What One Day’s Wages Means to Me

Something must have clicked for me when I interviewed Daphne Hollinger Fowler, Interim Executive Director, for an article I wrote about One Day’s Wages for a local Seattle publication a few years ago. 

I’d known about One Day’s Wages for many years, but hadn’t fully understood the scope of the work, as well as the best practices they employ to fulfill their mission of working towards a future where no one lives in extreme poverty. 

ODW supports projects that are led by the local community? 

Donors have the option to designate 100% of their donation to a specific cause or project? 

Local partners are working on a variety of poverty-related issues? 

Count me in. 

In an absolute sea of nonprofit organizations around the world working to eradicate extreme poverty, it can be overwhelming to know which ones to support financially. 

As I began to learn more about the work of One Day’s Wages, I became increasingly compelled by their work:

Locally-Led

There are certainly situations where outside expertise, such as specific technical support, greatly benefits a community. But for the most part, I believe that global poverty alleviation is most effective, not to mention dignified, when it is guided and led by the community. After all, who knows better what the community needs than the community itself? So rather than coming in with solutions from outside of the community, ODW comes alongside local partners that are already doing the good work in the context of their community.

Where Your Donation Goes

ODW is lean and efficient, giving donors the option to designate 100% of their donation (minus processing fees) directly to local partners or specific causes. This is a huge selling point for me. I’d much rather support an organization that values getting as much funding to support local partners and causes instead of one with high operations and overhead costs.

Variety of Poverty-Alleviation Causes

Perhaps it’s just me, but I struggle with wanting to support many different causes – after all, there certainly is no lack of poverty-related challenges communities are working on globally. But instead of being overwhelmed by the scope of global poverty, or trying to support every single nonprofit that I learn about, I’ve decided to support ODW because of their expertise in supporting small, effective projects. This feels right to me, and is how I want my financial donation to be used to help communities around the world as they come up with solutions for their specific contexts. 

So to me, supporting ODW is a no brainer. 

My family is a monthly Roots donor, and donates to specific projects as they come up throughout the year, such as specific campaigns or emergency needs. It’s easy to say yes to ODW because I trust that they’re having significant impacts on their local partners by funding locally-led projects. 

Will you join me in supporting ODW? It’s a great opportunity to spread some hope in a world filled with challenges. 

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Ellie White is a Seattle-based journalist and a member of ODW’s Roots community since 2020.