Systemic change is a substantial change made by those who are endangered by poverty by implementing the changes in strategy, thinking and acting. As I have been into charity for almost a decade, I have realized that I could start a systemic change that will lead to general changes and less poverty.

Over the years of my experience, I realized that education should be a starting point as everything changes with the good educational system. That is why I am writing this article — to explain to you that we can make a huge change by just changing our strategy of work and the way of thinking.

How Can We Help with the Education?

First of all — the systemic change attacks the root cause of the problem (poverty in this case) and by building the collectives that make the change, it solves the problem instead of healing it. As you know, the system of education is the heart of every nation and if there is no good enough education, it is likely that there will be poverty. A good example of charity, in this case, would be giving free books to the children so they can learn while the change would be lowering the schooling fees or complete elimination of those.

Providing the works of charity to the endangered ones might mean healing the problem for a couple of students but not eliminating the problem. That’s where the systemic change steps in — if we form an association that will fight for removing the schooling fees, we might solve the problem once forever. The youngsters will be able to attend the school even if they cannot pay for it, which means that we made a systemic change that will have a great impact. Therefore, education should be a good way to start with when it comes to global change in the world.

A good education would mean more skilled people that could work for money and feed their families. Instead of a simple give-away, we change things so they can get the same thing on their own and this kind of change would change the world entirely if it had been applied on all levels. When taking into consideration the timeline, the traditional charity work heals the problem short-term, while the systemic change imposes the multi-year change that would bring only positive results. Therefore, systemic change should start with education first.

Systemic Philanthropy and Donations

Every real change that makes the difference is a phenomenon that philanthropy accelerates, especially when trust-based relationships are built. The main difference between charity and philanthropy is that philanthropy tries to change the roots of the problem, while charity is a simple engagement in providing the necessary things. Don’t get me wrong — I love charity.

It is just that I prefer systemic change as it performs the analysis of a certain problem that should be solved. For instance — we have a soup kitchen that makes 200 bowls of soup serves per day and there are still hungry people who can’t get their bowl. The charity would give another 200 bowls to meet the rest of the people but the systemic change would try to understand why there are still hungry people. Of course, the systemic change requires a lot more resources, people and analyses to be performed.

Systemic philanthropy helps the society to rebuild it and eliminate the problem through good organizational awareness. Thus, once the problems start solving, the charity would step in and people will donate items to support the change. So, we could say that the donations/charity and systemic change are reciprocally connected. Either way, the systemic change brings in more donations and generally more interest in the problem after it has been addressed and solved ultimately.

How to Choose the Projects You Donate to?

Since there are a lot of charity projects that you can donate to, it is important to know how to select the best ones. Of course, all of them are good, but there are certain factors that you should consider when you are about to choose the project you want to donate to. Some signals may help you to find the perfect match for your donation. When I want to donate, I always have in mind 3 things:

· The name of a project

· Look for modest projects

· Possibility for trading.

Just ask yourself would you rather donate to a project that has a highly unique and attention-grabbing name or to some project that is named by default, without anything catchy in its name? The first one, right? Yes — when you have a good and resonant name that catches your attention, it is very likely you will get more donors and cause the systemic change eventually. It is simply a principle that hasn’t failed for me yet and I recommend it to everyone.

It is much harder to collect 10 iPads than 2 of them, so look for modesty in the projects. These kinds of projects that do not require a lot of resources often swim up to the surface and get most of the attention later on. Therefore, looking for the “golden middle” project is essential, especially if you are considering getting more engaged later on. Avoid big-time projects that are just starting out as it is much harder to get these noticed quickly.

In the end, look for the trading possibility in a project as not all donors will be able to donate money. For example, voluntarily teachers might not be able to receive enough money for their charity work, but they will be happy to have books and materials bough so they don’t have to spend money. This is, again, a point when the systemic change can step in — why don’t they have all the books and materials ready? Therefore, another problem could be solved.

Why I Don’t Donate to the Large Organizations?

Well, this is a matter of opinion, but in the majority of cases, I would like to support smaller projects and organizations that are still emerging. The thing is that the larger organizations are already “established” while the smaller organizations still need help and assistance, which means that your help is more precious. Don’t get me wrong — every help is welcome, but you are doing more good when donating to smaller organizations. Still, you can choose who you want to donate to, but I highly suggest keeping to the still-rising organizations that value every single dollar you donate to them.

The large organizations usually support the charity gift cards, but there is almost always a fee for issuing the cards. It means that you will lose some money on buying the cards, which you don’t want at all. Of course, you are still donating, but those few extra dollars that are deducted means you could buy someone lunch or a set of pencils for writing/studying. On the other hand, the smaller organizations usually accept money or items, without the gift cards.

Again, we are going back to the systemic change — by using the smaller organizations, more people will get the help they need, which means you will solve a much broader problem. The large organizations already have their channels of help and distribution of food, for example. On the other hand, the smaller ones are still trying to earn their place and you are solving much greater problems instead of supporting the ones that already have good logistics and enough resources.

Conclusion

The systemic changes offer a much broader impact and these influence a much bigger number of people, while the charity addresses what has been already addressed. Again, don’t get me wrong — it is amazing to help everyone you can, it is just much more appreciated solving the cause of the problem. However, systemic change requires much more resources and more logistics, which can be difficult to achieve. But in reality, it eliminates the original problems by finding the causes, relations, and mutual constants that can bring better change.

 

Originally posted by me on Medium. Main Photo by Ben White on Unsplash