Door-to-door sales may be a quaint relic of the Norman-Rockwell past in the US, but they could be the next big thing in developing nations. At least they will be if an organization called Living Goods has its way.

Living Goods, founded in 2006, is combining door-to-door marketing—perfected by the Avon cosmetics giant—with the 21^st century notion of micro-financing to help improve health and reduce poverty in Uganda.

Here’s how it works. Instead of mascara and lip gloss, Living Goods offers essential health products, such as condoms, insecticide-treated bed nets, vitamin A, hand soap and toothpaste. Its sales force consists of local residents—mostly rural women—who receive micro-loans [$100 – $250] to get started. The sales force make at modest income by selling these health-promoting products at prices affordable to the poor.  The effect, says Living Goods, is “a sustainable system for improving access to basic health products and defeating the diseases of poverty.” It’s also a vital force of economic development, says the organization, “improving livelihoods by providing rural women a reliable source of income, by keeping wage earners healthy and productive, and by averting costly medical treatments through prevention.”

The “business-in-a-box” that Living Goods’ health promoters buy includes the products, as well as training and coaching. The products focus on: prevention [water treatment, Vitamin A, condoms]; treatment [essential front-line cures for malaria and diarrheal disease, worms, flu and colds]; personal hygiene [feminine hygiene, hand soap, skin lotion and toothpaste]; and household income or savings [solar lanterns, high-efficiency cook stoves, home water filters and reading glasses.]

Most of the health and hygiene items target diseases that are easily preventable and/or treatable with inexpensive drugs, but that account for more than two-thirds of childhood illnesses and death in the developing world. Living Goods focuses on villages with inadequate access to essential medicines, underserved by the existing public and private health infrastructure…

It’s common for rural villagers to spend a full day and up to $2 for transportation to a government dispensary, only to find, after waiting in a long line, that vital medications are unavailable…

In addition, Living Goods agents offer basic family planning services and sell a range of contraceptive products. Health promoters seek out all pregnant women in their service areas and provide them basic pre-natal checkups and health training.

Living Goods chose Uganda as its first target by looking at a list of about 20 countries at the bottom of the World Health Organization’s [WHO] health indicators list. Of the 192 member nations of the United Nations, Uganda had one of the highest mortality rates, with a life expectancy of 48.9 years, an infant-mortality rate of 80.2 per 1,000 live births and and under-5 mortality rate of 137.8 per 1,000 live births. Other health indicators add to a horrifyingly gloomy health picture in Uganda.

A key partner in Living Goods’ effort is BRAC, one of the early pioneers of micro finance. It serves over five million microcredit borrowers and operates its lending profitably, despite charging below market interest rates. BRAC implements its lending through Village Organizations (VOs) composed of 25-30 women. BRAC targets the hard core rural poor who are not served by other lending groups. The average loan is $100-200.

Over the next five years, Living Goods aims to become financially self-sustaining and to replicate its model in other countries. Charles Slaughter, Living Goods’ founder and president, is very open to helping other social enterprises adopt or replicate the model. [Slaughter’s previous claim to fame was as founder of TravelSmith Outfitters, which ranked first in the 1980s as a direct marketer for travel clothing and gear.]

Partnering with the Poverty Action Lab* (PAL), Living Goods is tracking its impact through randomized control studies as it works to lower mortality rates for children under five by 15-30% in its target communities. It’s looking for partners in priority areas including Tanzania, Mozambique, Rwanda, Kenya, Ghana and India.

The post “Better health, better incomes, better lives” appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In the US, living 10 miles from school means riding a school bus or organizing a car pool. In many African countries, it means a very long, daunting walk—which often, in turn, means not going to school at all.  World Bicycle Relief, an American NGO, is trying to change that scenario by distributing 50,000 bicycles to impoverished schoolchildren—mainly girls—in rural Zambia.

The program is called BEEP [Bicycles for Educational Empowerment]. A recent article in Global Post explains the rationale:

In Zambia, as in much of rural Africa, fewer girls attend school mostly because of the long distances involved and the tendency by some parents to use this as an excuse to push them into early marriages. A government of Zambia education survey in 2002 named distance as a major hindrance to rural children attending school; 27 percent of them dropped out because of this challenge, according to the survey.

In addition, the impact of HIV/AIDS, which affects an estimated 16 percent of the population, as well as the growing number of orphans and child-led households, help explain why only 60 percent of primary schoolchildren in Zambia complete their education.

Other organizations have taken notice. According to the World Bank, “There is no investment more effective for achieving development goals than educating girls,” adding that lower pregnancy rates, lower infant child mortality rates and protection against HIV/AIDS infection are among the benefits.

BEEP emphasizes that the bicycles are not intended for recreation, as they are often used in the developed world. A parent of each of the girls who receives a bicycle must  sign a two-year contract that requires the recipient to attend class daily, use her bicycle prudently on transportation and household chores, and never for frivolous activities.

The program is clearly getting good results. Jephias Mutombeni is the Guidance and Counseling teacher at Lwimba Basic School where several students have received BEEP bicycles. He is quoted in Global Post as saying, “Looking at the program of World Bicycle Relief, I can see that there has been tremendous improvement among students in terms of attendance. In the past, we used to experience a lot of absenteeism, but with this, attendance has improved. We hope that even the performance of the students, in the near future, will also improve.”

World Bicycle Relief was founded in 2005 by SRAM Corporation and Trek Bicycle in response to the December 2004 tsunami that swept the Indian Ocean. Its mission statement says:

“Simple, sustainable transportation is an essential element in disaster assistance and poverty relief. Bicycles fulfill basic needs by providing access to healthcare, education and economic development. Bicycles empower individuals, their families, and their communities. Our mission is to provide access to independence and livelihood through The Power of Bicycles.

In partnership with World Vision Sri Lanka, this project provided more than 24,000 locally manufactured bicycles to carefully selected men, women and children in greatest need. The $1.5 million Project Tsunami initiative dramatically accelerated their recovery from this brutal disaster, thanks to funding raised through the bicycle industry, foundations and individual contributors.

As part of its commitment, World Bicycle Relief retained an independent organization to measure the impact of Project Tsunami. Two years after the project was complete, the organization reports these results:

• 88% of recipients depend on bicycles for livelihood activities
• Bicycles can save a household up to 30% of its annual income for transportation costs
• The bicycle program provided critical, appropriate transportation enabling households to resume important livelihood, education and service activities

After the success of Project Tsunami, World Bicycle Relief partnered with a coalition of relief organizations to address the HIV/AIDS crisis in Zambia. Project Zambia will provide 23,000 bicycles to community home-based care volunteers, disease prevention educators and vulnerable households. They also are training and equipping more than 400 bicycle mechanics in the field. This $2.9 million program will reach more than 500,000 adults, orphans and vulnerable children.

In addition to Zambia, the organization also operates in Zimbabwe and Kenya, and it is exploring additional opportunities in Mozambique, Malawi and Uganda.

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It has been said by poets, philosophers, and psychologists that the charitable impulse is the highest expression of the human capacity for compassion. When one considers that there are more than 1.9 million nonprofit organizations in the U.S. and that American individuals, foundations, and corporations gave more than $300 billion to nonprofits in 2008 (the last year for which statistics are available), one would have no choice but to conclude that those numbers represent the outpouring of an unrivalled impulse of that generous spirit. Upon examining the numbers more closely, you would discover that a whopping 81.9% of all contributions came straight out of the pockets, checking accounts, and credit cards of individuals like you, me, and our neighbors. 13.4% came from foundations, while 4.7% dribbled out from the coffers of corporations.

Unfortunately, the nonprofits themselves do not always live up to the charitable standards we, as givers, should expect of them. Just in the last decade, scandals involving some of the largest nonprofits have sullied the reputation of the nonprofit sector in general and damaged donor confidence. Two of the most serious of those revelations involved The United Way and The Nature Conservancy.

Before these scandals and others involving smaller nonprofits were uncovered by journalists or government investigators (or both), trusting, idealistic donors often were blithely unaware of the actual allocation of their donations.

As the largest pool of donors we, as individuals, should be insisting on financial integrity at the nonprofits and asking them the hard questions: What percentage of our contributions actually find their way directly to needy recipients? How honestly do the organizations embody their missions in their practices and day-to-day operations?

Fortunately, independent rating agencies have come to the rescue of donors to help access information about which charities deliver the biggest bang for the giver’s charitable buck and which actually deliver the greatest good to those for whom the donations and/or services are intended. In fact, the benchmark for the highest rating at one of those agencies, The American Institute of Philanthropy (“Charity Rating Guide”), requires that 80 cents or more out of every donated dollar should go directly for a charity’s stated mission, with the remainder used solely for fund raising, administrative expenses, and management salaries.

The Internet has been a boon for donors searching for independent, objective information on nonprofits. One of the largest and most respected is Charity Navigator. Founded in 2001, Charity Navigator currently rates 5,500 of the largest charities and boasts visits from over 4 million donors seeking information to help make more informed donations. A search for a particular nonprofit will provide an overall rating of one to four stars (with 4 stars being the highest rating), which reflects an average rating of an organization’s program, administrative, and fundraising expenses, their revenues, and organizational capacity. On Charity Navigator’s website, you will also find a quick-view chart for each charity, summarizing the ratio of the above expenses. This shows you at a glance how your chosen nonprofit is spending the contributions it takes in.

President Obama’s announcement, on March 11, 2010, of his decision to donate his $1.4 million Nobel Peace Prize money to ten charities presented an opportunity to do a search on Charity Navigator to assess not only the site’s ease of use (very easy) but also to discover how our president’s choices scored in the ratings.

President Obama’s picks and ratings:

As you may note from the above, most of the president’s picks received stellar ratings.
Whatever the information about the efficiency and integrity you might glean about the organizations or causes you decide to donate to, informing those organizations that such ratings will influence your giving decisions could effect how those charities are run. Informed giving—whatever the size or amount of the donation–is an opportunity for all of us to become active advocates for those in need – one charity at a time.

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