This Easter, Gift Different with Heifer

Are you gearing up to fill someone’s Easter basket with candies and other treats? This Easter, consider putting eggs in someone else’s basket and “hatch hope” for a family in need.

Heifer’s infographic illustrates the multiplying power of something as simple as a flock of chicks.

Easter gift infographic - Heifer International

Heifer International’s gifts – at Easter or any time – provide new hope and new life for families in need.

Give different. Give Heifer.

Give $10 on Facebook to Make a Huge Impact

Are you one of the nearly 100,000 Heifer Facebook Fans? If not, head on over and become one now (Heifer International on Facebook). Better yet, check out our new Facebook app, Heifer $10 Impact, and donate $10 today to help us reach our $1,000,000 goal for 2013. Curious what that kind of money can do in just one year? Check out the infographic below.

Heifer $10 Impact

Your Dad Doesn’t Want More Ties

Looking for a unique Father’s Day gift for your Dad? Maybe the father of your children? Save yourself a trip to the department store, and definitely don’t bother getting him another box of golf balls (he collects them on the course for free!).

Get the #1 gift for the #1 Dad in your life.

Father's Day HeiferGraphic

They Eat the Least, But Spend the Most

As we in the United States enjoy a season full of holiday traditions of dining with friends and family and giving thanks for what we have, it’s interesting to put our luck in the plenty-to-eat department into even finer perspective.

Check out this infographic by Foodservicewarehouse.com, that shows that the countries that consume the least amount of calories spend the largest percentage of their income on the food they do eat. Click first on the calories consumed tab, then next on percentage of income spent on food.

Click here for more information on sources and development of the graphic.

Natural Disaster Giving: Haiti v. Pakistan

Remember the earthquake in Haiti? Of course you do, and there’s a good chance you donated money to relief efforts. Now, remember the flooding in Pakistan? Maybe, since it was just last summer, but did you also give to it? Chances are you didn’t. In fact, not nearly as many people did. Just take a look at this new infographic from Good magazine that compares donations—both individual and organizational—for the two disasters.

GOOD-on-Pakistan-v-Haiti--007

Why do some natural disasters get more media attention and donations? The easiest explanation is that the more devastating the disaster, the more people donate. Too often, we measure devastation by looking at one figure—the number of people killed. And while it’s true that the Haiti earthquake killed more than 200,000 and the Pakistan floods killed about 2,000, the floods in Pakistan displaced more than 21 million people, set the economy back two generations, and brought instability and poverty to a region already associated with terrorism.

Another theory, spelled out in a recent New York Times article, is that people give more to immediate, quick-hitting disasters, such as an earthquake or tsunami. We can see the crumbled buildings; it all happens at once. Whereas a slow-building disaster, such as a flood, occurs over weeks and months. By the time a final tally of the human and economic toll is available, our attention has moved on.

Five weeks after the Haiti earthquake, 48 aid groups polled by The Chronicle of Philanthropy had collected three-quarters of a billion dollars. Five weeks after the flooding in Pakistan, a similar poll found 32 aid groups had collected just $25 million.

In all, $3.4 billion has been collected for the victims of the Haiti earthquake as of October, with more than $1.1 billion coming from private donations, according to figures compiled by the United Nations. Close to $1.7 billion has been pledged for Pakistan, but less than $300 million came from private donors. The United States government pledged almost one-third of the total.

Humanitarians have long struggled with this paradox. The number of dead, along with the swiftness and drama of their demise, trumps almost any amount of agony among those who survive a disaster, particularly a creeping one. [emphasis mine]

How Big Is Africa?

Bigger than many of us realize. On many maps, Africa looks to be about the size of Greenland due to the distortion of making a round object appear flat. Not surprisingly, people who grow up with these distorted maps seriously miscalculate the size of different countries and continents. Geographic illiteracy, if you will.

This infographic by Kai Krause, which I stumbled across on Information is Beautiful, visually explains the true size of Africa—it’s roughly the size of China, India, Japan, the U.S. and Europe combined.
True Size of Africa

Where is Haiti?

All of these posts about Haiti got us to wondering: Do people even know where Haiti is? It’s closer than you might think—in the Caribbean just southeast of Cuba and east of Jamaica. And at bottom, a map showing where Heifer International is currently working in Haiti. Stay tuned for a full update on post-quake Haiti in the Holiday issue of World Ark magazine.

Haiti map

Heifer Haiti map

World Giving Index

The World Giving Index is out. Compiled by the Charities Aid Foundation, it’s the largest study of charitable giving around the world. The U.S. ranks fifth in the world, behind Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Canada (and tied with Switzerland). According to the study, 60 percent of Americans have given money and 39 percent have given time. Read more and view a larger version of the infographic over at The Guardian‘s Datablog.