I appreciate the fact that Linda took the time to respond to my questions about sustainability.  And I do appreciate the fact that there are many circumstances when short-term fixes can alleviate an emergency setting. My question is NOT about the sustainability of her program, which is local.  What I wanted was a financial report about the donations from IMBP and I find it troubling that they did not automatically provide such information to her.

I have a few more questions for Linda.  Has IMBP assisted you in any way other than providing milk to build up the sustainability of your own program?  Have they helped you develop staff to attract donors?  Have they helped you to improve your processing systems?  Why haven't they provided you with crucial information about the sustainability about their donations?

I have previously posted why one should look gift horses in the mouth on Lactnet.  There are many reasons why what at first appears "free" is not.  The milk was NOT free for the mothers that took the time and trouble to pump that milk.  The milk was NOT free to ship to South Africa.  Someone paid for the shipping somewhere.  Here it is important to know whether those are donating are aware of proportion of the milk they donate actually goes South Africa and what proportion goes into for profit production.  Clearly their marketing is reaching a substantial proportion of first world mothers.  The same resources that went into the websites, the brochures, the shipping, the plane fares (with all the hidden environmental costs) could have been channeled into building the same systems IN South Africa.  

When I donate my time, goods, or money, I would want to know that a reasonable amount of what I donate is going towards the cause at hand, and not being funneled into some for profit endeavor.  I learned that when someone wanted to donate something to the programs I used to advise when I was working for Helen Keller, I needed to check out what they were donating and look into the hidden reasons for that donation. 

In one case the donation of almost expired iron supplements would have cost more for us to ship to Africa than it would have cost to just buy those supplements.  It made more sense to save the money on shipping and put that money into messages to fathers (who controlled the finances in that particular area) to buy locally available and affordable liver snacks for their pregnant wives.  

In another case, we probably spent more staff time and money on "dinners" to educate and entertain the donor representative than we received.  We spent inordinate amounts of time repeatedly answering his questions about how many vitamin A capsules were directly delivered.  We never could get him to understand the more important question of how the local ministries of health and nongovernmental agencies were improving in developing their own delivery systems and gardening programs.  He preferred little projects giving vitamin A capsules to 100 people at a time to programs that would reach millions (yes, some of the Helen Keller International programs did have this reach) by assisting local institutions that could continue theses programs on their own.  In the end, this particular company was one of two that was nailed for price fixing in developing countries in South America.  Yes, the same countries that they were supposedly helping with a tiny tiny tiny proportion (we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars versus their billion dollar operations) of their profits were being soaked for a far greater amount of money elsewhere.

As for women who want to donate in the United States, I will still continue to suggest that they donate money to develop local milk banks in other countries and donate their milk locally.  

Best regards, Susan Burger

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