Don't punish Oxfam's beneficiaries for the errors of its staff

Over the last week or so, the press has been awash with the Oxfam scandal. The furore is much greater than it would have been for a profit-making company. For example, German reinsurer Munich Re was reported to have held a company-sponsored orgy for its staff. Munich Re was much worse than Oxfam where the staff used prostitutes and then charity didn't condone the behaviour, and even sacked the staff members involved. Yet the Oxfam scandal is receiving much more attention.

Why the double standard?

While there might have been some change in the Zeitgeist over the past few years, most of the change is because charities are held to a higher standard when delivering work to help the poor and vulnerable; this is something that doesn't apply to a company.

This is because a charity is (perhaps only implicitly) asking something from you all the time -- a donation. And if you don't give, you need to be able to answer why not. Is it because you're someone who doesn't like to give, or is it because those scoundrels in the charity sector aren't worth your money?

That last sentence won't apply to all non-donors. But it helps to explain some of the anti-Oxfam outrage.

What are the implications of all this for Oxfam?

Oxfam will receive less money. The extent of the drop in revenue is not yet clear. And since Oxfam can't now be seen to take taxpayers money, receiving money from DfID will also be constrained.

Depending on how the drop in income comes about, this could be potentially hugely damaging. Abrupt halting of revenue -- if severe enough -- could result in programmes being brought to an abrupt and premature end.

And this just means that beneficiaries suffer.

Note that depending on the severity of the drop in income, Oxfam's reserves may act as a buffer to avoid the worst extremes of this impact.

What should I, an Oxfam donor, do?

The important factor is the *impact* on beneficiaries, not the supposed morality (or lack thereof) of a tiny proportion of the staff. So I'll set out two options:

(a) do nothing (i.e. keep giving to Oxfam)
(b) switch your donation to the Against Malaria Foundation

(a) do nothing (i.e. keep giving to Oxfam)

You could argue that a donation to Oxfam is now much more high-impact than it was. You might believe this because of the following chain of logic:
- most of Oxfam's work was already fairly high-impact
- if Oxfam's drop in income is high enough (which it may well be once you factor in the loss of DfiD funding) Oxfam's reserves won't be enough to make up for the loss of funding
- this may lead to programmes being prematurely ended
- extra funding at this stage may prevent the end of those programmes, thus having a multiplier effect

Whether the size of that multiplier effect is enough to make Oxfam a really excellent donation opportunity (e.g. better than the Against Malaria Foundation) is a matter for debate.

(b) switch your donation to the Against Malaria Foundation

Changing your donation to the Against Malaria Foundation has many advantages:

- their work is simpler (providing people with malaria nets) which means it's much harder for this sort of moral transgression to happen
- the work has a really strong evidence base to show not only that it works, but also that it's cost-effective