The Humble Bundle Change 30 controversy.

I have often played advocate for the Humble Bundle website and its bundles. I mean who doesn't love the idea, you can get a bunch of games for cheap if you haven't gotten much money while also having the benefit of being able to help a charity at the same time (or you can pay more and give a bigger donation).
Well if you visit the Humble Bundle website now then one of the bundles you will currently find is one called the Humble Hope For Orphans Bundle. Now the first time I saw this bundle I did have a little chuckle at the sort of weirdness of it, its called the Orphans Bundle and yet oddly enough the bundle is basically a war games/shooter bundle but when looking at it again I sort of realized why its called the Orphan bundle and thats because its supporting one charity, a charity called Change 30. In the past bundles have had a charity attached to them but usually you have been able to pick one that personally means something to you, but in this case the only charity available is Change 30 so even if you really didn't want to donate to this charity your only other option would be to lower the charity bar to £0.

OK so I'd like to say that I'm not against charity, I have worked for two and I am very proud of the fact my daughter works for one. I do think though that it's important to look into charitys who they are what there agendas are and how the cash they raise is used. Now if you read the description of Change 30 on Humble's website, it reads as follows.
" Our mission is to inspire purpose in Russian orphans by providing them with the love, guidance & resources they need to lead fulfilling lives. Our heart is for the orphans of Russia to not only survive, but thrive."
They go on to explain how the money raised will be used.

"Proceeds from this bundle will help provide care, life skills coaching, and housing and education resources to young people who have been left without support systems."

I had personally never heard of Change 30, I knew zero about them something which is probably true of a great many people visiting the humble bundle website. So in this case youd like to think Humble has vetted them and that you can rely on the descriptions and intent stated on Humbles site. Well the homepage for this charity reads much the same if you take a look at their About Us page you see a slightly different story with the following statement.

" The mission of Change30 is to inspire purpose in Russian orphans by providing them with the love, guidance & critical resources they need to lead fulfilling lives & develop a personal relationship with Jesus Christ."

OK so I have known some wonderful Christians who are very inspirational People, I have no issue with any religion or the strength of will power and character some people gain from it but I don't like anything being sold through desertion or trickery. If the charity is a religious one it should have been stated not hidden, the fact it is hidden makes me ask why was it hidden. Sure they could argue they didn't lie but this situation doesn't sit well with me.

Something else that needs asking is are Humble not aware of this and if so you could argue they haven't shown due diligence in respect to checking he charity it's donating money to, or does it know and simply not care?

If Change 30 is proud of its Christian mission, why is it hiding that fact? I have issues with this because potential customers are not being given full information, information that might make them decide to donate to another charity in another way. When this charity has already tried to hide something many may worry what else would they hide. Upon researching Change 30 a bit they have a history of being anti LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bi Trans) things like this raise questions on wether money donated will help orphans or wether it will help them push forward there agenda. One would like to think that someone who truly believes in God and Christianity would want to help the poor, and the suffering simply because it's the right thing to do regardless of if they share your world view or not rather than seeing a crisis or a vulnerable group of people as prime for conversion.

Once again I am not anti religion in fact I have a post planned about a group of fantastically charitable Christians who are very deserving of a bit of praise.