#i actually prefer ngos and charitable organizations in most circumstances

[moregraceful]

is there a reason folks are against more traditional aid (pcrf, unrwa, etc)? I know it's not just you, but I wasn't sure why the larger trend was towards individual donation instead of charitable organizations

Oh I'm not against them at all, almost all of the aid I've personally given is to UNRWA. I just keep getting asks to promote GFMs and I thought I might as well do something about that specifically. I don't generally know what other people's opinions are. I've seen it mentioned that a lot of charitable organizations, NGOs, UNRWA etc have had to pull out of Gaza or have been greatly limited to what they are able to do in Gaza, and that because of that, people are turning to mutual aid as a way to directly help because they feel it goes further. But I don't know what the prevailing opinion is on that.

It may also be that the visibility of need on this site may look like people are against more traditional aid and are prioritizing individual donations. I've never seen so many GFM requests on this site and I've been here since 2008. That may swing what it looks like people are donating to as well, regardless of whether or not people are. Not sure.