We were having dinner with some new friends when the wife told us about her daughter who had lost her job. Just like that it was gone. She worked for an NGO in a foreign country.

She and her children love where they live and she seemed to like her job, my friend said. Her NGO or non-governmental organization had as its mission the goal of ensuring that elections in the remote parts of the country were democratically held.

“They lost all of their funding in one day. No warning and no severance for her,” my friend explained.

An NGO is an independent, typically not-for-profit organization that operates outside government control, though it may get a significant percentage of its funding from government or corporate sources. So says Wikipedia.

I was definitely sympathetic. Here was a mother who was worried about her daughter and her grandchildren. My son lost his job about six months ago and I think about it everyday, hoping he will find something soon.

But I have to admit I also thought: What is the U. S. doing sending money to this country to ensure that its elections are held properly? Isn’t that the country’s job?

When I shared the story with a friend this morning, he brought up another point. If the only source of funding for this group was the United States government—which seemed to be the case—then it wasn’t exactly non-governmental . . . at least according to Wikipedia which mentions varied sources of funding.

“Score one for DOGE,” he added. I would never say that to my friend because, as I said, her daughter’s job loss is very personal. But I had to agree that it didn’t feel like the best use of taxpayer money. Especially when the U. S. national debt is $36 trillion or $106,000 for every citizen. I could be wrong since I don’t know exactly how the NGO operated.

But back to my friend. Her son-in-law also works for an NGO—one that is dedicated to removing land mines in war-torn countries. Now there’s a mission that all of us could get behind. But it seems there is a caveat to that work, as well. Some of the locals have developed a scheme in which they bring the mines into the NGO and are paid for their removal. But then they take these mines back so they can dig them up and get more money.

I found that part of the story particularly confounding. I wasn’t sure how that could work. If the NGO knows about it, why don’t they stop it? I’m sure it’s complicated. And where there’s a will to take advantage of a situation and line one’s pockets, there is often a way to make it happen.

I suppose we could debate the importance of NGOs, which sometimes appear to operate without much oversight. I remember that the company I worked for often funneled its charitable contributions to troubled countries through NGOs because that was the only way money could be distributed to people in need. But even groups with the most charitable of missions deserve a looksee now and then.

For example, in 2010, the venerable American Red Cross raised $500 million for earthquake relief for the people of Haiti, but then spent $125 million on its own internal expenses, according to a U. S. Senate report. Since that same earthquake, Haiti appears to have received $4.4 billion in foreign assistance from the U. S.—much of it through USAID. And, yet, the country continues to struggle.

That’s a head-shaker. Where has all that taxpayer money gone? It doesn’t seem to have benefitted the poor people of Haiti.

The good news for my friend’s daughter is that there appear to be almost ninety NGOs operating in the country where she lives. Hopefully, she will quickly find a new job. Or the group that she works for will be able to tap into other sources of funding.

My accountant’s office called today to say I could pick up my taxes, and that I should be prepared to write a check to the IRS. So I guess the issue of making sure government money is being spent wisely is personal to me as well.