In the video, Jack buys a goat on his mother’s behalf and Isaiah gets a goat dropped into his family’s lap. Perhaps the video is not meant to be taken seriously, or maybe it intends to create a friendly myth, like the tooth fairy or Santa Claus. Someday Jack’s dad is going to read this blog and have to tell Jack the truth. In my view, a better approach would be to provide this information to potential donors more directly so they can know the extent of the complexity of the situation.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about World Vision’s gift catalog and their solicitation to purchase animals for needy families. Some readers were surprised to learn that a donation to buy a goat (or some other animal) does not of necessity lead to the purchase of a goat. Instead, World Vision’s spokeswoman, Amy Parodi,* told me that the money goes into a fund which helps support agricultural or other community based assistance for needy families. That support may or may not include the purchase of some animals.  To some readers, that was new information; others had always assumed something akin to Parodi’s explanation was true.

Since then, I have read more about animal donations and asked World Vision a few more questions. World Vision answered quickly and clarified some points. As it turns out, the organization doesn’t keep track of how many animals are purchased. More about that shortly.

In 2006, Jon Dennis in the US edition of the Guardian investigated claims that donors were buying goats for needy families. He wrote:

So is your money is going on a real goat? “No,” Oxfam spokeswoman Katie Abbotts told Guardian Unlimited’s Newsdesk podcast. “The public are buying into the idea that they’re buying a calf … We need to have the choice to buy the livestock most appropriate to a community, depending on their circumstances and local environment. So it might not be appropriate to buy a goat in some instances, but we’ve never made that a secret.”

Dennis interviewed an OXFAM representative who said information about the actual use of the funds was “in big letters” in their catalog. However, Dennis said the information wasn’t on the organization’s “shopping pages” but did appear elsewhere in OXFAM’s materials.

In 2011, the charity group GiveWell recommended against animal purchases, calling them “donor illusions.”  On the other hand, in 2008, the progressive New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof favored the approach.

In 2010, filmmaker Christopher Richardson went to Africa to find his goat and recorded the experience in the documentary “Where’s My Goat?”

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