Pedaling Poverty

The 2023 Tour de France stared this weekend. Each year I unapologetically spend a lot of time in front of the tube glued to this event. 3 weeks of broken collarbones, European accents, strategy, scenery, history, Spandex, green jerseys, white jerseys, polka dot jerseys, yellow jerseys. I look forward to everything about the event (despite the doping years). This year I even broke down and purchased the Peacock streaming package now that NBC has pushed much of it over to that platform (it was $3).

Stage 2 is wrapping up as I write this. I got up at 4:30 am this morning to watch. American Neilson Powless was a warrior & accumulated most of the King of the Mountain points. The Cofidis team that hadn’t won a stage in sixteen years – yes 16! – crossed the line first today. A great day for both the Americans and the underdogs.

Bikes have been on my mind lately. Last week I wrote a post about a Girl Bike I recently purchased. While droning on about that, I made mention of what is probably my most favorite organization in the world: World Bicycle Relief. I have followed their story since 2018 and carry around 3 specific learnings from their work. Maybe these will resonate with you on some level.

The first core learning – perhaps a hard truth – is for anyone like me that’s ever struggled with our predominant model of Western charity – specifically as it relates to poverty relief. What WBR found, as they tried to fit a square peg (well-intentioned Western relief to tsunami affected areas) into a round hole (a broken model of Western charity) is nothing new, but revolutionary at the same time.

“Philanthropy will help people stuck in poverty, but it won’t get them out. Economics will.”

FK Day – World Bicycle Relief

Let’s just leave this hanging here for a minute. But let’s couple it with a second core learning:

“Form follows function.”

Louis Sullivan (and many others in the design and architecture communities)

There’s nothing new about this second learning. It’s been applied in design and architecture for a century. But when applied to our broken models of charity, it can be revolutionary. Really. Revolutionary. If it’s willing, the charity industry can begin working itself out a job by organizing around more creative business models. Some form of social enterprise – say public/private partnerships (among others) – can be a starting point to begin breaking the harmful dependencies created by traditional Western charity.

As an example, one of the forms adopted by World Bicycle Relief was the creation of a for profit company that is wholly owned by a nonprofit. I’ve been studying this particular model for a few years (did some work on it at the University of Denver in 2021-2022) and, ironically, I now work for a company that is owned by a nonprofit. I’d love to nerd you to death about this, but maybe we could start with a coffee. I’m available.

The lesson learned by WBR: Philanthropy creates a never ending black hole of Western dependency. Economics provides sustainable solutions leading to individual prosperity and dignity.

Finally, one of the key disciplines that business brings to charity is a razor sharp focus on metrics. It’s the third of my learnings from WBR. It’s been my observation over the years that nonprofits and NGO’s do an absolutely dismal and inexcusable job of identifying and communicating their impact metrics. I have personally been guilty of this. Many of our charitable institutions really shouldn’t be supported simply because they don’t know the root causes and relevant remedies associated with the communities they are trying to serve. They do what donors support and makes them (donors) feel good. It’s so easy to fall into tracking what have become known as “vanity metrics.”

“Vanity metrics are those sneaky numbers that make you feel good about the work you’ve done, but don’t get you closer to achieving your mission. Because they show the illusion of progress, they prevent us from truly measuring impact and seeing what’s working and what isn’t. Especially when we fail to see the latter, we miss the chance to “pivot” (change our strategy) or throw in the towel on a method that simply doesn’t work.”

Lean Impact

And if there’s a model that simply doesn’t work anymore (if it ever did), it is Western charity’s approach to poverty. Including most religious charity. It is time for a pivot.

I invite and encourage you to visit WBR’s Impact page on their website. Click all the links. What they do should be a Harvard Case Study on how to measure and communicate impact. It is an outstanding model for nonprofits and NGO’s to adopt. I’m a big fan.

So this is the bike I’m pedaling these days. Put on a helmet and let’s go out for a ride.