On Saviorism

I was sitting down taking a lunch break talking to my old coworkers and shared how few countries in the world have not been colonized when our (white) executive director (ED) chimed in that Thailand, where she taught English, was one of them. I didn’t know that. I thought it was cool and went about my day. Then, later, as my brain was doing its daily recap of every conversation I’d had that day (lol), I was thinking, “How ‘never been colonized’ is Thailand if they had a 20-something white woman teaching English there?” Then I thought, “I too have a TEFL certification, so where does that leave us?” Unfortunately, the reality is that knowing English will provide people in Thailand with more opportunities (again, how “not colonized” are they?). That led me to thinking about a topic I’m incredibly passionate about: Saviorism. 

Me being a savior in Honduras building cement floors.

As someone who has spent all of my career in community and nonprofit work, as well as travel, I have had so much saviorism bias and am not judging my old ED because that would be hypocritical. In fact, I created a Saviorism training and the whole thing is pulled from times when I was “a savior”. If you are not familiar with the idea of “Saviorism,” this is a definition that I like:

Saviorism is the notion that individuals experiencing hardship are unable to care for themselves, need to be saved, and that those who do the saving are more righteous, knowledgeable, and capable than those they aim to serve.

This mentality informs social action that, while often well-intended, ignores structural, systemic conditions. Without acknowledging the broader structural conditions, 'saviors' maintain and wield unearned power within unjust systems.

(Equity Meets Design & Social Venture Partners Los Angeles 2021)

In other words, it is the underlying (or very conscious) bias that someone is, to some degree, beneath you and needs you to save them. It is also doing something because it makes you look and feel good, especially and even if it is with the intention of doing something for someone else. I am of the unpopular belief that all of us possess this bias- it’s just a matter of keeping it in check by not losing sight of intentionality. 

EXAMPLES

Saviorism is particularly prevalent in volunteer and nonprofit work because of the nature of “help” work. Also, notice that  I am not using the more commonly used version of this term: White Saviorism. I believe that we can all have a savior mentality and hopefully the examples will provide a little more context. 

The first example is one that many of us are more familiar with: the international volunteer. Yup! I’ve done this. When people go abroad to another country to do some project and build houses or some shit, who think they are helping and post photos of (usually) Brown people and their kids, then go back to their air-conditioned homes and never do anything about the cause again or even keep in touch with the people they met in the country, they are doing a disservice. One, because where there is no systemic change, the problem will continue to happen (refer to my Reparations blog post). Building one house for one family in one town does not solve the problems that made people houseless in the first place, which leaves them at risk for ending up back in a difficult situation (at which point we get upset because they aren’t being the “perfect type of victim” who changes their whole life and becomes perfect after we’ve “helped” them). Two, and let’s be honest, we go there because it makes us look and feel good, not because we are committed to solving systemic issues around the world. One might say, “If it’s helping, why does it matter?” I might say, “Is it helping? And you don’t like to feel like a charity case, nor do the people you are “helping”. But I would say it nicer and in an indirect way because I’m a people-pleaser who hates confrontation (therappyyyy). 

Me being a savior in Honduras, but with kids (cringe).

The second example is more local: the nonprofit industrial complex. Riddled with saviorism, many nonprofits step into dangerous territory by not addressing systemic, root causes and by how they treat their target population. To be fair, it’s not all the nonprofits’ fault. Unfortunately, you have to have or use a saviorism bias to get funding through grants most of the time. Usually, when applying for a grant and when reporting how you used the funds, granters want grantees to write about how poor and sad their population is and how their money was the thing that “fixed” those people. You can’t just throw money at a complex problem and expect the problem to go away (again, see Reparations blog post). But nonprofits have to buy into that in order to keep running. The problem occurs when people are not just pretending in order to obtain funding, but they actually believe it as well and they operate with that mentality. 

Biased Programming

If you have a program at a nonprofit and that program cannot run without you, there is a huge problem with saviorism because whether or not people get resources is centered around one person or team. We also see many nonprofits in one small area providing the same services, separately. This is a problem because each nonprofit wants the credit for it or to say that their program is better, versus letting go of ego and working together to use their individual strengths to reach more people and get closer to creating systemic change. (Pardon my harsh language and frustration; I’m passionate and this is my blog so I can say what I want lol). Or, you’ll see nonprofits who cast such a wide net and do everything! Having too wide of a scope in order to obtain more funding (look up the politics of grant funding) or to say that your nonprofit can do it all, is a red flag to me because quality is better than quantity and it means you are either burnt out from “doing it all” or you don’t have good partnerships/relationships with others in the community. Both are bad news. Stay within your scope and do it well, to allow others to take up some space and do their jobs well. Also,  partner, partner, partner! It’s a disservice to the community to have many low-quality services from one nonprofit versus many high-quality nonprofits providing different services. 

Including the Community

Also in nonprofits, there is so much programming being done without the input of the communities they are implementing these programs in. Who better to address the systemic problems of the community than the people living in it? There would be so much progress if local knowledge paired with the resources, including knowledge, money, and privilege, of a nonprofit were used to address issues. Without following the lead of the community, efforts can be misguided and cause more harm to already vulnerable communities. To be fair, the nonprofit field is beginning to lean in this direction, slowly. There is, however, incentive for some nonprofits to not create systemic change because when problems are resolved, they are out of a job. The goal should be to work yourself out of a job.

I cannot stress enough that these are only a few of the problems I’ve seen in the field. The bottom line is: wanting to help is not enough. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Without skill, knowledge of theory, a focus on systemic change (even when providing direct services), and tools to keep your saviorism bias in check, we could all do harm to the community. 

COUNTER ARGUMENT

When I talk about saviorism and people get uncomfortable, they often bring up the argument of altruism, or the phenomenon that animals naturally do things for others without something in return. ALTRUISM IS NOT REAL lol. It serves an evolutionary purpose- if I scratch your back now, I know that I’ll have someone to scratch my back later, so it is for me, it’s just not direct/instant all the time. People help because it looks good, feels good for them, they know that that person will help them when they need it, or because they’ve had similar experiences as the people they are helping (again, I don’t believe this is enough to qualify someone). 

WHY IS SAVIORISM IMPORTANT?

Inherently, helping is establishing a power dynamic between the one who helps and the one who needs help. If we are not aware of and actively working to shift this power dynamic, there will always be the haves and the have nots. A quick and easy way to describe why saviorism is important is with the food pantry example. If people in a community are starving, we could donate and put a food pantry in the neighborhood for everyone to have access to food. It is great that everyone now has access to food. The problem is that with a food pantry, it will run out of food and everyone will need to continue to donate. Eventually, donors could even run out of money. Instead, the question that we are trying to solve should be, “Why don’t people have access to food?” Solve that root cause and we don’t need a food pantry. Of course the reality is not so black and white- we currently need food pantries until we can address and solve the problem of food insecurity. 

THE REMAINING QUESTION: HOW DO WE SOLVE THE ISSUE OF SAVIORISM?

If you or your organization is interested in taking my training on how to address the saviorism bias in a nonjudgmental space, please contact me. 

In curiosity, 

Meghan