Rwanda

Note: This blog is a re-post from the blog on Alive & Kicking's main site

There has been a spike in criticism of the ‘buy one, give one’ (BOGO) model that a number of Western NGOs use to encourage charitable giving. This has been prompted by an article from R Todd Johnson, in which he argues that philanthropy is killing Africa and that ‘BOGO should be no-go’. Alive & Kicking offers a BOGO option in our online shop, and we agree with the majority of Todd’s argument, but this need not be contradictory. This piece outlines the problems with traditional BOGO models, and explains how Alive & Kicking does it differently.

The problems with BOGO

‘Buy one give one’ schemes encourage individual donors to pay for an item to be donated in a developing country at the same time as buying an identical item to keep. As Shawn Forde points out, the appeal of this approach is that it is an effective tool to stimulate charitable giving, able to engage individuals who wouldn’t otherwise donate. But how beneficial are these gifts to the recipient and what do they do to the local economy?

Giving out products for free in developing nations can have a negative effect on local business. It harms local producers who make similar items, and local retailers who would have sold them. Furthermore, giving away something for nothing is also blamed for creating a dependency culture which is adverse for entrepreneurship and innovation.