The NGOs in One’s Life

Now that income tax return time looms, I am receiving confirmations of donation in 2014 to various NGOs and organizations. There are a surprising number thereof, given the fact that I have tried to pare them down to the most essential. But who is to say what need is most dire, what area underfunded? Donations are not only matters of money, as needs vary from immediate (crisis relief) to long term (climate related) and from local to international. Some organizations are reputed to spend altogether too many of their donations on administration. Giving is colored by one’s personal situation, interests and beliefs, and rightly so, I think. After covering rent, food, insurance and the like, one spends one’s money where it is individually meaningful, after all.

I’ll start with the medically related: the Swiss Heart Foundation, the Swiss Lungenliga (lung association) and the Krebsliga Schweiz (cancer association). These are all personal: I have a minor heart problem and many acquaintances and relatives have succumbed to cancer. The good friend who had lung cancer found the lung association most helpful. Then there is the Swiss Red Cross, which provides a host of services, including lifesaving training, rescue, school programs as well as practical, personal services by volunteers, like driving people to and from hospital. In a country where not everyone has a car, this is much appreciated.

Also personal is Pro Senectute. This is the Swiss organization for older people, and it provides a great variety of valuable benefits, like home help, financial advisory services, courses in IT, sports and everything else imaginable. Not only is this organization of inestimable practical help to us oldies, it takes us seriously and realizes that we can still learn and take an active part in life. It represents us well in society.

One organization that always receives my support is Helvetas, which is involved in projects in developing countries. The money goes directly to the projects, and administrative and advertising costs are low. This is such a contrast to donations to countries where much, perhaps most of the money lines the pockets of government officials, that this organization impresses me, as do its wide-ranging projects in areas of very basic need.

As I have a strong interest in environmental issues, I have chosen 3 organizations active in this field. The first is the Biovision Foundation for Ecological Development, which is like Helvetas in its direct support for individual projects, with an emphasis in recent years on fighting malaria. The others are the internationally active Worldwide Fund for Nature, which has some imaginative programs to involve children, as well as a host of programs throughout the world. Through the WWF I once gave two of my grandchildren deeds to small plots of protected land in Africa and my very young granddaughter wanted to visit her land and see what it was like.

Finally there is Greenpeace, which I admire no end for their daring, feisty, attention-getting presence where egregious things are being done to the environment. One reads about their imaginative protests the next day in the newspaper, looks at the striking pictures and remembers the particular involvement for a long time. Greenpeace has its detractors, some of whom deplore the rough, in-your-face demonstrations and find it only proper when the participants are arrested. I feel that this environmental organization is badly needed, with its individual approach. Considering the enormous financial advantage and clout of those who are detrimental to the environment, it is only proper that attention-getting methods be used by those working to support it. Greenpeace and the above-mentioned organizations will continue to receive my support.