Yup. Now, logistically, how hard is this? It seems promising.
Let’s assume to do this we’d want to dedicate at least one person full-time to this. There’s the sourcing of the iodized salt, determining how one ships such a thing (presumably overseas), and to what specific place it should go. I assume there’s customs to get the shipment across. Then, once it’s there, how it should be distributed.
Phew, that’s sounds like more than one person’s worth of work, and that’s just the first shipment. We need to repeat the process – including raising more funds.
I assume this person that’s hired is desirable for their logistical skills. Let’s imagine they already have money in the bank, and so will work for less than the market would otherwise pay them. How about $60K/year? Add supplies, taxes and benefits to that, I can see $100K per year for this rare value of an employee.
How far did our $20K go? Not very. Everyone is skilled and honest and working hard, but we find that $20K doesn’t supply $20K of iodized salt to people in need.
In fact, it mostly went to the salary of the skilled Westerner who is our organization. Now we see why people create charities, but also why it’s hard for charities to meet their mission even when things like malaria netting are cheap.
To be clear, this is not cynicism. It’s just that if it were a simply problem of multiplying dollars times cheap-but-effective product, it would already be solved.