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Notes -
If one feels that local widows and orphans are sufficiently well taken care of, there has been another strategy used to deal with the "starving children in Africa" problem. A local group decides to subsidize sending one of their members to a village in rural sub-Saharan Africa, and their agent is to live in the village and exchange knowledge with the villagers over a period of months or years. The agent reports back things like "the villagers want to dig a new well, and a sturdy pump would improve their lives significantly," so the home group fundraises and delivers payment for the needed pump.
This process is hard work, but note how well it accounts for information management (specific and individualized needs are identified and communicated to the backers) and cash security (cash passes through very few hands, and is assigned on a project-by-project basis, not commingled into a slush fund). More organized charitable infrastructure usually claims to be more efficient, but it's important not to lose the benefits of direct personal accountability and immediate knowledge of hyperlocal needs that almost certainly vary from place to place.
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