Would You Give $50 to Restore Someone's Eyesight?

The Seva Foundation catalogue arrived the other day.  For a donation of $50 you  pay for

"one cataract surgery with a vision-correcting lens implant, post-operative care and medications."

You can buy another sweater or a ticket to the opera or a dinner out or you can buy someone their eyesight.  People claim they would help the poor around the world, but they just don't know how.  But there are many charities that will help you do those good deeds.

How do you know that $50 will really go to that operation?  Well, you can't be certain.  It would be hard to trace your check to a clinic in Nepal and I'd bet it all gets mixed up with everyone else's checks.  Probably $50 is what it costs them to do that sort of operation and this is just clever marketing.  But you can check how a charitable organization is rated.

Charity Navigator is one of the online ways to check out a charity before you give.  I checked out SEVA and they only got 3 stars out of four.  Their administrative costs are a little higher than other agencies is part of the reason.  Their administrator gets paid $160,000 a year.  That seems a bit steep for a charity that raises only $4 million a year.

But as you can see, Charity Navigator compares SEVA to other charities with similar missions.  There are three that have four stars and higher efficiency ratings.  I liked Physicians for Peace.

In any case, as you start thinking about holiday gifts, especially for people who have everything, think about giving a gift of service such as a cataract operation in someone's name.    It seems to me that for Christians, this would fit right into the message that Christ spread.  It's easy, it's affordable, it doesn't clutter up the giftee's house, and it can change a person's life.

Think if you were living on a meager income who needed a prosthetic or polio inoculations for your children and you knew there were rich people in another country who spent more money to watch a movie and go to dinner than you needed to save the life of your child?

Most of the people who read this probably can do the dinner and movie AND make a donation without noticing it.  And you can use Charity Navigator to find an organization which uses the donations efficiently and effectively.