How do you decide what charity/ies you will give to regularly?

[Ginevra]

I made a promise to myself that if I got a FT job, I would set up an automatic giving to a worthy cause. I now have a FT job, but I don’t know how to decide where to donate regularly. I do not wish to blindly give money to a church and consider it done. I would rather “adopt” a cause, maybe for a year at a time and donate my pre-determined amount there regularly. 

Any suggestions? 

[Pawz4me]

I choose to donate locally, to organizations that I personally know are doing good work. That means I tend to give to the same very small handful of organizations, but I'm okay with that.

[Carrie12345]

I tend to focus on personal ties.  Our firehouse, a foster care organization, local food pantries, charities listed in lieu of flowers for funerals, fundraisers for local residents displaced by fires, our nearest animal rescue...

[Momto6inIN]

Our church runs a nationwide charity fund that donates time, money, and expertise, as well as coordinating and organizing volunteer teams to various places in need (both domestically and throughout the world). We also run a children's home in Indiana and a home for people with developmental disabilities in Illinois. I know from their annual reports that less than 5% of donations goes to administrative costs and overhead.

I don't expect you to donate to my church's fund LOL (although if you want the info, I'd be happy to pass that along). But for sure I'd check out any potential charity and give only to places that have substantially less than 10% overhead costs. Soooo many "charities" have high overhead and lots of your donation dollars are wasted, IMO.

[marbel]

Hmm, how have I chosen charities...

When my kids were little, I heard a presentation for an organization for sponsoring children, which included writing letters, so we did that till "our" children aged out.  

During medical crises we have given to an international medical relief organization.

Most recently I have been giving to an organization that helps victims of trafficking; it was brought to my attention by a relative who is deeply involved with it. 

I always check to be sure the charity has a good record of using their funds to actually help people. 

I give regularly to my church as a matter of course, I consider that somewhat separate from other donations. 

[happi duck]

With the current situation I think food pantries are especially important.  

[regentrude]

I choose to mostly donate locally to organizations that I know make an impact for the community. Homeless shelter, domestic violence shelter, org that has programs for pregnant teens and kids with disabilities, local music and theatre organizations.

For the global organizations to which I give, I check charitynavigator for the financial reports to make sure that they actually spend a large portion of the money on the cause as opposed to salaries for leaders and fundraising. Doctors without Borders has excellent ratings.
When the kids were little, we did Samaritans Purse and later Heifers International, because a shoebox with toys or an animal is more tangible for kids than writing a check. But we stopped after learning about the details of their expenditures. 660k and 440k for the respective directors??? No way. 

 

Edited December 6, 2020 by regentrude

[Ottakee]

Besides our church, I have several overseas charities for kids I support.   They are ones where I have personal ties as I am friends with the leadership that is boots on the ground there ....so I sponsor kids in Uganda and Haiti.

[vonfirmath]

1 hour ago, Quill said:

I made a promise to myself that if I got a FT job, I would set up an automatic giving to a worthy cause. I now have a FT job, but I don’t know how to decide where to donate regularly. I do not wish to blindly give money to a church and consider it done. I would rather “adopt” a cause, maybe for a year at a time and donate my pre-determined amount there regularly. 

Any suggestions? 

I like to give places where I have some kind of personal tie.

So yes, our church. They provide services for me and my family, it's just right that we help cover the bills

We sponsor children that we write to regularly.  And one of the organizations we do that through we follow on letters and can see when there are extra needs in their community -- food during the pandemic, then the obvious needs after Hurricane Eta and Iota blew through.   

 

Since so much of this goes to other countries, during this Christmas season I've been trying to focus more resources on local needs to balance it out. Again, though, it tends to go to needs I can donate time as well financial resources to. That I know people involved in some way.

Edited December 6, 2020 by vonfirmath

[vonfirmath]

14 minutes ago, Ottakee said:

Besides our church, I have several overseas charities for kids I support.   They are ones where I have personal ties as I am friends with the leadership that is boots on the ground there ....so I sponsor kids in Uganda and Haiti.

One of our kids is in Uganda!  And  i know of two other organizations there I'd love to more with. (And have heard of more since)

[Katy]

St Jude because I didn’t realize how much help they give to parents of children in intensive care even at the local children’s hospital until we started doing medically fragile foster care. 
 

DH’s University because he’s very loyal. 
 

Local food bank. Or in when we lived in one location there wasn’t much help for adults locally but 80% of the churches in the area donated to an inter-church program to help people by buying food or paying bills. They had a social worker helping people & that way they ensured they were helping not enabling as much as possible. 
 

I was thinking about finding an international program or two that supplies wells and maybe food because I keep thinking about those verses from Jesus about living in luxury with people dying of hunger and thirst outside the gate. I don’t think there is anyone in the USA in that kind of need any more, but I’m sure there are in other places. 

[EmilyGF]

Salvation Army.

DH is the sort of person who cares for people a lot. A few years ago, he brought a homeless woman home. We fed her and gave her warm clothes and then started calling all the shelters in our city looking for a place to bring her. Having called everything within about a 7-mile radius, we called the police. They told us, "Salvation Army will house her." Doing more research, I realized that our city relies on the Salvation Army to care for the homeless. When the woman refused to go to Salvation Army, the police told us to take her to an ER so she could spend the night in the waiting room.

Since then, I try to give to them regularly. I'm not saying that this is ideal. Right now, it is what it is. The city I live in depends on Salvation Army to care for its homeless.

Emily

[I talk to the trees]

Like Paws, I keep my donations local. I like being able to see the results of my donations in my community. 

[KrissiK]

We have several criteria for donation:

1) It’s local and we know first hand that their work is above board.

2) We have personal experience with the charity. We help support a couple orphans in Africa, and have had experience with the sponsoring organization. 
3) We send money to local camps that we have gone to as a family and believe in their work. 
4) I do not give money to panhandlers, but I make sure I give money to down town missions that help the homeless.

[bethben]

We donate to our church first.   They do quite a bit for our local community.  The rest are from personal connections.  We have a friend who runs a program for orphanages around the world.  The kids who are not able to be adopted due to the country they live in.  That’s close to our heart as we have adopted.  Except for compassion international, all of our giving is to organizations where we know the person running it.

[Lady Florida.]

I prefer to donate to local causes that mean something to me personally. I also prefer not to give to religious charities if they proselytize. Not all do, and I have given to some good (local) church charities if they don't use their charity to preach, but that's a personal issue for me. I don't give to the same charity all the time because I have several that have meaning for me.

Some of the charities/causes I give to:

--Our local no-kill shelter. My niece volunteered there as a teen and one of our cats came from that shelter. They're the only true no-kill shelter in my county.

--Ronald McDonald House of Central Florida. Dss and ddil stayed at the one in Orlando after our granddaughter Emma was born and was in NICU. They also stayed there when she had her heart surgery. They are wonderful. 

--Orlando Center for Justice. They provide legal services for underserved, underrepresented, and vulnerable populations in the Orlando area. I searched for something after the protests and race problems over the summer, and found this one.

Those are my top three. I usually bring food to local food banks but during the pandemic they understandably prefer money to buy food themselves. I've made two donations to one food bank so far during the pandemic. This is one of the cases where I do give to a church - the United Methodist church we belonged  to before we let go of our beliefs. They are wonderful and caring and if you want to hear about their God they'll tell you but they don't use their ability to help others as a way to push their beliefs on people. They simply live their beliefs to show people they walk the walk. I respect that. 

Edited December 6, 2020 by Lady Florida.

[annandatje]

My largest single donation is to an independent women's reproductive health center that I sat on board of before I got cancer.  Center provides abortions and has a birthing center.  They offer comprehensive sex ed, provide services to people who may be shunned by medical establishment such as people who are transgender or HIV positive.  Certain types of birth control such as Mirena IUD are completely free to patients thanks to a generous donor.

Our second largest donation is to our major local food bank. 

Next is St. Jude's since I know people on board. 

We also try to support our local arts community. 

I have friends on boards of all these organizations who can vouch for their wise use of donated funds. 

Since we both strongly advocate for death with dignity, we contribute to a sort of umbrella organization.

Although donations to individuals do not count as qualified charitable gifts for purpose of itemized deductions on income tax return, we give quite a bit directly to young adults who are struggling either temporarily or permanently.  These young adults usually are friends or acquaintances of my children.

Above list is in addition to political contributions to support candidates who support causes we support.

[Lady Florida.]

2 minutes ago, annandatje said:

My largest single donation is to an independent women's reproductive health center that I sat on board of before I got cancer.  Center provides abortions and has a birthing center.  They offer comprehensive sex ed, provide services to people who may be shunned by medical establishment such as people who are transgender or HIV positive.  Certain types of birth control such as Mirena IUD are completely free to patients thanks to a generous donor.

This sounds like an excellent center and worthy of donations. 

3 minutes ago, annandatje said:

Next is St. Jude's since I know people on board.

Unfortunately I often forget about St. Jude's. Ds used to participate in their mathathon fundraisers when he was still homeschooling and was middle school age. I've given to them since then but like I said, the easily slip my mind when I'm choosing an organization to give to. Like most people we have limited funds and have to choose some and leave others out. 

@Quill, I don't know if you count public tv and radio but I usually get a membership to each to support our local stations. 

[Miss Tick]

In theory I have general areas I want to support; nature, food security, medical assistance, housing assistance. We have other areas like education or libraries that we also support, but the bulk of our donations goes to the big four areas of personal importance. Then we spent some time on the websites that evaluate efficacy of different charities. after that we picked a balance of local, national and international charities supporting those efforts and divided our giving into quarters, so that each quarter we support a different charity. This makes the giving predictable for us and for them. Once it was all set up in spreadsheet we haven't really changed much.

 

[theelfqueen]

I mostly donate to my local rescue mission, local food banks, the Christmas organization we serve, the museum where we volunteer, etc. I have a personal relationship with each of these organizations and know how they spend their money. I also donate to Cure SMA, Wounded Warrior and USO. 

[1234]

We do mostly local as well.

We do our local Angel Tree every year.

There are two local LGBT groups we support. One is a gathering place for teens and the other is a home for homeless young adults.

Then we also try to donate time and money to local food banks and shelters.

 

[popmom]

I mostly choose to donate to local organizations as well-- or ones I have a personal connection to. Church. My daughters have an animal rescue organization. And the organization where my youngest daughter does therapeutic horse riding. The Forgotten Initiative is another one. It also hit me the other day to keep some cash on hand for the Salvation Army red kettles.

I don't have anything set up to give monthly. One day very soon I hope to be in a position to give more regularly. 

Edited December 6, 2020 by popmom

[mommyoffive]

We normally do local too. 

Food Pantry

Angel Tree

Salvation Army

Animal Shelters where we have gotten our dogs.

Ballets-  This year we are donating to  a bunch of them.  

 

I would love to know what charity people are using to sponsor children.  Thanks. 

Edited December 6, 2020 by mommyoffive

[Jean in Newcastle]

Besides church related giving (which I don't really think of as "charities" even though I still track it for the IRS.  😉  ), I give to the Humane Society, local food banks and World Vision (where I often choose a cause like education or medicine or the gift of livestock).   Oh and I give to some local things usually put together by the YMCA. 

Edited December 6, 2020 by Jean in Newcastle

[Farrar]

We give to several local charities that deal with poverty and hunger here in our city. We give to arts organizations we have had personal involvement with. We occasionally give to a lot of other things - dh's college, charities that friends fundraise for, the ACLU and other political causes.

We can all tell you who we choose and how... but I think it's just so personal. It sounds like you like the idea of adopting a single organization where you feel like you can make a difference. With that in mind, I'd choose something locally that's not huge. If you're going to give a few hundred dollars or more within the course of a year, then that will make a big difference to a local small organization in arts, education, poverty, etc. Given that you described, I wouldn't choose a big organization even if they do a lot of good because you're likely to feel that you've made a real difference for a smaller organization and also will likely get personally thanked, which may be something that's motivating if you're giving a small "tithe" from your paycheck each time.

[Corbster98]

As we are an active military family and that is dear to my heart, I give to causes that support not only active members but veterans as well. I also give to our local spouse organizations wherever we are stationed that provide scholarships to local high school/ college students every year. In addition, we sponsor local children of younger enlisted ranking soldiers and provide gifts at Christmas. We also bake cookies/treats every year to give to younger, single soldiers in the barracks that do not have family nearby. 

Since we have moved regularly over the years (6 different states in just the past 16 years) I always find local agencies I can become involved in by way of regular volunteering, as well as giving donations to. Whether that is providing food to the local food banks, donating needed items/ furniture/ old cars to local charities, providing gifts at Christmas time, or baking pies/ treats for the holidays to give to the local rescue missions/ churches that provide meals. 

Both of my sons are/ have been competitive swimmers for years, so I donate to the swim team regularly as well. 

I also sponsor several children at an Orphanage in Honduras. This year we purchased Christmas gifts for those children as well. 

And I have given a monthly donation for years to the ministry of K-Love radio. 

 

Edited December 6, 2020 by allySW

[gardenmom5]

for starters - one with a low overhead.  Charities can take up upwards of 80% of their revenue towards "operating expenses"  (some are even higher). - so that's money going towards staff, and NOT the charity.

Edited December 6, 2020 by gardenmom5
clarity

[athena1277]

We mostly give at church and to organizations we became familiar with through our church.  We occasionally give to individuals or families we know who have great, sudden needs, including missionaries or medical needs.  We would also give to the Parkinson’s foundation because both my dad and DH’s dad died from it.  It’s not direct cash, but when I clean out and donate clothes, toys, etc, I give them to a local thrift store whose profits help people trying to overcome drug and alcohol addiction.

[SKL]

First, I give to a limited number but varied charities.  Some of my donations are annual, and some are given as my heart moves me - for example, in response to a natural disaster or to help a new cause get off the ground or bridge a gap.

For me, other than the obvious consideration that the organization and the specific use are compatible with my values, it's important to get a good feel for the integrity of the organization.  A personal connection / close oversight is best, followed by a trusted connection with someone close to the organization, followed by a well-documented, credible history of making good use of the funds.

I prefer to designate the use of my donation vs. just hand over the cash.  For example, one of my annual donations is to a large local organization that does many things in support of mental health.  (I have been personally involved with this organization and its management in the past; I have seen first hand the good work that they do; and everyone I've ever spoken to who has experience with them has only good things to say.)  One of the things they do is provide a school for the kids in residential care.  I designate my donations to that school.

Actually, most of my donations are designated toward education in some form or other.  But I also give for more immediate needs, such as food for families in crisis.  I will give seasonal donations such as "adopt a Christmas" type things, but not all the time.

I guess you could say my giving philosophy is a hybrid between head and heart.  I am comfortable with the mix.

[Selkie]

I give to

the hospice that helped us when my mom was dying

Ronald McDonald House

local fundraisers for people experiencing medical problems or other catastrophes

our local animal shelters

organizations that transport animals up north from overcrowded southern shelters

several equine sanctuaries - I sponsor three equines (2 mules and a horse) and pay their expenses and send needed supplies monthly

an organization in Texas that rescues animals from hoarding situations (one of our dogs was rescued by them)

[marbel]

2 hours ago, mommyoffive said:

<snip>

 

I would love to know what charity people are using to sponsor children.  Thanks. 

We went through Compassion International.  They are highly rated, though after reading this thread I looked them up (it had been a while) and see the CEO gets what to me is an enormous salary. 

[Ausmumof3]

We are not doing very well with donations at the moment.  We do give a little at church but I don’t really see that as charity so much because it mostly funds the church running costs etc, with some extra to charitable work occasionally.  So really it mostly benefits us.  We have an extended family member with a child with severe epilepsy so we have given a little to the epilepsy foundation.  They are local and buy seizure monitors for families like the one we know.  I used to give to cancer research but then we knew someone working in that area who basically said they wouldn’t personally because half of it just goes on fancy dinners etc.  so that was kind of disappointing.  And maybe isn’t true of all cancer research groups, but it was a bit off putting.  
 

If I’m ever in the position of having personal money to donate or time to volunteer I would love to do it in something that relates to literacy because that means a lot to me and feels like it would make a big difference.

Edited December 6, 2020 by Ausmumof3

[Tanaqui]

I do a quick check to see:

a. what their rating is at Charity Navigator is - this is a first step, not a final step.

b. whether or not there's any seriously bad press about them on google. Charity Navigator won't tell me that they have homophobic policies etc. They're limited to financials. Google can let me know if there's any long-simmering scandals that the average person may not have heard of yet.

[scholastica]

We evaluate and choose on a regular basis. Most are local. Charities that serve the homeless are always on our list. The past few years we’ve also supported our local diaper/period supply charity. The past few years we’ve also added a charity that is run by our denomination and serves immigrants in our community. There are a few others, some local, some not. I don’t count what we give to our church since most of that stays there and keeps the lights on for us.

[Carol in Cal.]

Always to my own congregation.  That’s just basic, and I would not belong to a church that I would not support physically and financially.

Then often a campus ministry that is dear to my heart, partly because they are good and I love them, and partly because I remember the campus ministries that benefitted me so much when I was in college with gratitude, and want to help provide that to this generation.  Also often, a church that we always visited when we visited the in-laws.  It really was our church home away from home, and they have fallen on hard times so we try to help out some.k

Then beyond that, I try for a mix of quality arts, human care, education, and relief.  

Local organizations are easy to evaluate.  What proportion of their income goes to overhead?  How financially efficient are they in general?  Do they give across rather than down (super hot button issue for me)?  Are they inclusive and generous?  Are they of extraordinary quality?

National and international ones—I still try to make it a bit personal.  Money goes to missionaries that I know personally that I know are doing good work and are good people.  And not to others that I am less certain of.  My own church body is in a good place and doing good work with great financial efficiency so I am glad to be able to whole heartedly give them undirected funds.  If that was not so, I would give them funds that were directed toward something specific.  

Just in general, it is really easy to get people to give time and ‘stuff’ to charities, but usually the big need is for money.  Even our tiny hunger nonprofit has to buy insurance and pay our one staffer—he only works 19 hours per week, and we have tons of volunteers who work for free, but we need the money to pay him more than cans of food from Costco.  Without the Costco food, we would still get food from the Second Harvest Food Bank to give out, but without him, we would close.  It’s not sexy to give to overhead, but there is always *some*, and as long as it’s well leveraged, giving toward that is the most valuable possible gift.

 

[MercyA]

11 hours ago, Katy said:

I was thinking about finding an international program or two that supplies wells and maybe food because I keep thinking about those verses from Jesus about living in luxury with people dying of hunger and thirst outside the gate. I don’t think there is anyone in the USA in that kind of need any more, but I’m sure there are in other places. 

I have come to have serious issues with the politics of some Christian relief organizations, but I can recommend Mennonite Central Committee without hesitation. They are Christian and also pro-peace, pro-justice, pro-assistance to immigrants. Among many other worthy projects, they do build wells and construct rainwater collection pipes and storage tanks. You can donate specifically for that and details are here: https://mcc.org/learn/what/water. One of their offices is local to my area and I have seen nothing but good things from them.

If you prefer a secular organization, Charity: water does good work. According to their website, "100% of all public donations fund clean water projects. Generous private donors and key brand partners fund our operations so that every single penny you donate can go to clean water."

Edited December 7, 2020 by MercyA

[elegantlion]

I've been trying to up my charitable giving - it's been the first year in a very long while that I'm able to give something. 

My hope is to give local to smaller organizations with a focus that is important to me. 

So far, I've set up my Amazon Smile to a local historical charity. 

I'm looking into a wildlife rescue that is staffed by volunteers to help support. 

Not really charitable, but I've stayed a member at a museum in the town I used to live, even though I probably won't visit before next fall at least. 

 

[vonfirmath]

9 hours ago, mommyoffive said:

I would love to know what charity people are using to sponsor children.  Thanks. 

Through compassion International I sponsor 5 children and write to 38 more who are correspondents (Someone else does the financial sponsorship but they don't want to write so have asked Compassion to find people to write to the kids in their stead. Often companies will do this. Compassion truly believes the writing relationship is as important as the money to the kids they are sponsoring.)

 

And we sponsor 5 kids in Honduras through the Manna4Lempira program Sowers4Pastors, Inc. -- they are much smaller and you aren't allowed to write as much (one letter every other month) but I also feel I get a closer look at the needs of the community and we can send a backpack of items to our kid every year -- and its much easier for my kids to connect when they can send items to other children they know. Items specially picked out for that specific child.

 

The next time we have the space in our budget to pick up another sponsorship (either by losing some of our current kids or otherwise) I'd like to sponsor another child in Uganda through Rafiki Ministries Rafiki Africa Ministries | raising up the next generation of Uganda Christian leaders with Biblical morals and values. (rafikiministries.org)  which is run by a lady that grew up in our church.

[bookbard]

I sponsor a child through World Vision Australia - they have a lot of transparency around staff salaries etc. When I was working in a poor country, some of the kids I knew got help through WV, and there was no proselytising. 

Local homeless/food security organisation gets a lot of support from me via gathering donations in the community, spreading the word. I once directed an entire van-load of food their way by chance - so even if you can't always donate, it's always good to know who your local food people are.

I tend to donate to random stuff I hear about.

My advice to you, though, is to work out what you think is the biggest need. For me, I think biggest challenge facing the world is climate change and environmental damage, so I tend to favour organisations buying up land to protect it from development. Next after that are people who are isolated for whatever reasons, disability, minority status, poverty. Connection is so important. 

[popmom]

9 hours ago, gardenmom5 said:

for starters - one with a low overhead.  Charities can take up upwards of 80% of their revenue towards "operating expenses"  (some are even higher). - so that's money going towards staff, and NOT the charity.

This is definitely something to consider. Thank you for the reminder. At least with my daughters' animal rescue--it's completely run by college students--both undergrad and grad students. No one takes a dime of salary. The vast majority of the monies donated go directly to caring for/vetting the animals they take in. A very, very small percentage goes to fundraising. Most of the fundraising they can do for free through social media. Okay so that was a shameless plug. If anyone has any end of the year money to throw at an excellent rescue 501 c3 whose mission is to save dogs on death row at shelters in rural Alabama and Georgia, shoot me a pm and I'll send you a link. 😉 They are also very active in educating the community about the importance of spay/neuter. They visit schools, meet w/ local gov officials, take the fosters to class to raise awareness (the profs have been so supportive) etc. And if you are interested in adopting or just want to follow them on social media, also shoot me a pm. They have transported dogs all over the US--as far as California. ❤️

Edited December 7, 2020 by popmom

[katilac]

1 hour ago, bookbard said:

For me, I think biggest challenge facing the world is climate change and environmental damage, so I tend to favour organisations buying up land to protect it from development.  

Oh, interesting! Any suggestions for specific places or good wording to search? 

 

[popmom]

8 hours ago, Selkie said:

 

organizations that transport animals up north from overcrowded southern shelters

 

an organization in Texas that rescues animals from hoarding situations (one of our dogs was rescued by them)

Yay! It's possible you helped my dd's organization! Thank you for supporting these efforts.

 

[popmom]

8 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

 

If I’m ever in the position of having personal money to donate or time to volunteer I would love to do it in something that relates to literacy because that means a lot to me and feels like it would make a big difference.

I wholeheartedly support you. ❤️ Literacy is where I hope to focus my efforts once I retire from homeschooling. 

Edited December 7, 2020 by popmom

[Carol in Cal.]

18 minutes ago, katilac said:

Oh, interesting! Any suggestions for specific places or good wording to search? 

 

Locally there is one called the Mid-Peninsula Open Space Reserve.  I think open space reserve is a frequent phrase for these, so maybe searching on that?  Or you might contact our local one and ask whether they know of others near you?

[bookbard]

2 hours ago, katilac said:

Oh, interesting! Any suggestions for specific places or good wording to search? 

I think if you google 'buying land for conservation' you might find some local options.

In Australia there's Bush Heritage Australia, Nature Conservancy Australia, Australian Wildlife Conservancy, Wildlife Land Trust; there's a lot of them! Between them they own millions and millions of hectares of land solely for conservation, so it can't be logged or developed or used for cattle etc. 

There's an international one called World Land Trust, they work with local groups across the world, and support local rangers - so you're helping people as well as land.

Edited December 7, 2020 by bookbard
adding international tip

[Rosie_0801]

I put a few bob towards a couple of artists on Patreon, and relend on Kiva whenever my repayments hit the $25 minimum. I always give money to the Royal Children's hospital on Good Friday if I meet any tin rattlers. I used to help collect for them when I was a kid. During the pandemic I donated to the refugee centre. I donate to the Royal Flying Doctors service and the fire service if I ever come across them. When I had more money, I donated a gift to the Angel Tree at Christmas time and the Eid equivalent. I will buy a cake or sausage in bread off the guides or scouts if they are doing the work instead of their mothers. I have given to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation in the past.

[Hannah]

I now give only to charities where I know the money is going directly to the intended recipient - corruption is rife in our country and charities are not exempt.  Over the years the focus has shifted to specific individuals and local charities.

We sponsor the school fees, aftercare, transport and other school related fees for a particular child - I pay all of the accounts directly to the institutions in the child's name.  

We also sponsor the university fees and books for four subjects a year for a particular student doing distance learning.  She will be finishing the last two subjects of her foundation phase teaching degree next year. 

We give small amounts to various charities as we come across them.

 

[Farrar]

20 hours ago, gardenmom5 said:

for starters - one with a low overhead.  Charities can take up upwards of 80% of their revenue towards "operating expenses"  (some are even higher). - so that's money going towards staff, and NOT the charity.

I strongly disagree with this and I don't see enough people speaking against it. Some charities have high overheads because they don't do good work and exist to line the pockets of their board or make someone look good or just are disorganized messes. We should evaluate charities carefully because of that. But some charities invest in qualified people to do good work. It takes money to run an organization. Charity work is work. People who are expert in it deserve to be paid living wages and competitive wages. Going by sheer balance isn't all that useful, especially for large organizations. Sometimes large organizations exist to have a lot of resources at the ready to deal with issues that small organizations simply cannot because of scope or scale. That just takes more money.

[Tanaqui]

2 minutes ago, Farrar said:

I strongly disagree with this and I don't see enough people speaking against it. Some charities have high overheads because they don't do good work and exist to line the pockets of their board or make someone look good or just are disorganized messes. We should evaluate charities carefully because of that. But some charities invest in qualified people to do good work. It takes money to run an organization. Charity work is work. People who are expert in it deserve to be paid living wages and competitive wages. Going by sheer balance isn't all that useful, especially for large organizations. Sometimes large organizations exist to have a lot of resources at the ready to deal with issues that small organizations simply cannot because of scope or scale. That just takes more money.

 

Yes. Or, somebody upthread talked about always earmarking their donations. Well... if everybody earmarks their donations towards 'education' and nobody earmarks them towards 'keeping the lights on', then what, are they teaching in the dark?

One of the other things I check that I didn't list is whether or not executive salaries and overhead and "outreach/fundraising" is within lines of other, similar organizations. I don't always check this, because I don't always have the time or energy, but my base assumption is that if they're doing the same sort of work and paying the same sort of salaries as equally reputable charities then it's probably all right.

[SKL]

40 minutes ago, Tanaqui said:

 

Yes. Or, somebody upthread talked about always earmarking their donations. Well... if everybody earmarks their donations towards 'education' and nobody earmarks them towards 'keeping the lights on', then what, are they teaching in the dark?

One of the other things I check that I didn't list is whether or not executive salaries and overhead and "outreach/fundraising" is within lines of other, similar organizations. I don't always check this, because I don't always have the time or energy, but my base assumption is that if they're doing the same sort of work and paying the same sort of salaries as equally reputable charities then it's probably all right.

The last thing anyone should take from this thread is that "everybody" should follow any of the stated practices.  The cool thing I always notice about charity is how balanced it works out to be in the big picture, when each individual gives in the way that feels right to him/her.

Charities, like every business, should know how to account for overheads and charge each program accordingly.  If I donate to __ school, that doesn't stop my donation from being used toward salaries and utilities connected to __ school.  The point is to help ensure __ school doesn't have to close, because it's expensive to run a tiny school for kids with severe mental health and developmental challenges.  Another donation I give is to provide stopgap funds to families in crisis who can't pay tuition.  That obviously helps the organization, which could go into crisis itself as a domino effect.

The reason I started designating my donations was because I used to be required (by my employer) to donate to a large organization that supported some activities I don't believe in.  I was able to direct 85% of my donation to a literacy program for which I volunteered.  The other 15% still went toward corporate overheads, which wasn't my favorite use of funds, but at least I had some control.  That experience made me more proactive about making sure organizations use my donations toward things that I personally consider most important / impactful.

I'm in no way speaking against non-designated donations.  I just point out the option as one way to retain some control over what happens to your money, especially when you don't have hands-on involvement with the organization.  This is also a good way to communicate to organizations about the community's values/priorities.  Organizations in turn should communicate back if the designations are causing unintended problems.

I did have one organization change its policies.  No longer could you buy a birthday gift for a child, or chickens for a family.  Instead they would have one birthday party to which all the families were invited, and some common community project at a location away from everyone's home.  I didn't see either of these new options to be in line with my intentions, so I declined to make those donations.