UP | uncultured project

I wanted to help Save the Children with my latest video, but that doesn’t mean that Save the Children was under any obligation to team up with me. Quite honestly, they usually only take donors into the field when it’s a very big operation and there is a large amount of money involved. The reason I want to help Save the Children is not because they gave me the time of day, but rather because Save the Children is an organization that genuinely deserves all of our support.

Without sounding like a suck-up, whenever I deal with other charitable organizations, I always mentally compare them to my experience with Save the Children. Unfortunately, more often than not, they usually fall far short of the bar set by Save the Children. For example, not too long ago, I approached another US-based charity with a similar idea. I wanted to spend some of the donated funds to help local families. As I explained this to a NGO official (to a lady based out of Washington DC), she pursed her lips and said “we have a conflict of interest”.

As this Washington NGO lady explained to me, her NGO was also planning on putting up a video about families on YouTube. “And we don’t want to look for families twice” she explained to me. As this conversation continued I realized the priority for this NGO was less about helping the needy and was more about image. I’d mention the name if I thought this was a unique situation. But the sad fact is, that there are far more organizations that want to look like they care than there are organizations that genuinely do care.

What strikes me about Save the Children is how their sole focus seems to be on what’s best for the people they help. From the region they suggested I visit to the items we came up with for the YouTube community to vote on – every step of the way the staff was making sure that the people we were going to help were the #1 priority. The only restriction Save the Children imposed during my filming is that I had to ensure that the locals I wanted to film had to expressly consent to whether or not I could film them (which is something I do anyways).

While I’m sure there are many organizations that genuinely care for those they help, having been on the ground and seen the bad ones, it gives me all the more reason to cherish – and want to help – the good.