They Had Me At "Helping Children" - Are They Legit?

September 27, 2014 1:32 AM

I've had a brush with a Charity called Plan International. I want to make a one time donation to Plan International - but not of it is BS. Do you have knowledge of this Charity? They have positive reviews, but when the consideration is poor countries with corrupt infrastructure, I'm unsure. I've never heard of this organization before. Please impart your experience if you have direct knowledge with Plan International. Thank you.

I have happily made charitable contributions to Equality California, a local charity for me, and that was money I don't regret sharing. The finite goal there was achieved!

This is different because the goal is not finite, and the recipient(s) are international. I won't sponsor a child because in general because after working in investigative media, I know charities mostly do not do what they say. The money you give these organizations doesn't help folks directly a lot of the time, etc., etc..

I know Plan International has good reviews, but I'm not entirely convinced knowing how review sites like YELP work.


Please help me make a difference in the right way.

Thank you.

posted by jbenben to Law & Government (12 answers total)

It is a legitimate charity though it has not been flagged as promising by organisations that evaluate the effectiveness of charities - suggesting there is no reason to think that is a particularly good or effective way good way of helping children. There are other charities you could consider that evidence suggests would do significantly more good with your donation.
posted by Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory at 1:42 AM on September 27, 2014

Plan International org profile on industry website... paid content essentially but may be informative for you
posted by evil_esto at 2:31 AM on September 27, 2014

If it's a large donation (4-5 figures minimum) and you want it to go to a specific country or program, they'd probably be able to help you do that, if you like PLAN for a specific reason.

If you can say what you want your money to do that would help answer this - like do you want to get kids into school? Do you want to help a community or a specific family? Is it health or women's rights? If it's just general 'help children in poor countries', I'd go with Partners in Health for the best return for your buck (both in direct help and as a model sharing good practices with other programs).
posted by viggorlijah at 2:32 AM on September 27, 2014 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: viggorlijah, the in-person pitch concerned Child Trafficking and Human Trafficking.

In a thousand little ways, I can not express how much I am against exploitation of this ilk.

The reps of Plan are very earnest. I'm seeking to find out if donating to them is worthwhile.

Thanks.
posted by jbenben at 3:19 AM on September 27, 2014

Plan's not one of the big guns for antitrafficking AFAIK. They're general child help. With child trafficking, it's pretty complicated - are you looking to fund a rehabilitative shelter, strengthen prosecution on traffickers, improve community awareness to reduce trafficking supply, or support families at-risk of trafficking? If you want your donation to go far, pick a country with high rates of child trafficking and fund a specific small local group that's reasonably effective. Like in Cambodia, World Vision and Oxfam do a bunch of broad support that prevents trafficking, partly by selecting and funding local groups and also by providing countrywide programs that address poverty and child abuse, but they're not specifically anti-trafficking.

I work in antitrafficking and might be able to recommend people who do good work from an operation perspective if you can say the country and area you're interested in.
posted by viggorlijah at 3:52 AM on September 27, 2014 [4 favorites]

In the U.S., the not for profit GuideStar collects and evaluates information about other non-profits. It looks like Plan International collects funds across 21 different countries, but for the U.S. operation, Plan International U.S.A., here is the GuideStar profile, which includes an "evidence of impact" section.
posted by kovacs at 4:40 AM on September 27, 2014 [1 favorite]

If you are interested in helping the fight against human trafficking, I can not highly enough recommend Shared Hope. They fight trafficking in the USA and abroad, and 80 cents of every dollar donated goes directly to that fight. (10% goes to administration, and 10% to fundraising.)
posted by The Almighty Mommy Goddess at 6:02 AM on September 27, 2014 [2 favorites]

For what it's worth, I sponsored a Peruvian child for about 12 years via Plan Intl. Overall, the experience was satisfying--got letters and photos from the kid, and the local (Cuzco) Plan rep stayed in touch and answered my questions convincingly. I always intended to research it more carefully to see what percentage of my monthly donation actually landed on the ground, but once I was committed to little Fidel, I didn't bother. (It's been a few years since he outgrew the plan and I wonder what became of him.)
posted by fivesavagepalms at 6:21 AM on September 27, 2014

I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Burkina Faso, and PLAN had some projects in my area. They are definitely legit, though as noted above trafficking isn't the main focus of their portfolio. But they do good things, and your money would be used to help kids. In my village they had sponsored solar-powered lighting at an elementary school*, and pumps to increase access to potable water. Small sustainable projects, focus on kids. I haven't had any direct contact with the wider organization, but among PCVs in Burkina they were considered one of the NGOs that is Doing It Right.

*Which ended up benefitting the middle school students more, as they studied for high school entrance exams. Came in very handy for the kids I tutored. I don't know if that was the goal, the lighting was installed before I was there, but it makes sense - the actual middle school was a few kilometers removed from the village and it would not have been so used. Also money was more available at that time for elementary school programs than middle school programs for administrative reasons.
posted by solotoro at 7:58 AM on September 27, 2014 [3 favorites]

I love GiveWell, but they did not review Plan International, so it isn't relevant that they are not flagged as promising (they never had a chance to be). GiveWell only reviews a handful of the many charities worldwide.

One of the best ways to familiarize yourself with a charity before giving (and I commend you for both giving and for caring where your money is going) is to read their annual report, which is available on their website.

According to their most recent annual report, child protection (including from exploitation) is one of Plan International's 8 main program areas. In a listing of expenditures for the year, it ranked 7th of 8 in terms of absolute dollar values they spent - which amounted to about 38 million Euro, (!!) this is 7% of their total program costs. They report that this represents an increase of 35% in funding for this program area over the prior year, and that they are actively working to grow this program area.

I do love the fact they reported their own environmental impact. (in carbon dioxide equivalents) That seems rather ahead of the curve.

Their budget has been running surpluses every year from 2007 until the most recent year during which they, apparently purposefully, ran a deficit as a part of a 'year of investment'.

Importantly, if you want your money to go further, you shouldn't give to a child sponsorship program. The charity will end up spending money and time communicating with you about your child, which is very resource-intensive over the entire donor pool. For example, Plan International spends 53 million Euros annually to communicate with child sponsors - that's more than the entire child protection program area. The reason they do it, of course, is because child sponsorship accounts for over half of their funds raised, and people like fivesavagepalms are a great example of this - feeling a personal commitment towards a child in the program is a major motivator for donors, so if having a child to sponsor would be what motivates you to keep giving/is most meaningful to you, then, I guess you should go ahead and do it.

As far as staff compensation, which is always something I look at for charities, their 5 most highly paid staff members make somewhere from 200-250K Euros annually. I suppose that doesn't seem unreasonable for a charity with a budget around 700 million Euros, but I leave it up to you to decide for yourself.

Finally, out of 704 million Euros they spent in the 2013 fiscal year, they spent about 102 million on fundraising (guess that's about 15%), and about 55 million on "other operating costs" (about 8%), with 535 million spent on program expenses, which I estimate represents as a total of 23% of the budget on non-program expenses. I didn't appreciate how difficult they made it to determine the percentage of their budget that is fundraising and administrative costs, they had no simple pie chart and no mention of a percentage, the report appears to expect the reader to do the math. That was my biggest gripe with this report, which I otherwise think is a good report. I think that 23% is not ideal, but not bad in terms of percentage to spend on non-program costs, although I would prefer to see less spent on fundraising. As far as I'm concerned people can have quite unreasonable expectations about operating expenses, after all, an organization has to operate to be effective. And maybe at that level, you have to spend a lot to make a lot. I don't know, my own charity is in a completely different (much much smaller) league.

Hope that's helpful.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 8:10 AM on September 27, 2014 [3 favorites]

When I was driving through very rural Thailand I actually noticed some water tank looking things with the plan logo on them. Having previously donated through Plan, that made me smile.
posted by Chrysalis at 2:19 PM on September 27, 2014

Charity Navigator has a review. It looks like about 76% of donations go to the programs. That's not too bad.
posted by annsunny at 3:51 PM on September 27, 2014