A while back I wrote that you should give grassroots impact your attention, and maybe cash.
Now if you’ re seriously considering it, here are three really practical ways you can encourage your favourite grassroots worker. Each way is an immense blessing and reminder that in the face of daily challenges they’re not alone. If you choose to act, you will set yourself in an exclusive group of givers who keep grassroots organisations alive long after grant funds run dry.
Now to be really exceptional within that group, there are some things that your grassroots friend may not tell you, but they almost certainly want you to know. If you stop reading at the drawbacks, you might feel as though there’s no hope, but that’s not the case at all. Read to the end for tips to make sure you achieve the best results from your kindness.

What are these three ways?

1- Cash. Cash is a powerful tool on the ground. It gives us the ability to get what we need today, and make immediate changes for the good of our beneficiaries. Whether we need to put fuel in the generator or car, replace a dying office computer (or chair), or pay the accountant, cash is king. Many grassroots organisations would multiply what they do quickly if their front-line workers had more free-flowing budgets.
On top of that, projects like a community water tank or a set of sports equipment which fall outside the usual work can be hard to justify in already over-stretched budgets. Gifts given to the specific project are often the only way that the project actually gets added.

So what do you need to know?
In a place like Vanuatu, just getting cash into our hands can be challenging. The nation features on a number of international banking naughty lists, and therefore doesn’t have access to handy tools like Stripe and PayPal the same as many developed economies. Not only that, receiving large gifts from overseas can create a headache for satisfying anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism funding regulations.
Although giving cash to specific purposes can often be the only way to assure that program is adopted, it can create difficulties if the day to day operation is not properly funded. What do I mean? Many grassroots organisations operate on budgets so tight they’d make your eyes water. It’s not unusual to need to decide to either put fuel in the truck, OR pay the internet bill. In a situation where general funds for operating are so tight, having project funds set aside in the bank account can be both tempting and frustrating. On the one hand, there’s a strong argument for “borrowing” those designated funds to keep the internet connection live, at least until the usual general donations come in to replace it (that’s a slippery slope to dance on). On the other hand, if your gift has only provided part of the entire cost of the program, your favourite grassroots worker is now under pressure to raise the rest of the money to get the program running. If all of the cash is there, perhaps they now need to recruit the volunteers they need to deliver the program. All of these project specific tasks need to happen while keeping the other things going and fixing the budget shortfall.

2-Volunteer. Bring your expertise and skills. By getting yourself on a plane and showing up in the field with your favourite worker, you get to experience all of the sights, sounds and smells which don’t show up in email and social media. You’ll have a much more personal view of the challenges of day to day work in grassroots ministry. By working shoulder-to-shoulder with your favourite worker, you’ll show them a level of encouragement that you cannot communicate from a distance. You’ll achieve tasks that they’ve had to put off because more urgent things kept on coming up. You’ll fix or resolve issues which may have been around long enough to begin truly demotivating people. An example:

During the 2 year border closures Vanuatu faced due to COVID, the small staff team at V2 Life poured our heart and souls into keeping our primary school open and thriving despite being unable to access the usual volunteer teams who would help keep things going. As a result, basic maintenance began to be left on the side for a day when motivation and time were more free flowing. During that time, cats discovered that if trying to escape the dog, mosquito screens make excellent ladders. Inevitably the plastic mesh soon gave way leaving large holes for both bugs and cats to get through the windows into the kitchen and bedrooms. Having cats getting into the kitchen rubbish while everyone slept got very, very tiresome. Right after the borders opened, a volunteer arrived though Mission Builders with a knee injury but a heart to serve. Being otherwise able bodied, we asked David to spend his days repairing mosquito screens on our kitchen and dormitory buildings. While this was a simple task, David’s help and willingness to volunteer was a boost to us all after years of being “alone”.

Very often, visiting volunteers can use their expertise and energy to get a great deal done and to a high standard. And when coming as part of a team, they can be a vital way for the organisation to deliver programs.

So what do you need to know?
If the charity are profoundly short of manpower, they may not be able to supervise you, or even give you an extensive introduction to the location. You may be left to your own devices in a place which is unfamiliar, you may be in a position where you need to ask lots of “dumb” questions. This is particularly true for places where no volunteers have visited in a long time. The ability to simply do whatever needs doing without being “high maintenance” is a real blessing.
Even organisations which are well practised in hosting visitors may struggle to keep you busy: perhaps your skill set requires supplies, tools, or materials for which a budget does not exist (see the point about cash).
If you have particular ideas about how you are going to help, and those ideas are not likely to help your grassroots workers, one of two things could happen. In the best case scenario, you’re disappointed but adjust your expectations and move to what can be done. In the worst case scenario, for fear of offending or disappointing you, your hosts won’t know how to tell you “no”, and will spend your entire visit trying to make what you “want” happen, despite potential negative impacts to their ongoing ministry.
Assuming that you’re the best kind of volunteer and a blessing at every turn, in small grassroots teams it’s still very likely that your visit will have added extra pressure and obligation to the team. While they’ll be happy to have, there will likely be a sigh of relief when you’re gone, and they no longer need to worry about whether you have everything you need.

3- Gifts in kind. Often when generous businesses or individuals have items which could be useful, they can save a great deal of time and money for everyone by donating the item directly to their grassroots workers rather selling them and donating cash which then needs to be converted into the item locally. This is a great solution when the worker needs a specific tool which would be difficult or expensive to obtain brand-new. The local private ambulance service in Vanuatu benefitted from this when they received secondhand ambulances from Australia. Additionally, there can be benefits to both donor and recipient: while the donor might gain a tax benefit (in some places), tax and import regulations for the recipients can often be less of an ordeal for donated secondhand goods than new items. On top of that, the items may be of better quality than the budget might allow, and more specifically suited to the task in question.

So what do you need to know?
The big difficulty in receiving gifts in kind is timing. Many times a gift becomes available at a time mis-aligned with the need. Perhaps a school is replacing their old but still useful desks, but to make way for new ones, they need to move the old ones this week. On the recipient end, if the item arrives too early, the classrooms the new desks will furnish are not yet built. So these generous and valuable donations need to be stored somewhere, risking theft, damage or destruction before it is used.
The converse is also a challenge: perhaps the recipients need a replacement printer for the office, and a local business has one due for replacement in 6 months which will be hugely helpful. The recipients’ immediate need for a printer is still a problem, and one which could potentially cost a great deal in the intervening time.

So how can you be awesome in your giving?
In all cases, listen carefully: your grassroots worker wants your engagement. They know you want to be generous and helpful, but they’re also pretty nervous that if they tell you something too blunt, you’ll move on to other legitimate needs. Listen carefully to what your worker is actually saying. Listen for the pain points. Consider whether your project-specific gift might be a better blessing in the less glamorous general fund.
Consider whether your particular volunteer skills will be a blessing in this season. Ask whether your preference for hot (or cold) weather, or your crippling fear of worms, is going to cause you discomfort and make you unhelpful.
Consider whether you can raise extra cash to cover your own materials when you’re volunteering.
Consider whether you have the flexibility and relaxed nature necessary to deal with daily (or even hourly) changes to your volunteer role (if flight schedules change, you may have very little time to do what you hope to).
When you are discussing a gift in kind, listen carefully and understand whether your timing is right. Can you store the goods before shipping them to your workers, so that they can focus on the work and not on trying to store awesome things that they can’t use yet?
Consider whether there will be costs at the recipient end which they have not budgeted for. Can you help cover those as part of your gift?

In all of this, don’t stop engaging, giving, and going. Your impact is significant, and as you listen and watch your grassroots workers, that impact will get even better!

What have I missed? What other things do you think every giver should know?