Kony 2012

oh oh!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/25/world/child-sex-scandal-roils-unicef-unit.html

Can we hate Unicef like we do priests now?!?!?


Bleh, deleted the rest because trying to bash UNICEF isnt my point. (and neither is your post)


I just wanted to point out exactly what I was saying. Every institution has issues. With power, comes corruption. Were going to have a really hard time trying to find any spotless organization

 

I didn't want to turn this thread into a charity bashing party. I just wanted to make the point that it's important to hold charities accountable for all the money they take in.

Raising awareness is meaningless if all the money that is donated as a result of that awareness goes towards lining the pockets of the charity's administrators.

I know very little about which charities are actually the best. I simply chose a well known one that gets good ratings on all the charity watchdog sites with regards to its finances to serve as an example.

Maybe Invisible Children is actually the world's best charity, but there are serious concerns that it is far from it.

 

My take on the thing.....

No one should give to that charity, way too many flags have been raised and it is not uncommon for shady things to go down under the guise of helping others. This looks to be like that.

However, the double edge sword is coming from social media. Nothing is wrong with making people more aware of what is happening/happened in the world. I feel like the people criticizing others of not doing their research on the subject are wrong. The whole point of the internet, and social media specifically, are to make people more in touch with the world. You are not going to create experts on any subject that way, but you will raise awareness and open peoples minds. But to insult others because they did not know of other countries events is childish and immature. Its impossible to know every horrible thing going on in our country, much less someone elses who do not get plenty of coverage.

For example, Sri Lanka recently just exterminated a very powerful militant/terrorist organization in their country and not many people know about it. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam, crazy stuff went on over there, and I never heard a word about it. Someone is always going to know more about something than another.

 

again, just another reason not to lean too much towards the charity

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...2012-growing-outrage-in-Uganda-over-film.html

 

Oh i know, sorry if I made it out to be that way.

My point is people are just doing what they do naturally, find ways to bring something down. You get a few people who start screaming "all your donations are being used to make the top people rich". Which is false.

They had a total of 1.7 million in compensation costs last year. And less than a million goes to the "higher ups" management, ect. This is from their statement of functional expenses. 17 percent is a far cry from the 70 percent that people are claiming lol. On top of that, they neglect to mention a few things as well. In 2011, they got 4.6 million in donations. Not the 8 or 13 million (whichever number you are using) They generated much of their money from their own program material revenue and grants.

blah blah blah lol.... Here are their financial statements for the past 5 years. The only reason I am even discussing their financial matters is to try to shed some light on the "well only 30 percent of your donations go towards anything helpful" argument.

Im not an accountant, but I have had quite a few accounting classes.

I could be completely wrong, im not exactly the brightest person in the bunch. If I can look at their independent financial audits and draw this conclusion, so will everyone else


http://www.invisiblechildren.com/financials

 

Is anyone here actually going to donate to any charity because of this?

 

See this is the same argument I keep seeing. Kony isnt there anymore so hes off being a model christian somewhere lol. Not only taht, the article is using quotes from "an influential blogger" as their source of information

However, and ive said this many times. I break into your house, rape your daughter, and kidnap your son. Are you just going to say "bleh, who cares, hes not in the country anymore" if I up and leave the country?


its just a weak argument to me. There are several valid, good arguments, that can be made as I mentioned before.

Hell we still go after Nazi war criminals.

 

Which is a huge point...

You dont have to donate money to this charity, to help with this.

 

This is true, and I agree it does not make it right but what is the answer? Do we really want to send military personal in to go after a guy who is no longer a problem?

No we do not, like the article said, it would only cause more problems. Not only can we not afford another conflict, but it really would not help those people.

 

This is the most valid argument against this video ive seen, and I agree.

This video was just good about touching the compassion side of almost anyone who sees it. I dont want 1000's of troops to be over there. However I dont mind the 100 being there and continuing to look for the guy.

Too bad no one has come up with a good video about just being compassionate IN GENERAL. Its not hard to be nice and be compassionate, and do little things to help those around you.