upon the post shown above. It is both telling and painful to read, on many levels. If you'll indulge me...

1. The girl wants to buy TOMS...obviously, I am not the biggest fan of this sentiment. Moving on...

2. Apparently everyone already has them. Well that's just unfortunate.

3. Since everyone has them already, the girl apparently feels the need to purchase the most expensive pair she can find in an effort to remain somewhat unique within this perpetually popular fad. I thought the point was to help kids, right? Or maybe it's still materialism after all.

4. Emoticons. My nemesis.

But hey, to each their own, I guess.

And so on...

Motives and Outcomes

I spent a little bit of time this morning thinking about the things I have written about in the past, and in the process I began to notice something. Over and over again, the things I have gotten passionate about enough to write about have had a similar theme: the overwhelming importance of outcomes and the (relative) irrelevance of motives.

What I mean by that is this: it seems that in many situations in life and in this world, we give credit or support based solely off of the motives of people involved. If someone has good intentions, often that is enough for us to write them in as good and worth supporting, irregardless of the outcome of their endeavor or pursuit.

TOMS: A Discussion on Bad Aid

We are a culture fixated on the newest thing. Whether it is the iPad, hybrid cars or some other fad, we grab hold of it in an effort to be "cool" or some other adjective. Perhaps the biggest fad of the last few years has been a five year old footwear company: TOMS shoes. On April 5, TOMS and their supporters came together for the event "One Day Without Shoes", asking people to go barefoot for a day to raise awareness concerning "those people who don't have a choice."

TOMS was founded in 2006 by Blake Mycoskie with the intention of donating one pair of shoes to the poor for every shoe purchased from his company. Since the company was founded, more than 1,000,000 shoes have been donated to children in the United States, Argentina, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Guatemala, Haiti, and South Africa.

TOMS has gained great notoriety and popularity for its socially conscious business model, allowing people to donate to the poor through their own personal consumption. However, as good as the idea sounds, there is one major problem: TOMS is the definition of bad aid. Bad aid refers to any donations, charity or other form of aid which at best do not help its subject in the way it is aimed or at worst are harmful to the recipients. There are a number of reasons why TOMS and similar in-kind donations (non-cash donations - goods and services - which can be given a cash value) are bad aid, and I want to go through them one by one to explain why each is significant. My hope is that by the end of this piece you will reconsider your assumptions concerning aid and how best to help those in need, and maybe look at TOMS with new eyes.