Thinking about the "why": Non-profits set out to save the world, but why does it need so much help?

Sometimes researching non-profits can be pretty disheartening.  I know, I know.  I'm supposed to say that I feel uplifted everyday when I read about the millions of children that Bono feeds per year.  Or the rainforests that Conservation International is saving from bulldozers—and many times I really do.  But then I sit back for a minute and consider it…

Okay. I've researched 51 cause-related, not-for-profit organizations, stretching across 5 sectors.  And yes, they do amazing, unbelievable work.  But man, sometimes I feel so overwhelmed thinking about them—The why is what is overwhelming.

Why do these organizations have to exist?

I know I'm getting existential, but, please, just bear with me for a minute.  In a world that would function so perfectly without us, humans have been screwing up the whole system since we got here.  Ruining the Earth, and hurting each other.  It's harsh to say out loud, but fact nonetheless.

But, non-profits don't exist in a theoretical space.  They function on the ground.  They take action—if governments fail, when disasters are too big for a community to handle, even for animals that are largely defenseless in the face of this destruction.  But maybe even more importantly, so many of the organizations that I've discovered in the past many months, advocate for people who have no voice, or whose voices have been silenced—by fear, famine, war, poverty.

And so it's easy to become disheartened— and maybe a healthy dose of realistic discouragement is good for us.  It's not all sunshine and daisies out there.  But I know this, we all do.  And yet, still, we still move through the darkness towards creating a better world.  Here, lies another big, philosophical— why? 

The answer, I believe, is because there is one redeeming aspect of the whole game:  That even though we create the chaos, even though we hurt and destroy and kill each other— we also have the capacity to save one another.  For every destructive action there is a renewing one, for every hateful voice, there is a person who offers words of hope and encouragement. 

Humans are imperfect beings, but we redeem ourselves when we fix the messes that we've made.  So instead of focusing so much on the why, maybe its time to pause the philosophical questions, and get to work healing the real pain felt on the ground.  We can thank all of the nonprofits out there for handing us the mops and buckets and brooms, and even the little bit of sunlight, necessary to start cleaning it all up.