
Don't donate canned goods to food banks (2017) - subleq
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/im-begging-you-stop-donating-canned-goods-to-food-banks
======
protomyth
This is not universally true. I'm sure its true for food banks where _That $1
you spent on tuna could have purchased $4 worth of tuna if put in the hands of
non-profit employee whose only job is to buy food as cheaply as possible_ is
true, but in a lot of rural areas they don't have the people to purchase this
stuff or the time. They take what is given to them and put in on the shelves
for the folks to take. Heck, many of the food banks around here cannot even
process credit cards.

So, like all charity interactions, know the folks you are actually dealing
with and what their needs and abilities are.

~~~
bluedino
We had a food drive once, around Thanksgiving time. The most common item was
canned cranberry sauce.

A lot of people don't eat it, or really know what to do with it.

The other big failure was someone who donated 50 frozen turkeys. We had to
give them away _immediately_ , as we couldn't store them. Later on we had
people tell us the turkeys didn't come out right, or they didn't have the
right roasting pan or even oven to cook one in. You can't microwave a turkey
or cook it on a hot plate.

~~~
javagram
[https://fox8.com/2018/11/21/but-can-you-actually-
microwave-a...](https://fox8.com/2018/11/21/but-can-you-actually-microwave-a-
turkey-butterball-says-yes/)

But yeah, I get your point! I do know someone whose charity gives away turkeys
every year for thanksgiving dinner successfully (along with ingredients for
the rest of a thanksgiving dinner) but it’s planned in advance and families
come knowing what they are going to get.

~~~
bluedino
Also funny are the employers who give out frozen turkeys they day before
Thanksgiving...they won't thaw so you have to save them for Christmas.

~~~
graywh
my employer gives them out 2 weeks after Thanksgiving

~~~
giggles_giggles
The only thing any employer has ever given me on Thanksgiving was a shift on
the help desk.

~~~
megablast
Wow, you didn't even get paid for it? Crazy.

------
CodiePetersen
As a kid who grew up in a family that needed foodstamps and foodbank runs I
guarantee you what you get at a food bank is a hundred times better than what
you parents are going to have to invent with frozen peas mayonnaise and bread.

Also keeping the donations as food ensures the donations go directly to
helping your community. Non profit ceos make 100s of thousands of dollars a
year. That money comes from cash donations. People don't want to line a ceos
pockets they want to help their neighbor.

Most of the foodbanks we went to were churches and local groups. They weren't
interested in managing accounts for foodbank replenishment they just did
drives when the needed more. It's immediately easier.

When you give a physical thing it has purpose. It's not 5 dollars going who
knows where. You know someone somewhere got a can of creamed corn. Most of
these people donating I would say aren't going to go out and buy a bunch of
stuff. But they will look in their pantry and see if there is anything they
are not using.

Depending on the source they bought it from, that money also goes directly
back to the community.

So there are a lot of benefits to donating food. If you want to donate money
fine. But I'd wager if the only choice was donating money less people would
donate.

~~~
scott_s
> Non profit ceos make 100s of thousands of dollars a year. That money comes
> from cash donations. People don't want to line a ceos pockets they want to
> help their neighbor.

This attitude frustrates me. Having the infrastructure in place to
redistribute goods is _work_. It takes people's time and effort, and that does
not come for free. The larger the scale at which a charity operates, the more
true this becomes.

If you're concerned that a particular charity is abusing your goodwill and not
using enough of its funds for its mission, research it on
[https://www.charitynavigator.org](https://www.charitynavigator.org).

~~~
module0000
> This attitude frustrates me.

CEO's making market-wages (100k+) "working for charity" frustrates me. At that
wage, they aren't charity workers at all. Every dollar they accept is someone
remaining underfed, while the CEO gets resume-flair.

Protip: Charity's _do not need_ a CEO in the sense that a company pushing a
product to market needs a CEO to manage various business units. They need
someone who cares about the net impact to the impoverished at reasonable
expense to themselves.

~~~
ska
Your protip is naive.

I'm not saying there isn't any excessive pay in some charities. But the
management needs of an organization are not determined by the goods or
services being supplied by that organization so much as by the complexity of
the organization. It's not somehow fundamentally easier to manage a charity
than it is a product company of similar scale and size.

Now, there can be unwarranted complexity of course, but some of this is a
natural outgrowth of scaling and reach. So just like in private sector,
charity organizations have a huge range of needs. Running MSF is very
different than running a local independent food bank.

From my limited personal experience, charity sector executives tend to be paid
a fair bit less than they would in private sector work, but still at a
reasonable scale for experience an skills.

This is exactly what you want: someone capable of doing the work well, who
demonstrably cares enough about it that it as made a financial impact on them.
Otherwise you are effectively suggesting that it is better for the
organization to be inefficient and waste its donations, so long as the people
heading it are also "donating" their time. You can hope for somebody good who
is financially secure and doesn't need the salary, but it would be foolish to
count on.

There is one other issue, which is the question of whether or not larger scale
charity organizations are (or can be) more efficient at delivering meaningful
impact than smaller, localized one. That seems like a good target for some
proper research. If the answer is that larger organizations are better at it,
then clearly there is a benefit to having them run well. And caring about the
impact is nowhere near enough qualification to do that.

~~~
Retric
_It 's not somehow fundamentally easier to manage a charity than it is a
product company of similar scale and size._

This is empirically false.

Companies fail far more frequently than similar charities do. The core reason
for this is companies operate on a much smaller margins. A charity that
distributed 90% of it’s donations last year could distribute 80% if it’s
donations this year if they collect half as much. Combined with often
significant endowments and failure is rarely a major concern. Companies on the
other hand are almost never in those situations.

~~~
ska
I've tried, but I can't see what you believe you have falsified here, can you
elaborate?

There are certainly issues with inefficiency in charities stemming from the
fact they don't have the same market pressures on them as private sector
companies do (or at least, not as much). However, this doesn't have anything
to do with the difficultly of managing complexity in large organizations.

Or were you objecting to the hand-waving about efficiency? I agree measuring
impact of charities are difficult but what else would you look at? Executive
pay rate is obviously a silly one without extra context. Year-over-year
changes are good, but I at least alluded to that.

I guess I don't know quite what you are objecting to.

While it is true for the reasons you mention that a badly managed charity may
last much longer than a badly managed company, that has no impact at all on my
statement. It is _not_ somehow easier to manage the charity, it is just less
immediate that the negative consequences impact you.

But note, I'm not suggesting we support badly managed charities. I'm saying
that to manage it _well_ requires similar skill to that of a similarly scaled
private sector company, and you will have to pay for those skills.

This is entirely separable from the issue of evaluating whether or not it is
being effectively managed.

~~~
Retric
I object to the assumption that equivalent sized organizations are equally
difficult to run.

Compare the rate of companies that existed 5 or 50 years ago and don’t exist
now vs the rate of midsized or larger charities that existed 5 or 50 years ago
and don’t exist today. If they where equal you could argue running them was
equally difficult. However, because utter failure is not equally likely
clearly it’s not equally difficult.

You can use other metrics like the rate CEO’s are replaced and they also show
it’s just a much easier job.

So, if the org is more likely to survive and you’re not as likely to be fired
that’s clearly an obvious threshold for success at the job. Unless you’re
going to suggest only more capable people run charities or something.

PS: I then tried to suggest why this was the case, but that’s not central to
the argument.

~~~
ska
I don't think they are exactly equivalent. It's certainly not true that all
1000 person orgs are equally difficult to run (regardless of sector). I didn't
claim that.

However, I do think there is an aspect of complexity that is inherent in
scaling and reach which is just unavoidable. If you operate in multiple
countries/jurisdictions. If you have multiple locations & plants. If you have
distinct branches with different goals. If you operate in multiple languages.
etc. etc. These things are inherent complexities, and as you get bigger, they
are harder to manage well.

I see what you are getting at, but I don't think failure rate is a
particularly useful comparison, for two reasons. (1) (as noted before)
charities can survive mismanagement for longer, typically. (2) Lots of
organizations have a sort of "useful lifetime", not everything is going to
become a multigenerational organization, and that's fine. I would argue that
due to types of mission, charities skew longer here (e.g. the work is often
unlikely to ever go away) than corporations.

Fundamentally what I was objecting to was the idea that charities are somehow
inherently easy to run, so they should do fine with people who either aren't
skilled or are incredibly self-sacrificing (you'll mostly find the former).
That's just crazy to me.

So I don't think anything you've brought up invalidates what I said; it just
points out an orthogonal problem - that it is harder to evaluate "good
management" in the context of charities. Not that it wasn't already hard to
evaluate.

------
DoreenMichele
They make some excellent points. I fully support the idea that the best way to
help a particular cause is usually to give cash, not in kind goods.

But having done a lot of volunteer work over the years and also spent several
years homeless, I would rather see a whole lot more emphasis on creating a
world with less need for charity.

We will always need some charity. This article talks in part about charitable
giving following a fire. Stuff happens. The world will never stop having
crises.

But some problems would best be served by social justice, not charity.

"Give a man a fish, feed him for the day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a
lifetime." We have a world in which we glorify giving away fish while often
actively refusing to "teach a man to fish."

Example:

Discussions of homelessness routinely dismiss the idea that such people can be
meaningfully helped to resolve their problems. They get dismissed as _crazies_
and _addicts_ who simply can't be helped.

Meanwhile, my efforts to develop useful websites while homeless and monetize
them was snidely characterized by someone as me "panhandling the internet" and
people generally didn't want to hire me. I was clear I needed more earned
income to get off the street. Charity wasn't going to give me my life back.
But I couldn't seem to get taken seriously by anyone.

~~~
misterprime
I 100% agree with your assessment.

>They get dismissed as crazies and addicts who simply can't be helped.

How can we identify which people are in which group? Is it simply a matter of
advertising a path out, and those willing to try will follow up?

Obviously, this assumes someone has a functioning path out, which I don't.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I think the best approach is make paths available, let people sort themselves
by which path they prefer.

I have a functional path out. No one cares and I can't get support for further
developing it.

I posted this to HN. It got no traction.

[https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2019/06/a-people-
fi...](https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2019/06/a-people-first-model-
for-addressing.html)

I am actively working on developing additional resources, for example:

[https://genevievefiles.blogspot.com/](https://genevievefiles.blogspot.com/)

Explanation:

[https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2019/06/lgbtq-
indiv...](https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2019/06/lgbtq-individuals-
are-at-increased-risk.html)

I would like to also put together information related to understanding and
resolving our current housing crisis (because that's one of the root causes of
homelessness). I've made multiple stabs at starting a website to gather such
data. The latest was started yesterday:

[https://americanhomeworks.blogspot.com/](https://americanhomeworks.blogspot.com/)

But ad income for websites generally has tanked in recent years and I get
endless excuses and justifications for why writing shouldn't get paid at all
and I get told I should get a real job and stop whining.

I don't feel like rehashing that in detail for the umpteenth time on HN. Short
version: there are enough people here with money to spare that it really
shouldn't be hard to adequately fund my Patreon for me to be able to blog
full-time instead of spending time trying to come up with money to survive
doing writing of a sort that people here decry as "ruining the internet," but
almost no one wants to put their money where their mouth is. They are all too
happy to watch the world burn while loudly decrying how it can't be fixed and
once in a while patting me on the head for making my life suck less but not
actually taking me seriously as someone with anything of real value to offer
cuz Reasons.

Meanwhile, I'm nearly broke as usual and wondering how the hell I'm going to
get through the rest of the damn month because doing low paid writing for
clients is harder than doing quality writing on my own sites, but developing
my sites mostly doesn't pay. Too bad, so fucking sad. It sucks to be me.

~~~
citboin
Writing/ blogging might simply be the wrong approach to get your message out.
Have you tried YouTube or Podcasts? Interviews of the homeless and/or
activists? Photos of them on instagram? Add all of the Tools of social media
marketing to your toolset and you might have more impact.

~~~
DoreenMichele
A. I'm medically handicapped. A lot of that is simply out of reach for me.

B. My writing is good enough to sometimes make the front page of HN. It still
doesn't pay, not because I'm doing anything wrong, but because the world
expects content for free.

Most YouTube channels, etc, also don't really support their creators. Plus you
are de facto asking me to abandon something I've spent years getting good at
in order to start over from scratch with something else. The subtext there is
"Of course writing doesn't pay! It never will! Just quit!"

This piece (below) by me made the front page, got substantial upvotes and
generated substantial conversation. It made not one thin dime.

[https://raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-hand-
li...](https://raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-hand-licking-
incident.html)

I've been on HN a decade. I've read and participated in numerous discussions
pertinent to this problem space. A tldr is people don't approve of any means
whatsoever to pay content creators.

Ads are evil.

Tip jars are "panhandling the internet."

Patreon is seen as "begging for charity" rather than a legitimate means to
monetize your work in a world where people aggressively use ad blockers and
bitch and moan about the evils of ads.

Selling something else as a product and writing related content -- aka
_content marketing_ \-- is another form of evil ruining the internet.

Doing low-paid writing, such as product descriptions and content marketing
pieces for hire, makes me part of the problem that is ruining the internet.

People on HN actively look for and promote means to get around pay walls.

There is zero means to monetize online content that doesn't get decried as
evil, evil and more evil. Reflecting that back as "So, basically, you think
writing should be done by slave labor" offends the high paid, high minded
types that find it an affront that writers want a middle class life.

Meanwhile, they also bitch and moan about there not being enough good writing
and utterly dismiss the idea that making it impossible to get adequately paid
for writing has any bearing on how journalism etc is going to hell.

I'm exhausted and tired of saying the same things over and over and hearing
the same tired argument that I'm just doing it wrong, I'm just too stupid to
figure out the right way and some random internet stranger can fix my life
with a paragraph or two of advice if I will just dutifully listen.

I already said I don't really want to rehash this. I still don't really want
to rehash this. It's amazingly aggravating and pointless.

~~~
empath75
I don’t think you’re stupid, you sound very intelligent, but it seems like if
nobody wants to pay you for what you want to do, then maybe you should get a
job doing something people pay for. It’s not like I’m passionate about writing
ci/cd pipelines. It pays the bills.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I have a form of Cystic Fibrosis. The classic form had a life expectancy of 36
or 37 when I was diagnosed just before my 36th birthday.

My oldest son has the same diagnosis. We are supposed to be on thousands of
dollars a month worth of drugs. We are both drug free our "diet and lifestyle"
based approach to managing our condition is saving an estimated $200k to $500k
annually.

Working from home so I have control over my environment has been a big part of
that. No job in the world pays enough to make it worthwhile to go back on the
eight or nine prescription drugs I've gotten off of.

I do work very part-time as the webmaster for a local non-profit. I am trying
to figure out how to get more clients doing website work.

It still would not likely be big bucks.

I would be amenable to accepting the right job. I can't accept just any job.
It doesn't make sense for me.

I think I have knowledge and skills worth money. I'm quite confident if I were
a man this would not be such an intractable problem.

I don't plan to discuss my personal situation further. I know people mean
well, but it's extremely unhelpful and dismissive to get these kind of one-off
suggestions from strangers who don't really know enough about my life to make
useful suggestions.

I made a general comment. Someone replied to that and asked a few questions. I
responded with a good faith reply. As is often the case, the result is a bunch
of people wanting to talk about me and my personal problems and not actually
take my framing of the situation seriously.

To reiterate my main point:

I actually got myself off the street on my own efforts, so I think I know some
useful stuff. My comments on HN about homelessness are consistently some of my
most upvotes comments.

So people seem to think I make sense.

But most of them don't want to help me do more in this problem space.

So if the world is going to hell in a hand basket, maybe that's because the
world thinks that's a cool destination and visiting it to watch the poor
people roast is good entertainment. Or at least something more desirable than
admitting that maybe a woman knows something actually useful and should grt
genuine support for further her work.

I think I'm done here. This conversation is the usual maddening pattern. And
after multiple people have basically politely pissed all over me with seeming
good intentions, if I get aggravated and lose my cool, that becomes another
reason to blame me for my problems and say I deserve to be dirt poor, I
deserve to be ostracized, etc.

I seriously doubt most people here could do half as well socially under the
same circumstances.

------
com2kid
The author might be missing the main reason people donate canned food.

It isn't just cash vs goods, they also want to feel like they have made a
personal contribution. I loved eating canned corn as a kid, same thing for
canned string beans (don't judge!).

I, and others like me, want to feel like they are doing that personal act. Be
it donating kids clothing that has been out grown, or our favorite type of
canned goods.

When I was in college and had very little money to spare, I still donated
canned goods because I wanted to help out. If I had been given an envelop and
a form to fill out my CC details or drop cash in, I likely would have done
nothing. And I suspect many other people are the same way. And honestly, back
then as a poor college kid, spur of the moment I could go into my pantry and
grab a couple of cans I got on sale last week. It'd be harder to donate money
that has to be spent on future needs, which are much less certain than needs
that have already been met[1].

Charities, and all human organizations for that matter, have to work within
the bounds of human psychology, and humans are rarely creatures of optimal
habits.

[1] I wonder how much of canned goods is new purchases versus existing
purchases? I personally have gone out and bought canned goods specifically for
a food drive. If the majority of donated canned goods are from existing
supplies, than the article's entire point is invalid.

~~~
johnchristopher
Are you from the US ?

My 2ç:

I noticed that there is a strong tradition there to favour charity over social
welfare and one of the recurring argument is about how the receiver should
feel grateful toward the giver because it somehow attaches a moral debt to the
help which the receiver wouldn't feel the burden if the government was the
proxy (through taxes) for helping those in need.

I am a European and my first thoughts are always "What a nasty way to help
others, adding moral debt to being helped, to put conditions on what should be
an act of voluntary uninterested generosity (as opposed to an obligatory act
through an inhumane government). That must have something to do with the
protestantism cultural background in the US but I can't put my finger on it.".

Likewise, in Europe, I also hear a lot of "I don't give money to beggars but
if they want to eat then I can buy something". I disagree because to me it's
part of a larger dehumanization process: who are we to tell people what they
should spend their money on ? If the guy wants to drink it or buy a night in a
cheap hotel or buy a blanket or food or whatever... it's still up to him. I
don't have the `right` to control what his priorities should be.

Personally I don't give money to beggars. I did some volunteering and I
regularly donate money to some very specific charities I support because:

1\. they are going to do a much better job than I and

2\. in the city, once you get tagged as a coin giver then words get around
pretty fast. It got so bad at one point that I couldn't walk some streets
without having two people coming up to me and

3\. my government (which has some decent support for homelessness) don't
support those specific charities with its welfare system so...

Edit: format and light rewording.

I believe this has to do with everyone's specific set of values. I am not
saying Americans are bad people and manipulative moralistic individuals (and I
just found some arguments that support the idea that the american charity
style helps poor people better than the euro style).

~~~
m0zg
>> if they want to eat then I can buy something

The reason for this one is that in the US some of the "beggars" aren't really
struggling at all. When offered food or whatever else they claim on their
placard they're lacking, they will decline. Where I live we have a beggar
woman standing on the corner with a placard. Behind that placard, though,
she's watching YouTube on her iPhone XS. She's been doing this for at least 5
years now, swapping phones more often than I do. Nearly all of those guys who
"ran out of cash to get home" will decline an offer to pay their fare, too.

~~~
jlokier
It costs me less than $1 USD per day to get unlimited, high quality 4G data.
$0.83/day to be precise.

My high-end Samsung phone to watch things on comes to $0.91/day. That's
because I bought new. If bought second hand I'd expect to pay closer to
$0.50/day.

So for $1.74/day, I can watch YouTube all day, on one of the most expensive
devices, with a screen so high-end you can't see the pixels. It also gives me
communication for free with anyone all around the world, real-time access to
financial services, unlimited games, and access to various kinds of work.

It would be very difficult to eat or drink on $1.74/day, and it's vastly less
than the cost of renting a home.

Does it really make sense to conclude the beggar women standing on the corner
isn't struggling, because she can afford to watch YouTube on a nice phone?

This is the paradox of cheap technology next to expensive housing.

~~~
m0zg
People who are struggling typically don't have $1K to drop on a phone, or
$30/mo to spend on the data plan. If you believe the news, most people in this
country can't scrounge up $400 in case of an emergency, let alone to buy the
most expensive phone available. I used to struggle myself when I was a student
(not in the US), and it not even in my wildest dreams would I think of
spending my food money on overpriced electronics.

~~~
jlokier
Nobody I know has to pay $1k up front to get a good quality device these days.

People who are struggling tend to get the hand-me-down previous-generation
devices for nothing or next to nothing, and you don't really need the $30/mo
data plan. Older devices are also quite cheap when bought incrementally as
part of a phone plan.

For example, I know someone with an iPhone 6 that cost them nothing, and a USD
$12.50/mo plan, with unlimited calls and several gigabytes of data allowance.

I agree with you that not everyone who is struggling is able to allocate
$30/mo, or even $12.50/mo, but it's low enough that if it's a very justifiable
expense (and I would argue that communication and internet when you have to
sit or walk every day on the street is extremely justifiable), that level does
not impact someone's food consumption enough to justify a random passerby
judging they are secretly faking povery.

Spending $1.00/day or $0.40/day on something you'd consider a luxury item,
does not mean that person is faking poverty, at least in the US.

------
pg_bot
I was under the impression that most people just donate existing food that
they have in their pantries instead of purposefully buying food to donate. I
probably wouldn't directly donate unless I had a connection to the charity,
but I would get rid of a couple of cans of corn that if I'm being honest will
probably sit idle until they expire.

~~~
dade_
Grocery stores love them, they even make bundles of money, er... bundles of
canned food for people to buy with their groceries and drop off in the
donation bin when walking out the door.

~~~
ASalazarMX
If the store made sensible bundles that combine into meals, that'd actually be
much better than donating whatever scraps you find in your pantry.

------
patio11
n.b. This argument is ~exactly the same for donating your time to charities.
The current company which you sell your services to has a way to metabolize
them and will pay you (presumptively high) market wages for doing so; a
charity chosen randomly by you at a time convenient to you may have no
infrastructure to metabolize your services nor a charity-perceptible need for
e.g. web development.

If you're feeling charitable you can virtually always find a charity amenable
to you which has outcomes they'd like to cause in the world but for lack of
money and help them vis the lack of money.

~~~
jbob2000
This is called "effective altruism"; you are more effective if you maximize
your skills and then turn the profits of those skills over to a charity.

The only argument against it is that people tend seek out and perform charity
work for their own sake (eg. vanity, restitution, relaxation).

~~~
Qwertystop
Unless your skills happen to be those that a charity could make good use of.
Someone has to do the work in the end.

~~~
jbob2000
Charities are usually focused around the bottom of mazlow’s hierarchy of
needs, that is, food-shelter-water.

You don’t need skilled and educated people to dig wells, build houses, stock
shelves, fold clothing, serve food, etc. These jobs can be done for the
minimum wage or by people outside of the workforce (youth and elderly).

I kind of disagree with charities that get so big that they need skilled
workers. If your charity gets that big, it should just become a social program
as part of the government. Like why is Red Cross a charity? That should be an
arm of the UN, not a private entity.

~~~
Qwertystop
Some charities are food-shelter-water. Other charities are, for example,
medical or legal aid for particularly burdened communities.

And even for food-shelter-water you need someone deciding where to dig the
wells, what to stock on the shelves, what food is most cost-effective and
nutritious in bulk. And building houses definitely isn't unskilled; it's
manual labor but that doesn't mean there's no skill involved.

------
falcolas
Huh. Very interesting, considering our local food bank itself sets up outside
grocery stores with lists of food to donate, and canned/preserved food fills
some 80% of the page.

Sure, if it's unasked for, huge donations of canned goods can be less useful
than money. However it's not as if they can't use or don't need canned goods.

~~~
kentm
I wonder if thats just the food banks playing cultural norms to their
advantage. All being said and done, and equal value cash donation would
probably be better for them, as the article outlined, but the real result of
asking for cash would probably be less donations overall. I can't speak for
everyone, but for me there's something fundamentally more satisfying donating
a thing rather than money.

------
sdfsaf
I donate money, food and my wife's time (time I would otherwise enjoy for
myself instead of babysitting two kids)

The food is part of my pantry management. We don't eat too many canned goods,
so we regularly donate it after a few months (well before expiration). We keep
canned food for, among other reasons, emergencies.

Also, we buy - and therefore donate - very high quality food. Mr. NationalPost
might not taste the difference, but in our family, we do. Am I any better than
the poor that I get to eat the fancy stuff?

The donation of food has an aesthetic appeal - I'm literally giving sustenance
and therefore life to the less fortunate. When I donate money I give the mere
possibility of sustenance. Assuming the charity is honest.

I would not donate more money if I didn't donate food. I'm not _homo
economicus_ and the increased money signal from purchasing less canned goods
doesn't tug on my donation levers. I.e. I don't take partial derivatives of my
(woe me, undefined!) elasticity and demand functions.

I even keep wool Costco socks in my car to give out to panhandlers in the
winter. Surely the $15/pack could have been put to better use! But imagine the
joy of a panhandler receiving a small package from a more fortunate.

Hopper was full of it when he posted this a few years ago. He's full of it
today.

------
tathougies
Counterpoint: people usually donate canned goods that they bought thinking
they would consume it, but no longer want. Oftentimes, if you go to costco or
other large warehouse store, you buy a box of cans, and then you may get tired
of it. These unused cans accumulate, and there is zero marginal cost to
donating them. Otherwise, they'd just be tossed.

------
JTbane
I'm often reluctant to donate cash because of organizational waste in
nonprofits- how much of my donation is going to administrative staff?

This is why I donate dry goods, canned goods, and labor.

~~~
rchaud
Nothing wrong with donating your time and labor. But if you're concerned about
waste, why not visit the website and glance through their annual report?
Nonprofits are regulated and their financial statements are independently
audited, so you can see exactly what the aid to salaries/op expenses ratios
are.

~~~
JTbane
>why not visit the website and glance through their annual report?

Number 1, I'm lazy and don't want to do that. Number 2, I'm not a business
person and don't have any idea of what an ethical administrative budget would
be. 5% of donations? 50%? I have no idea.

~~~
exolymph
Okay, so the actual reason here is that you're lazy, it's not a lack of
information. I get that — I'm lazy too — but don't cite vague concerns about
administrative budgets when you could literally search "how much should a
nonprofit spend on administration" and find 237947209847 articles about
evaluating that. There are entire organizations like GiveWell dedicated to
answering that question and they do in-depth research so that you don't have
to.

Chrissake, you have no idea how much we deal with this working at nonprofits.
"You are nefariously concealing information from me!!!!!" "Have you tried
looking at our website?" The answer is basically always no.

------
Causality1
It was difficult to change my mind about it, and I still find the fact almost
offensive, but I was confronted last year with hard evidence that the most
efficient way to help people in need is direct no strings attached gifts of
cash money. It doesn't appeal to one's ego but the reality is poor people
generally use money to improve their lives and frivolous spending does not
increase when given cash.

~~~
monktastic1
Can you elaborate on what you find offensive about it?

~~~
VLM
There's a logical fallacy problem where everyone knows that people with (legal
or illegal) addictions spend all their money on their addiction so giving
money is just donating to the local liquor store or crack dealer. However the
logical fallacy problem is, true, most addicts end up very poor as the
addiction proceeds, but most poor people are not addicts.

So giving money to an alcoholic merely means they die of liver failure a
little sooner which is "offensive" but giving money to people who are
generally poor mostly helps non-addicts.

Note there are local issues. In big cities the working poor are too busy to
take a monetary handout (panhandle) so virtually all opportunities for
urbanites to hand out money, involve feeding an addiction, even if the vast
majority of the poor people in the city are working poor.

------
markvdb
Giving to make the world a better place? Read about effective altruism [0].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_altruism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_altruism)

------
skybrian
This might be more clearly worded as: don't buy canned goods just to donate.
Give money instead.

On the other hand, if you're cleaning out your kitchen, it's nice to have
something useful to do with food that's still good, rather than throwing it
out. Better to have avoided buying it in the first place, but purchasing
mistakes happen.

------
MrLeap
Canned food is harder to embezzle.

~~~
siphon22
This. Goods are real, once they get it, they gotta do something with it. As
soon as the donation model becomes money only, they can start filling their
pockets wider while also buying less and lesser quality goods for those in
need. Yikes.

------
nkrisc
If a food bank didn't want cans and would prefer money instead, why would they
accept donations of cans? Whenever I offer to donate anything to a charity,
wether physical goods or money, I assume they have agency and can refuse
donations that they don't want or need.

Am I so naive to assume that any organization that accepts cans must be OK
with them and any that doesn't want them wouldn't accept them?

~~~
ridgewell
Donation bins for nonperishable goods are there for a few reasons.

1\. Promote Awareness of the Food Bank, and to create connections with either
potential clients or donors. Having a presence that you walk by on your way to
buy lettuce can have a long term benefit on name recognition.

2\. Improve store relations. Donors buy products from the store at full-
markup, and the store has more incentive to continue to support its own
community initiatives from the reminder that the store supports the food bank.
Grocery stores tend to have some autonomy on the causes they can support.

3\. Some people genuinely do not like the idea of donating money to the food
bank. They prefer the physical act of buying something to donate, whether it
be because they're worried about mismanagement of funds, the money going
towards paying staff, or wanting to have a direct impact on the program itself
(I only want my money to go towards food). Some people limit their
contributions to stuff that's about to expire in a month from quarterly pantry
clearing, or when they're about to move.

On a side note, some people don't want to end up on a fundraising list or
hassled for donations. Cans are effectively anonymous. A small donation of $10
to a food bank that sends out quarterly fundraising mailouts can mean $6 of
your donation went into fundraising.

------
ryanmercer
The ones here in Indy, specifically Gleaner's, will drop palates off at
businesses for you to donate non-perishable canned and boxed food. Food banks
want stuff they can put in a box and send people home with usually to prepare
themselves, not bulk food they have to break down into smaller portions and
repackage.

------
benjohnson
Counter point: Donate in a way that encourages you to be generous.

If it's letting your kids spend their allowance on canned tuna for the food-
bank then so be it.

------
throwaway3627
I know some sane, elderly homeless people. They generally prefer ready-to-eat,
non-refrigerated foods, not canned foods.

1\. Canned foods are heavy.

2\. Canned foods usually aren't very appetizing, especially the pantry and
seasonal rejects people usually donate.

3\. Canned foods usually require eating and opening utensils.

Canned foods aren't what the homeless want or need. Instead of "beggars can't
be choosers" arrogant rationalizations, maybe donors should do some research
to figure out what recipients actually want and/or need?

As mentioned, shrewd food bank buyers will likely do far better at making use
of funds on behalf of recipients than any consumer would buying small
quantities not on sale at Whole Foods.

------
spaginal
The author is missing the point of the canned food drive.

It isn’t about hampering the buying efficiency for the charity, it’s about the
fact that it’s easier to convince people, who may not have much money
themselves, to go into their pantry and donate food that they may never use or
is close to expiration versus handing over cash.

This also provides the benefit of potentially less food waste in the
community, which is always a plus.

Yes, buying in bulk is more efficient to stretching a dollar for charity, but
if a person will never donate that dollar, but will gladly donate their food,
then you aim for what you can get.

------
cannonedhamster
I work for a local church food bank. We don't get these amazing rates they
talk about. Does anyone have information on where we can go to get this? We
run the food bank out of our local church and have a weekly meal where we buy
the food for a fresh meal for 50+ people every week. We also provide a small
food bank including toiletries, clothing, and blankets and would love the
opportunity to do more.

~~~
patrickyeon
Call the nearest large food bank (as in, the county food bank that serves a
city with a population of X00,000+). I suspect they would be happy to share
knowledge, there may even be a meta-organization you can join to get help
running your organization.

I don't know where you are or how it's done there, but as a single data point
the food bank for Alameda County (a fair bit of "East Bay" in the SFBA) would
work with an organization like yours by having you come in and pick out piles
of food from their warehouse for free or hugely reduced prices.

~~~
cannonedhamster
Thanks I'll see what I can do with this information. I'm in Massachusetts so
anyone with regional or local information would be greatly appreciated as
well.

------
quickthrower2
I found this unusable on mobile. so
[https://outline.com/23nkx4](https://outline.com/23nkx4)

------
louis8799
I think no one should blame people for donating canned goods to food bank as
the action is most likely to be driven by the anchoring effect of the name
"food bank". When I first read about the title, I was thinking what other food
I can donate, donating money wasn't seem to be in the realm of option.

Simply change the name "food bank" to "food fund" will solve the problem.

------
slothtrop
People aren't concerned about canned food being mismanaged, but they are so
with money. That's really it. It will be expended properly.

------
mark_l_watson
I volunteer at my local food bank. It is my best day of the week.

Monthly donated food pickups are important as are cash donations and
especially grocery stores donating unsold fruit and produce. We have two paid
workers and many of us volunteers. Everything seems lean and efficient.

My wife and I have donated to charities for ever, but it is so much better to
show up and do some work. I am grateful for this opportunity.

------
ken
It's true that canned goods don't have the impact that money does, but it's
infinitely better than some things people donate. Glass jars have to be
carefully set aside for special handling, if they haven't broken yet. Homemade
or unlabeled food is simply thrown away. If you're going to donate food, at
least donate cans.

------
icebraining
That's curious. In many country, food banks plainly tell you they don't
purchase food. Their claims is that this way they get leftovers from
supermarkets and such, who would otherwise think of selling it to them, and
that they don't want to focus on raising money over wasting less food.

------
lazyant
I asked the director of the food bank for my area and she said they welcome
both cash and imperishable food items; there's a list of such items on their
web site. So maybe there's variation on how they work? just go and ask your
local food bank what they prefer or how you can help.

------
gwbas1c
I get the impression that food banks' needs vary greatly from region to
region; and based on managerial style.

If you want to know what's best for your food bank, perhaps ask them directly?

------
Waterluvian
A foodbank at a local university ran basically autonomously because the
donations were food. Walk in, close the door for privacy, and either give or
take items at your leisure.

------
Medicalidiot
Keep donating canned vegetables, you can eat that stuff raw, it lasts for
years, and it's incredibly healthy even when you consider the high sodium
levels.

------
calvinbhai
after feeling the "buyers remorse" for every charitable act (small as $5 or
large as $1K), I have given up on the concept of Charity. I either feed a
person who is hungry, or I dont do any charity (other than volunteering to
help).

(I'm just focussing on job creation and improving accessibility)

~~~
lazerpants
Why do you feel buyers remorse after making gifts to charity?

------
imtringued
If you're going to donate money then cut out the middleman and just give it to
people directly.

~~~
pessimizer
An organization may have an easier time finding people than you do. Needy
people are informed about organizations and seek them out, they don't have to
rely on having to know you.

------
enriquto
I hesitate to call charity outright "immoral", but it gives me the uneasy
feeling that it does not really solve any deep problem. I'm sure most people
do it in good faith, and it may be especially educative to do it in front of
children (e.g., when you help a homeless person in the street).

I still think the need for charity is the hallmark of a deeply broken welfare
system. In that situation, the person giving and the person receiving charity
become happier, but this is a very limited effect and only servers to fool
yourself that the problem is not solvable so you just do what you can. I
pretty much prefer to vote for left wing policies that will raise the taxes
and then _everybody_ will get to be happier.

------
sxcurry
Please consider the source when you read this article. The National Post is
Canada's right wing "newspaper" filled with misleading articles and half-
truths.

~~~
sdfsaf
This article is BS, and the NP does have an editorial stance I sometimes find
annoying (their anti-Trudeau stance, while understandable, is becoming
pathological).

But it is not ""newspaper" filled with misleading articles and half-truths."
any more than any other leading Canadian newspaper.

------
geggam
Money can be misused. Food cannot.

------
_zachs
Don't buy this article at all. The only thing a cash donation can be stretched
into is salary for the "non-profit workers".

