Helping Syrian Refugees in Canada and Closer to Their Homes

Lots of churches are planning to sponsor Syrian refugees--a generous response that warms all of our hearts. But sponsoring refugees is expensive. It can cost between $30,000 to $50,000 to bring in one family. This is money that will not be available to international aid organizations that are trying to help the millions of desperate Syrian refugees still in the region--people who are hungry, yet who want to return home one day to rebuild their shattered country. Maybe we can do both: Help people who want to come to Canada, and those who, like young Angeline above, are still in places like Jordan and Lebanon. 

 “Don’t forget me.”

That’s what a Syrian woman told Don Peters, Executive Director of Mennonite Central Committee, when he visited her in Lebanon.

It was 2013, and Peters had met many Syrians in that country who had fled their homes In Syria for uncertain lives as refugees. They told him about escaping as their homes were being destroyed, and about watching conflict envelop their cities and neighbourhoods.

“Many had crossed into Lebanon without official documents and little money,” says Peters. 

“They were worried about how they would buy food and pay for housing. They wondered if they would be able to find work, schools for their children and medical attention for their injuries.”

Most of them said their dream was to return home to Syria one day to rebuild their shattered communities and lives.

As Peters looked into that woman’s eyes, he realized she was asking him something profound, something beyond her own personal story.

“She was asking me to remember all the people we had met, and all the refugees who would seek a safe haven in places such as Lebanon,” he says.

Unfortunately that woman, and the millions of other Syrians still in the region who are affected by the conflict in their country, they are in danger of being forgotten today by many Canadians.

This isn’t happening out of lack of care or concern. To their great credit, many churches and other places of worship, along with businesses, governments and others, are responding generously to help relocate Syrian refugees to Canada. 

We have all been moved by the heartfelt scenes in the media as sponsors welcome families from that war-torn country to their new home.

This response is a good, right, proper and Canadian thing to do. Everyone who has donated money, time or effort to help resettle Syrian refugees in Canada is to be commended. 

But the number of refugees coming to Canada is just a fraction of the many people from that country who need our help today.

Right now, there are an estimated three million Syrians who have fled for safety to Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. Over six million are internally displaced within Syria itself. The World Food Programme (WFP) is feeding over four million people inside Syria and 1.3 million more in neighbouring countries.

These are people who hope to go home one day, when the war finally ends. But with almost all the attention today on helping bring refugees to Canada, its hard for aid agencies to raise awareness about their needs—or get the funding they need.

For example, declines in funding has meant that the WFP has had to reduce the amount of food it provides for Syrian refugees by a quarter. This means people have to eat smaller meals, and less frequently. Other aid groups face similar challenges.

This doesn’t mean Canadians should stop helping bring Syrian refugees to Canada—far from it!  But perhaps they can help people come here, but also help those who are still in the region.

One way to do that would be for groups sponsoring refugee families to add ten percent to the total they need to raise. This extra money can then be given to help those who are still in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

For example, it costs my own agency, Canadian Foodgrains Bank, $13.50 to provide supplemental food for one Syrian refugee in Lebanon or Jordan for a month through its member agencies. It’s $67.50 for a family of five. 

Since it can cost between $30,000 to $50,000 to sponsor one family to come to Canada, an extra ten percent would provide $3,000 to $5,000, or enough for a group to “sponsor” another three to six families a year.

For Peters, that encounter with the Syrian refugee woman two years ago stayed with him. “Of all the places I have been, and the people I have met during my time at MCC, that day in Lebanon is one of my most profound memories,” he says.

Not all of us can have a personal experience like that. But we can all join together in remembering her, and the millions more Syrians in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria who need our help. 

Donations made by December 31 to registered charities responding to the needs of Syrian refugees in the region will be matched 1:1 by the Canadian government.

Lowest Overhead or Biggest Impact: What's the Best Way to Choose a Charity?

Once again, this year the non-profit I work for was named to the top 25 list of best Canadian non-profits to give to. I am not promoting the favourable ranking.  Why? First, I don’t agree with how the rankings work, giving highest marks for lowest overhead. Second, it isn’t fair to all the other charities that do good work, but don’t make the list. As it turns out, Bruce MacDonald, CEO of Imagine Canada, feels the same way about charity rankings, as the interview below shows. 

Are you planning to make a year-end donation to charity?

If the answer is yes, you’re not alone. It is estimated that over $5 billion is given by Canadians to non-profit organizations in the last six weeks of each year.

Much of that is given by people of faith. Research repeatedly shows that the more religious a person is, the more they give to charity.

Many donors have already decided who to give to. But others may not yet have made up their minds. With over 86,000 charities in Canada, it can be hard to choose. What to do?

Many people will turn to the increasingly-popular lists of Canada’s “best” charities. These rankings, which rate charities according to their financial efficiency—the best bang for the donated buck—get a lot of publicity in the media around Christmastime.

For many Canadians, they are a popular way to determine which group to give to. It saves a lot of time, and donors can know their money went to the "best" non-profit groups, the ones that spend the least on overhead. 

Or is that the case? Bruce MacDonald doesn’t think so.

.

According to MacDonald, President and CEO of Imagine Canada, an umbrella group for Canadian charities, the problem is that these rankings measure the wrong thing.

While glad the media is interested in the charitable sector, these rankings “are invariably skewed to having a heavy emphasis on the cost side of business,” he says, adding that they “perpetuate the belief that ensuring adequate resources to deliver quality programs is a bad thing.”

What MacDonald objects to is how the highest rankings are given to groups that spend the least on things like staff salaries, administration, communications and fundraising. The ones that need to spend more to deliver their programs end up with lower scores.

He agrees that charities need to be careful with donated dollars. But, he says, this way of measuring charity effectiveness is “a poor reflection” of the real worth of non-profit organizations.

“One size doesn’t fit all,” he states. “The issues the different groups address are complex. It’s hard to compare a group that digs wells in Ghana with an organization that treats people with AIDS in Vancouver.”

What MacDonald would rather see measured is impact—what effect has the charity has on the lives of people it is trying to help? And if it costs more to help someone beat an addiction or escape poverty to do it, that should be money well spent.

“If you want real impact, you need to have real investment,” he says. “It’s hard for groups to achieve life-changing outcomes if they can only invest a little.”

In addition to affecting donor behaviour, MacDonald also is critical of how these rankings promote the idea that “charity costs nothing.” 

He is also concerned about the effect on charities themselves. The rankings, he says, have created what he calls “a race to the bottom” as groups try to out-do each other and get higher scores by touting lower overheads.

MacDonald knows the rankings won't stop. But what he would like to see is the media doing a better job of putting charity effectiveness in context. And he would also like to see charities decline to participate in the ranking process, or refuse to do any publicity if they get a good ranking. 

“We need to stop defining ourselves according to someone else’s playing field,” he says of Canada's non-profit sector. “We need to reframe the narrative about the sector so we talk more about impact, not just about costs.”

As someone who has worked in the non-profit sector for most of my career, what MacDonald says rings true for me. 

The truth is that doing good well costs money. Groups need well-trained staff, up-to-date technology, great accounting and skilled oversight to ensure donations are used effectively and for their intended purposes.

So as you prepare for your year-end giving, the best advice is always to start early and do your own research. Then, once you have chosen a charity, stick with it—that way you will always know how your donations are being used.

But if you have waited to the last moment, don’t just rely on the rankings. If you can, take a bit more time to find the one that gets the best results.

How Far Would You Go to Save a Life?

(March 13 is World Kidney Day, a day for raising awareness about kidney disease. With that in mind, here’s a column from 2014 about a Mennonite pastor who gave a bit more than most to help others—one of her kidneys.)

Over 3,000 Canadians are on waiting lists for a kidney transplant. Over 200 of them are in Manitoba. Many of these people will die while on the waiting list.

Carol Penner thinks that's wrong. So wrong, she donated a kidney herself to help someone who needed the life-saving procedure.

"These are needless deaths," she says of those who will die before receiving help. "There are millions of healthy kidneys in Canada."

Penner, pastor of Edmonton's Lendrum Mennonite Brethren Church, was moved to donate one of her kidneys after her husband lost one of his to cancer in 2008.

"I didn't realize how easy it is to live on one kidney," says the 53 year-old. "There was no change in his life."

After thinking about it for a couple of years, in 2011 she offered to donate a kidney as an undesignated donor--her kidney would go to whoever needed it most. What followed was a year of medical appointments, tests and questionnaires. 

Once accepted, Penner--then the pastor of First Mennonite Church in Vineland, Ontario--was put on the list to donate when needed.

In October, 2012 she received a call and had surgery to remove one of her kidneys. Soon after, someone living somewhere in Canada received her gift of life.

Why did she do it? 

"People across Canada are dying of kidney disease," she says. "If I could save someone's life, why not do that?"

Her faith also played an important role. 

"Our body is the biggest gift God has given us, especially if we've been given good health," she says. "We can share it with someone who needs to get healthy."

Looking back, Penner says that donating a kidney was "one of the most joyful things I have done in my life."

Now she is on a quest to encourage more people to help save the lives of those awaiting a new kidney-starting with her own denomination. 

"As Mennonites, we could lead the way," she says of the 200,000 or so Mennonites in Canada. If just a fraction of that number donated a kidney, "we could wipe out the 

waiting list in a year."

She acknowledges it won't be easy; giving a kidney is quite a bit different than giving money to feed people who are hungry, poor or sick in another part of the world.

But she thinks Mennonites, and other denominations and faith groups, should still try. 

 "We are constantly encouraged to give money to help others without needing to know who they are," she says. 

"Why not do the same with a kidney? The rewards are huge-you can save someone's life."

Penner has a blog about her experience of donating a kidney, and is happy to correspond with people who are interested in doing the same thing. Click here to visit it.