If you're looking for a fun and informative program to watch you should check out Adam Ruins Everything on the TRU channel.

Adam Connover picks a subject on each episode and 'ruins' some (or all) assumptions you might have and some might really surprise you.

Episode 1 is about Giving. Just when you think donating and giving always helps people, Adam will tell you otherwise.

In the Adam Ruined Everything I'm talking about the topics he popped... for me! Things that I thought that were true but where I was sooooo wrong about.

Note : if you want to watch the episode first, spoiler alert

So let's start with :

Giving

The first item that got popped was :

• Diamonds

They picked the topic of giving your fiancee a wedding ring.
'They are intrinsically worthless' according to Nicky Oppenheimer, Chairman of the De beers Group which has a global monopoly on Diamonds. Edward Jay Epstein wrote a book about it and says that he bought a diamond for 6000 dollars. He walked over to a different Diamond store and was offered less than a 1000 dollars. That's a huge drop in it's value from the moment that you've bought it...

Why are we still buying those diamonds??

• Toms shoes

This part I did already know even though we've never heard of Toms Shoes here in The Netherlands. Giving away free supplies to other countries like, in this example shoes, can put people in that country out of business because they can't sell them anymore. So sending clothes and all other sorts of items can actually do more harm than good.

• canned food drives

In The Netherlands we have something that's called 'Voedselbank' (FoodBank). This is for the people who needs some help to get enough food on the table each day. Good initiative. I looked up their website and they accept both Food and Financial donations. According to Adam, only the Financial Donation would really benefit them.

What? Money?

Adam gives believable arguments. When we buy food to give away, we buy them at retail consumer price and most of the time they aren't the best nutricient foods we give away. The food needs to be shipped to a warehouse. People need to shift through the foods to see what has been donated, look at the expiration dates and sort everything out. So... it's not the most efficient way to give. And during the times like Christmas people will give exponentially more... food.
Money actually gives the Voedselbank the opportunity to buy food like vegetables in large quantities and with a good amount of discount. This way they can give people a more diverse and nutritional menu who really depend on it each month.

I never really though about it that way. Donating money really seems better this way.

And apparently this also applies to other donations like disaster donations. (apparently they are called the second disaster.).

What is the most efficient way to give and cost nothing in shipping etc? Yep. Again... money.

It can help local economies, people can buy what they actually need instead of what has been donated and might even spend it on, for instance, the education of their child.

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Thanks for all the insights Adam. Until next episode!