Why funds refuse or ratio against sympathy

Larysa Sidelnik , Krona WFD Program Coordinator

Today, while sorting through the mail, I saw a request to help raise incredible money for a drug for a child. In the description traditionally "which funds were not applied to, we were all denied"
We often hear "you can’t help! Why such funds?" I decided to tell why we refuse and why we can’t.

Not at the address

Requests are received daily. Many. By e-mail, telephone, in messengers. They write to me late and on weekends. All possible diagnoses and stories. Half - not up to us.
Each foundation has a certain specialization - whether in nosology, or in age, or in the problem area. Employees of such a fund are experts in this field. However, people are lazy to go to the site and read what the foundation is doing, just write in the hope that it will work. Therefore, get "no".

More unknown

Proper, responsible charity is first and foremost an examination. The money should go where it is really needed and will help. It is necessary to study documents, hold consultations with doctors, officials, review scientific articles, run on the Internet, where there are still messages and fundraisers for this person. Many appeals concern cases when people can help in Ukraine, but relatives "do not trust our doctors" and go abroad. And when the money is over, they ask for help. They have no official conclusions that treatment can only be obtained abroad. Or just "the child is diagnosed, so you need a lot of money for treatment." When you ask what exactly, people disappear, even with aggression. There are requests when the medicine or operation is covered by the state, but the relatives do not want to defend their rights.

Trade in hope

Very difficult stories. Most often about a child who can no longer be cured. Doctors said and wrote that the possibilities are exhausted, it is better not to torture the child. Understanding and making decisions in such cases is the most difficult. Sometimes it is small, but the chance is some experimental treatment, the best technology, super equipment. Here we request all medical documentation to obtain alternative expert opinions. If all foreign clinics say "palliative" and Israel says something else for all the money in the world - we do not take. If the parents do not provide documents, or the family has already made this decision and we are not able to get an alternative opinion - we will not undertake to raise money. If this child is under the care of an army of "volunteers" who spread toxic posts on social networks about the only dubious chance - we will not take up this case and you should not.
Because this is no longer help for the child, but the earnings of the clinic, "volunteers" and a bunch of dishonest intermediaries and fraudsters.

Professional beggars

There are people for whom donations have become a constant source of income. Uncontrolled accountable money corrupts them. They lose their sense of proportion, their responsibility for the situation, become infantile consumers, the whole family stops working and lives on the forests. A mother of one child has been writing to us for several years and asking for money for growth hormone. We found out that she receives the drug for free from the state. However, her requests and reposts of heartbroken people "flooded the planet".
If a person asks a lot and often, if he is rude and reluctant to give evidence of the need for funds, he hides something - you definitely need to say "no".

The high price

Please help raise funds for the drug, which is ATTENTION! 2.5 million dollars (70 million hryvnias! One injection for one child). Today it is the most expensive genetic drug in the world, which (possibly) can stop the development of spinal muscular atrophy and only if injected into a child under 2 years. There are more than 250 such children in Ukraine. I have a small child, I understand my parents. But ...

Professional charity, unlike an impulsive one-time rush, is a responsibility for the money invested, for the result. If you give your money to someone, you expect it to be of maximum benefit. And it is desirable for more people. If, of course, the goal is to help effectively, not to make a good picture or PR.

So we need to turn on our brains and analyze every case and resource in the organization. Emotional outbursts have no place here. Because this way you can waste your own and other people’s resources, which can bring much more benefits somewhere.
It will take a very long time to collect such a huge amount for one child. Instead, for much less money and faster, you can help other children or buy hospital equipment (thousands of children each year).
I folded that message about the most expensive medicine and read ten more requests: Yana - you need 180 thousand dollars per cart-therapy; Mikhailik - 35 thousand dollars for rehabilitation; Danilo - 42 thousand euros for prosthetics after sarcoma; Alina - 90 thousand dollars for a kidney transplant; Dmytro - 38 thousand dollars for lymphoma therapy; hospitals - 240 thousand UAH. on functional beds; Oleksandr, who is on the verge of suicide because he cannot pay his debts due to quarantine restrictions, and he has three children - UAH 45,000.

What would you do?