Mutual aid is a voluntary reciprocal exchange of resources and services for mutual benefit. Those involved care for each other and provide resources/ supplies/ ideas/ solutions/ skills/ and services for the good of the community. Charity is an organization set up to provide help and raise money for those in need. These words, although often used interchangeably by those who are unaware of their true meanings or are unequivitable. Mutual aid is the most ethical and beneficial way for communities and individuals to care for each other because of the community-building power of mutual aid, the monetary and physical efficiency of mutual aid over charity, and the foundational supremacy of the nonprofit industrial complex.
Mutual aid is ancient. Pëtr Kropotkin states in his 1902 book Mutual Aid : A Factor of Evolution “The mutual-aid tendency in man has so remote an origin, and is so deeply interwoven with all the past evolution of the human race, that is has been maintained by mankind up to the present time, notwithstanding all vicissitudes of history” (Kropotkin). Mutual aid at a very basic level is the natural human need to care for and be cared for. Because of this, mutual aid allows communities to become closer and learn and grow together while learning of each other’s needs and abundances. This is a term those in mutual aid use to describe the tangible and intangible resources that exist within the world. Every person has need, and every person has an abundance of some kind. Take for example a college student. They may not have money, or transportation, but they have time or professional skills. They can distribute resources (such as the snack bags shown in the image below) that are given to them by folks who have access to money, or transportation, as well as use their skills that they have learned in academia to assist those they are in solidarity with. J. Kirby spoke of his own experience with this in NYC during the beginning of the COVID pandemic in a letter to left organizers “Everyone pitched in where they could. Several neighbors sewed handmade masks and distributed them to anyone who needed them. Another neighbor worked for the city council person’s office and included us in their list of local resources in the weekly newsletter. Another moderated our weekly meetings and connected us to Mutual Aid NYC, the umbrella organizing group for the more than 90 mutual aid groups that had spontaneously sprung up around the city” (Kirby) .In a mutual aid system, all who are involved rally together to find who has what needs, abundances, and skills and how they can be best put to use. Mutual aid is sustainable, as it is not limited to the confines of the nonprofit industrial complex. It is at the deepest level, humans helping humans be human.
Mutual aid is also more monetarily efficient than Charity. In mutual aid, the money goes directly to resources, and then the resources to the people they are meant to serve. In charity, there is very little idea of where the money goes once it is donated. Marc Gunther, in his article Why Amazon Smile Doesn’t Make Me Smile for Nonprofit Chronicles, states that in 2015 Amazon donated “0.00012 percent of sales. That’s $1.20 in donations for every $10,000 of sales.” (Gunther). This is much less than the .5% Amazon claims to donate. Amazon also makes it so that you have to remember to use the Amazon smile link, which is easy to forget when making purchases. Imagine what would happen if you donated those few dollars, or that recurring dollar from your recurring Amazon subscription, to a hyper-local mutual aid group? A dollar could buy all sorts of things that you could literally hand to someone with need in your own neighborhood. A toothbrush, a water bottle, a sandwich, a snack, deodorant, a notebook, the list goes on forever but the point is that the impact that your few cents will have on a randomly chosen charity from a list of charities is so much smaller than the impact of physically either giving that abundance to a local mutual aid group, or simply doing mutual aid yourself by buying items and giving them to those who you see have need. It is true that charities get a lot of money.
Supporting individuals so that they can grow as members of their community is the most important part of mutual aid, and as the graph below shows, the least important part of charity. Charitynavigator.org says that “Total giving to charitable organizations was $410.02 billion in 2017 (2.1% of GDP). This is an increase of 5.2% in current dollars and 3.0% in inflation-adjusted dollars from 2016” (Giving Statistics). But what if that money were rather donated to local mutual aid organizations that could use that money to support our own communities? Not only would it create safer and more resourceful communities, but it would also save many people money in the long run as their communities became stronger and more full of resources.
Back to the need and abundance model; In mutual aid practice, community members are directly involved and equal, sharing resources. This can be as abstract as time. A person who has extra time providing childcare for caretakers of children who need help with childcare. Or as simple as allowing a neighbor to use your hose or other physical resources. Charity, however, insinuates that those giving aid are above those receiving. “Those in need”. “The needy”. This model is supremacist in nature, as it puts those donating over those receiving charity. This comes out in physical ways such as those involved in the process not putting soul and heart into their work due to the lack of connection to the communities. One example of this is eviction defences of unhoused folks in Philadelphia. Time and time again Philadelphia homeless services are called out to provide “service days” to unhoused populations in support of the police evicting the unhoused from whatever space they were taking up. These homeless services staff have no connections to those they are “serving” and I have personally watched them stand by and talk amongst their co-workers as police threw unhoused folks belongings into garbage trucks and forcefully evicted them. Instead of providing lasting solutions like housing, they use their abundance of funds to send unhoused folks on busses and trains to other cities and states without any support. They work with the city to disappear these people. The opposite of this is the community members (such as I) who come to these events with resources such as food, water, and other necessities, weeks and months after having gotten to know these unhoused neighbors. A concrete example of this is the James Talib- Dean and Teddy Encampments that existed the summer of 2020. These camps were run as communities where unhoused and housed folks could come together in solidarity and provide abundances and skills to meet the needs of those we were in community with. This meant building a kitchen to feed people, playing games and hearing each other’s stories, protesting police killings and brutality, and many other facets of mutual aid. The resources, financial, physical, and immiteral, were endless and the solidarity that existed in this community was breathtaking. The homeless services folks exist as a facet of the cities attempt to disappear unhoused folks by moving them all around; the mutual aid system exists as a facet of humanity, and works tirelessly to house and support ever person who needs housing, which is only a growing number do to the COVID19 pandemic. NPR states “The nation’s homeless population grew last year for the fourth year in a row. On a single night in January 2020, there were more than 580,000 individuals who were homeless in the United States” (NPR).
Mutual aid is what should be invested in by communities and community members rather than nonprofits and charity because of the monetary and physical efficiency of mutual aid over charity, the foundational supremacy of the nonprofit industrial complex, and the community-building power of mutual aid. Mutual aid is a beautiful, wonderful thing and there are many ways to get involved in mutual aid in your own community. Get involved in already existing mutual aid networks in your area. These can be found usually on Google, Instagram, or other social media by searching your communities name and mutual aid. You can also attend protests, rallies, teach-ins, and other community events, mutual aid orgs usually bring food and water. One example of this is Food Not Bombs, which is an international mutual aid organization devoted to feeding any and all people who are hungry. If none exist, create one. Start small with a community fridge or pantry. Helping to build the pantry at the Germantown fridge in Philadelphia was one of my first experiences with using my skills for a mutual aid organization. I never knew that doing stage crew in high school would allow me to be a part of such a wonderful project, but retrospectively I am so glad I made all of those musical sets. Cameron Russo speaks on how community fridges started in her article How to Start Your Own Community Fridge “In an effort to diminish the impact of the issue, local activists and community organizers took action by installing community fridges in neighborhoods across the city. By offering fresh produce, prepared meals, and pantry staples that are free to all, the fridges have become an increasingly popular mutual aid effort to combat food insecurity and food waste” (Russo). Another thing you can do is collect climate and weather appropriate clothes and supplies for folks who are unhoused or rough sleepers and pass them out. Flea markets have a lot of cold weather clothing for cheap. You can also ask your friends to donate coats and other clothing. If you have a car I guarantee you have driven past someone who needed something. Keep cash in your car or kits with food and other specific supplies to your community and hand them out when you see people. In all of these things, be intentional. Mutual aid is very much about relationships. Get to know the people you are in community with. Spend time getting to know your neighbors, both housed and unhoused. Not only will you find ways to invest your time and abundance in your own community, but you will also find ways that your community can invest their abundance into you.
Citations
Charity Navigator. “Giving Statistics.” Accessed April 28, 2021. http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=42.
NPR.org. “HUD: Growth Of Homelessness During 2020 Was ‘Devastating,’ Even Before The Pandemic.” Accessed April 28, 2021. https://www.npr.org/2021/03/18/978244891/hud-growth-of-homelessness-during-2020-was-devastating-even-before-the-pandemic.
Statista Infographics. “Infographic: Where Are America’s Charity Dollars Going?” Accessed April 28, 2021. https://www.statista.com/chart/9811/where-are-americas-charity-dollars-going/.
Mutual Aid. Accessed April 28, 2021. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-mutual-aid-a-factor-of-evolution.
Russo, Carmen. “How To Start Your Own Community Fridge.” Medium, July 27, 2020. https://medium.com/the-interlude/how-to-start-your-own-community-fridge-537767b4e4d7.
Organizing Upgrade. “Solidarity, Not Charity: Sustaining Mutual Aid in a Pandemic » Organizing Upgrade,” October 5, 2020. https://www.organizingupgrade.com/solidarity-not-charity-sustaining-mutual-aid-in-a-pandemic/.
Nonprofit Chronicles. “Why Amazon Smile Doesn’t Make Me Smile,” March 28, 2017. https://nonprofitchronicles.com/2017/03/28/why-amazon-smile-doesnt-make-me-smile/.
