GOATS FOR GOOD

$100 buys a family a female goat to breed. Her kids become “money in the bank“ to help bring that family out of extreme poverty. Better yet, the first litter of goats (usually two kids) from each female is gifted to neighbors in the same situation. After giving away the first litter of kids, the original family can keep all future kids to build their own herd. Why do we do this? First, it allows the family to give back to help their own neighbors. Second, it allows the program to grow organically. Your $100 helps the first family to help two other families who later help four families and so on. You get the picture. Your single gift grows logarithmically to help multiple families!

The program works as follows:

Families in greatest need are identified as recipients and are educated on the care of goats. They agree to and sign a contract that says the foundation will “lend” that family a female goat. They are to care for that goat and, when mature, mate the female with a local male goat. They subsequently care for the new kids until three months of age. At that point, they return male goats to the program to be sold and the money from that sale is used to purchase additional females for the program. They themselves gift any female kids to another family in need who then is educated and signs the same contract. Once they return or give the kids from the first litter, the mother goat becomes the property of that family and they can begin to breed her to slowly build their own herd. The beauty of this program is we hope to be able to grow organically – 1 goat becomes 2 goats, which becomes 4… 8…16, etc. One litter of 2 kids a year is a 200% return on investment! The advantage to goats as opposed to other animals is that goats eat virtually anything so the family does not need to purchase food, and the meat is highly valued so goats can be easily sold when necessary. Another advantage is these mixed breed “bush“ goats in the DR tend to be quite hardy.

Our goals for the project are twofold. First, we want to help the families economically. Most of them live day-to-day on very low wages and most of them have no ability to raise their standard of living or to deal financially with inevitable family emergencies. Even if they manage to save a little money, there are no banks available to them, and they have no practical experience with investing for their family’s future since they have never had anything extra to invest. We look at the goats as a “bank with hooves“. If the family continues breeding the female goat, slowly they go from 1 goat to 2 to 4 to 8 and so on, thereby building equity for themselves. When an emergency arises, they can sell a goat to pay for whatever help is required. Furthermore, it gives them the ability to pay for schooling, healthcare, better food, and safer homes. 

The second goal is to allow the recipient families to give back. One of the criticisms of charitable giving is that it frequently creates dependence and diminished feelings of self-worth in the recipients. We believe this program is different. The family is held responsible to protect and care for their goat, or they risk losing their goat and their subsequent ability to build equity. Better yet, they get the satisfaction of helping the program grow by giving back or helping their own neighbor by giving forward, and finally the satisfaction of successfully fulfilling their contract.