Ask Slashdot: Making Donations Count 268
An anonymous reader writes: As a recent college graduate I now have a job and enough money to actually buy things and donate to causes. Up until now I really haven't been paying attention to which groups are best to donate and which are scams. For example, Goodwill seems like a great organization until you dig deeper and discover they hire under privileged and disabled people only to exploit the related government handouts instead of doing it to benefit those people. What are some quality organizations to donate to? Who do you donate to and why? I'm looking for improving the poor, supporting constitutional rights, and supporting issues many Slashdotters can agree on such as net neutrality and anything against the media companies. I don't care what political group the money ends up going to. The specific case is more important than some arbitrary label. I'm also in the USA, so foreign recommendations are probably less helpful.
Well lah-dee-dah (Score:2, Funny)
Showoff.
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I suspect this altruism won't last long.
With in a year his credit card and auto debt will become a burden and he'll keep everything for himself.
If he gets out of that, he'll meet some girl and then the money will be sucked out of him again.
THEN, he'll get her pregnant and end up paying nearly $250,000 [google.com] until they turn 18...more if he's a real Dad and pays for college.
So just take that money and put it into a Roth Account or something.
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This(ish). Until you are completely out of debt — meaning, until you own your own house free and clear, because rent is a kind of debt (you're borrowing a shelter directly, rather than borrowing money to pay for one) — you are lower-class and should be focusing on being able to take care of even yourself before you start worrying about taking care of other people.
(Yes, this includes having children in the category of "taking care of other people". Most people are too poor to have kids and should
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I suspect this altruism won't last long.
With in a year his credit card and auto debt will become a burden and he'll keep everything for himself.
If he gets out of that, he'll meet some girl and then the money will be sucked out of him again.
THEN, he'll get her pregnant and end up paying nearly $250,000 [google.com] until they turn 18...more if he's a real Dad and pays for college.
So just take that money and put it into a Roth Account or something.
Stop stealing my life story.
I just finished paying off everything but my mortgage and student loans two months ago, and then promptly found out baby #2 is on the way. There is a certain guilt that my wife and I make over 3x the median household income but still give less than 1% of our income to charity. Although the costs keep adding up, especially when you want to give an upper middle class lifestyle to your children.
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You hit the nail on the head:
Student loans are the absolute worst debt one can get because they don't go away. Tell any other type of creditor other than a government entity to shove it, and they have a statute of limitations (4 years in Texas) until they have to write off the debt [1].
Say the economy hits the shitter, which it will, one winds up filing personal bankruptcy, has to use a bicycle, and has to find some cheap rent arrangement. After 7-10 years, one can continue with life. Student loan debts
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You hit the nail on the head:
Student loans are the absolute worst debt one can get because they don't go away.
There are many criteria for determining what the worst type of debt is. Student loan debt tends to be at a much lower rate than most loans other than mortgages. So while student loans are worse when going through bankruptcy, they are one of the better forms of debt to have for the 85%+ of people who will never declare bankruptcy. The asset the borrower bought is also likely the most valuable asset they will ever have.
Also, student loans are not always immune to bankruptcy. A 2011 study [ssrn.com] found that about 40%
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Hah! "Apartment!" Luxury! Only rich people get apartments all to themselves!
He'll have to rent a bedroom in someone else's house like all the other poor schmucks^W^W^W^W everybody else.
How about (Score:5, Insightful)
Since it's Slashdot:
Free Software Foundation http://fsf.org/ [fsf.org]
Electronic Freedom Foundation http://eff.org/ [eff.org]
American Civil Liberties Union http://aclu.org/ [aclu.org]
Make sure they are registered as a 501(c)(3) so your donations are tax-deducible.
I'd skip sending money to ISIS or the Taliban. It's probably not tax-deductible and may result in unpleasant imprisonment.
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I'd skip sending money to ISIS or the Taliban. It's probably not tax-deductible and may result in unpleasant imprisonment.
With the current administration, the same could be said for anything that they dislike. They've not only used the IRS to target groups that oppose them, but also put out a list of attributes that they are using to classify domestic terrorist which include things like having more than a month's worth of food & owning a gun.
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classify domestic terrorist which include things like having more than a month's worth of food & owning a gun.
I'm pretty sure those are the sort of things domestic terrorists would actually have... so what exactly is your issue with it?
A bunch of food and a gun doesn't get you classified as a terrorist; its a flag that the group might be worth investigating.
An investigation isn't persecution.
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What are your thoughts about Bush (and now Obama) saying that if you encrypt your internet communications you must be a terrorist? And then what would happen if they used the IRS to g
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You could come to Canada where it's the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) being used to target environmentalists and left leaning groups, have declared that anyone anti-oil is a terrorist, if you object to the government monitoring everything then this week you must be a terrorist (before, you were supporting the bullies and before that, the child molesters). Passed an anti-terrorist law that makes the patriot act look tame (law enforcement can break any law except rape in chasing down terrorists), honoured their
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What are your thoughts about Bush (and now Obama) saying that if you encrypt your internet communications you must be a terrorist?
They never said that. Either of them. A few blowhards and talking heads have made such comments over the years; and the press eats it up because that's what the press does.
The country as a whole is grappling with rather intractable problem. It simultaneously wants it to be possible for the NSA to break encrypted data belonging to terrorists and criminals in general with a proper warrant. But it doesn't want encryption itself to be compromised with a back door so that they can get in whenever they want witho
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It just happens that conservative organizations were doing it more than liberal ones.
Go on. Pull the other one.
Constituional Rights (Score:5, Informative)
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If you prefer the ACLU's interpretation of the 2nd Amendment then donating to the NRA is actually attacking your constitutional rights. Specifically, the right to live in a society where guns are controlled by the "well regulated militia" collective right clause, rather than one where gun ownership is an individual right.
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If you prefer the ACLU's interpretation of the 2nd Amendment then donating to the NRA is actually attacking your constitutional rights. Specifically, the right to live in a society where guns are controlled by the "well regulated militia" collective right clause, rather than one where gun ownership is an individual right.
The problem is, of course, that that particular "interpretation" isn't grounded in reality. The 2nd Amendment is an individual right, both as initially expressed by the people who wrote it as well as in the recent SCOTUS Heller decision. The ACLU is simply pushing a standard liberal anti-gun line which should make you question their reading skills if nothing else.
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The 2nd Amendment is an individual right, both as initially expressed by the people who wrote it as well as in the recent SCOTUS Heller decision.
That's an opinion, not a fact. Indeed SCOTUS only voted narrowly to interpret it that way (1 vote). The ACLU's position is based on a perfectly reasonable reading of the text and is perfectly legitimate.
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No but then I also don't want to carry around lethal force and have people legally compelled to obey me under threat of such force, and for people who do want that, sacrificing their privacy on the job for that kind of authority seems reasonable.
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Donated once to the EFF and the ACLU at different times. The incredible volume of spam mail, junk mail, and phone calls that I received from these two organizations convinced me to never contribute to them again, as well as likely costing them more than my donation.
My advice: Donate to a local organization, not a national or international one. They are less likely to have hordes of administrative flunkies to bother you later (and consume donation money), and you'll be helping the community you live in. Ther
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I think local donations is a great idea. So many local organizations are the ones actually executing hands-on help where the amount of useful work done per dollar is higher than larger organizations that have larger administrative overhead.
Fight For the Future (Score:2)
I would add Fight For The Future which has been extremely active for Net Neutrality [fightforthefuture.org]
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Just pay taxes and demand a rise in taxes for the 1million plus range, a huge rise. Face it so many scammy charities and they often end up getting corrupted because of a short term flood of donations only to be ignored the rest of time but the scam artists get the taste from donations floods and then bleed the charities dry during lean times.
Why the government, because of least they will prosecute scam artists when they get caught cheating government welfare (not so much corporate welfare but certainly i
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Why the government, because of least they will prosecute scam artists when they get caught cheating government welfare
Government *is* the scam artist, at least in the USA. A good charity gets over 80% of its revenue to the people who need the money/services (less than 20% overhead is the required expense ratio for a serious charity).
Government averages 27% going to those in need - all the rest is consumed by the parasites in "the system". It's the least able in the society who suffer due to their repugna
Re:How about the government (Score:2)
Oh, I dunno, I haven't regretted making tax-deductible membership contributions to educational stuff run by our evil government, such as:
* National Parks Annual Pass - usually pays for itself within 4 visits, and always provides the best experiences our country has to offer.
* Science Museum Annual Pass - this is typically a state-funded thing, but the passes often have reciprocity at science centers across the country. Some are more amazing than others, but all are great places to take kids on rainy days.
*
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What is YMMV?
"Your mileage may vary" ... just a disclaimer in the way of a bad car analogy that someone else may not necessarily get as much out of the experience as I did while politely implicating that it may have had more to do with their driving style.
No Organizations (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't donate to any organized cause. Even the best run, most efficient ones still have part of your dollar go to administrative or marketing costs.
As you move through life, you will meet plenty of people that need help. Give that pan handler on the side of the road a hamburger. Help your single-working-mother neighbor by paying for a baby sitter so she can have a night out. Buy groceries for the person in line at the store behind you that is using food stamps.
Or, donate your time. Join Habitat for Humanity and build a house for someone.
While all these options take more time/effort than just entering your credit card into a website, those donations of money/time will be completely dedicated to the person in need.
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First off, it's got to be a slow news day for this crap to show up like this.
But, anyway, this and stuff.
No one needs advice on how to help people by giving them money. You gotta be living in a fucking vacuum if you don't hear about people you know who need help.
Know anybody, personally, who's fighting cancer?
If they are traveling to/from treatments and have to take time off work with reduced or no pay, give to them directly.
Always give directly.
yw and stuff.
Re:No Organizations (Score:4, Insightful)
Help someone who shows promise.
We are going to die within +/-75 years of being born, and most of us are simply experiments in the gene pool. So quit thinking of yourself as a person who deserves to be alive, and start thinking of yourself as a step in the right direction.
Maybe you are, maybe you aren't, but these things cannot be discerned by individuals. Because to individuals, we all are important.
Pan handlers generally fall under the "don't donate" category. But you may meet someone under the "pan handler" category who deserves support. And don't just give $20 and call it good. Develop a relationship, encourage, and give when in makes sense.
The Renaissance happened in large part because people became patrons. We have Patreon to take a small percentage, or you can care about the people in your area enough to stop the parasitic investor class.
Find someone who shows promise, strike up a conversation, and figure out what they need. Offer it to them. They will be grateful, and you will have helped out a needy individual who will generate both individual profit and, most likely, profit for some bar or art store or indie label or whatever.
Boosting interest helps that individual, but it stimulates in real dollars the local economy.
Do you want to stimulate a foreign economy instead?
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We are going to die within +/-75 years of being born, and most of us are simply experiments in the gene pool.
How many people die 75 years before they are born? Not arguing with your statistics, but the thing that most people have in their heads that act as a central repository of thoughts and ideas seems to be malfunctioning in your case.
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Pan handlers generally fall under the "don't donate" category.
Yeah, pan handlers may be good at looking sad, but its actually fairly lucrative. A common fallacy is that poor people "need" money more, and your buck would go further helping them. Unfortunately, many people are poor because they are bad with money. Many pan handlers will blow their take on drugs or alcohol, or splurge on a stay at a motel when they could easily afford to use that amount of money to make rent and groceries if they had the budgeting sense.
I wish it was easier to find ways to help people
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I wonder what other people who run foundations give in relation to their intake of donations
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I'd guess that Beck gets a lot of income from his special events and needs the tax write offs.Seems to be pretty common with foundations (being tax havens). There's been talk here of just getting rid of the tax write off for donations as the government has really been using the taxman to punish those they don't like and one of their favourites is getting really anal about what a charitable organization is and once one government does it so will the next.
Personally I like the local Mennonites, all labour is
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As a recent college graduate, you have something particularly rare and useful to people in certain situations -- your education and skills. "Spending" that and your time to bring those things to people who need them and may not have the money to spend on them:
For example, if you're a chemistry major, helping motivated high-school kids with even basic chemistry would mean they don't have to spend their own or their parents' (likely
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Don't donate to any organized cause. Even the best run, most efficient ones still have part of your dollar go to administrative or marketing costs.
So the fuck what? Do you know what happens when you insist that every single dollar goes to to projects? You can't keep staff.
When there's no core funding for NGOs, they can only hire on a contract basis, which means that most of the people you want won't—can't—work for you, because they have families and stuff. And that means you get no decent skills on the ground. And that means you're flying in a bunch of outsiders who make a career out of this kind of thing, but who, no matter how well-inte
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Give that pan handler on the side of the road a hamburger.
It's better to give money to charities who will actually try to fix the problems that put that person on the street. A burger will feed them for a day, and encourage them to keep begging. Pooling donations to provide shelter and a fixed address so they can apply for jobs and take a shower before the interview is a much better idea. Even just for their immediate need to eat a soup kitchen where they can get other services is better.
The admin overhead of well run charities is trivial compared to the benefit o
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Donate your time not your money (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you want to spend several months a year of your life auditing inefficient "charity" organizations and trying to make judgments about whether they're doing it right and spending your dollars wisely...and hey if you think you're good at that you should probably start your own charity. But if you do, everyone will expect you to work for free. It's a viscous circle.
Donate your time, you'll meet people too.
Unless you're a multi-billionaire, then start a foundation and direct where the money goes.
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There are websites whose entire reason for existing is auditing charities. You can always go for something like that.
Donating your time can be very inefficient though. Imagine you are in software, and you'd be donating time to move boxes around in a food pantry. They could hire someone at minimum wage to do this,(which is actually good for the economy) or, you could be doing some consulting, and donate that. It's also the reason you don't buy groceries for the pantry, but hand them cash instead: They will g
where does the money go? (Score:2)
Start by investigating their financial statement. Many organizations, even large ones, hide this information. All the non-profits in the US are required to file a basic 990 financial statement--but then the government locks that up so we can't see it. Private companies gather that info and will sell it to you.
If the company won't voluntarily disclose complete financial information (not just a pretty watered-down one); steer clear.
Donations (Score:3, Informative)
Before donating to any charity, you want to be sure that the lion's share of the money will go where it's needed. Every charity has different overhead costs. You can research you favorite charities -- learning how much of your donation will go to the intended purpose (vs. how much will go to overhead) at Give.org, CharityWatch.org and CharityNavigator.org. ( Info from http://www.clarkhoward.com )
Get involved too (Score:2)
I have found getting involved is the best way to see how contributions are used. Have you considered joining a local civic organization that provides community services besides being a local bar for members only.
I found VFW has some chartiable functions in addition to their more primary function as a social gathering place similar to a local bar. Lyons and shriners have specific goals for childeren's hospitals and community support. Forresters and Rotary International seem to be solid with local communit
401K (Score:5, Informative)
Re:401K c-c-c-combo breaker! (Score:2)
It's not terribly selfish to be good with money, so you can better help people who are not.
At least max out your employer match contributions to your 401k plan. Then make sure you can get your employer to match your donations to your charities.
If you can itemize deductions, then the money you donate to causes you like will also reduce the money that the IRS gets from you to let Congress fund stuff you don't like, such as wars abroad or corporate welfare or welfare queens or whatever ticks you off. Unfortu
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Wow, $50K a year is "only the bare necessities" to you?
That's about my annual income (and about the mean income, I should note), and I only spend about a quarter of that on things I actually consume (the rest goes to taxes, rents, and savings to eventually escape from those rents), and I feel like I spent pretty carelessly on whatever I feel like. And you realize most people in this country live on less than half of that? (The median personal income is around $25K). "Bare necessities" is more like $6K/year,
Child's Play (Score:4, Informative)
It's not on your list of causes, so perhaps you won't care, but the crew running Child's Play [childsplaycharity.org] have been up front on where the money goes: it is spent on nothing but toys. None of the staff, such as it is, get paid out of your donations; they all work for Penny Arcade, who run Child's Play on the side.
Only one link is needed (Score:2)
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Ok.
Donate to your university (Score:2)
You're a recent college grad. Donate to your university.
Could be to its general fund. Could be to a specific scholarship. Could be to a department. Could be to a specific professor chair. Could be to benefit smart kids, poor kids, kids from a particular place, whatever.
Help your alma mater become a better school for the next kid. Help humanity too -- education lifts individual people out of poverty, and advancements in knowledge lift humanity out of poverty -- financial or otherwise.
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no, donate to your college after you have made it, not while you are still paying for it!
Re:Donate to your university (Score:5, Informative)
That may be the worst possible use of charity funds. University endowments do little but grow and become fiefdoms for development departments and university presidents. University of Chicago has over a billion dollars and Harvard has like twice that. They ask for money constantly (I get the mailings) but keep raising tuition, while replacing real professors with low-paid adjuncts.
Higher education in the United States has become a complete scam. When I graduated over thirty years ago, I donated to my alma mater until I spent the time to look into exactly what they were doing with the money.
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Actually, Harvard has 36 times that [wsj.com].
Donate to GOOD public interest (Score:2)
It is generally true that donations to rich schools are bad donations, because their endowments are amazingly high. But there aren't a lot of schools really like that--it's basically the ones that have gone need-blind internationally. Usually it makes sense to donate $1/year to keep alumni participation numbers high to sustain the value of your degree from a reputational standpoint, but that's it.
But if you know the right programs to give to, sometimes it's worth it. The public interest community at Geor
Re:Donate to your university (Score:4, Interesting)
As someone else pointed out, I significantly underestimated the size of the UofC and Harvard endownments. Rather than $1 bil and $2 bil respectively, it's more like $8 bil and $36 bil.
I suppose I was still thinking about how rich the endowments were back when I first realized the size of the scam some years ago.
It also tells you how fast these endowments are growing.
Local, local, local (Score:3)
Is there a local group who recycles/reuses electronics? (maybe turning old PC's into Linux boxen, to be given to low-income families) Donate a couple items and drop off $20.
There are very small, not well known women's/family shelters that are always desperate for anything from socks, underwear, blankets, toys, to dishes, cleaning supplies, etc. Sometimes not easy to find these - they tend to keep a low profile, but their services are vital for people who find themselves in a very difficult situation.
Check the websites of local charities - they usually list the specific things they are most in need of.
I donate stuff to Goodwill... after I have offered it to groups like the ones listed above, but they don't have an immediate need.
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And don't forget your local food bank. Those you can help either by giving them cash (they normally have enough leverage that $1 in donations can buy at least $2 worth of food), or by buying stuff they're constantly in need of (it's not just canned goods, but stuff like fresh produce) and donating it.
Food banks are a lifeline - many users are just on the edge - food, rent, or utiltiies. No one goes to a food bank unless they really have to, and users are limited in selection to what was donated. There's typ
When Helping Hurts (Score:2)
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What terrible advice. I found a summary of that book online (http://southwood.org/files/pdf/WhenHelpingHurtsSummary.pdf) and it looks like a bunch of christian crap. A quick sample:
"Bryant Myers, a leading Christian development thinker, argues that in order
to diagnose the disease of poverty correctly, we must consider the fundamental
nature of reality, starting with the Creator of that reality. Myers notes that the
Triune God is inherently a relational being, existing as three-in-one from
eternity. Being made
Donate to Debian (Score:2)
Debian donations information page, for your reference:
https://www.debian.org/donatio... [debian.org]
Doctors Without Borders (Score:5, Insightful)
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I definitely second that - if you could only donate to one charity, MSF is a great choice. They make a real difference, they push no agenda, and they go to unsexy places. A charity worthy of your support.
Four of my favorites (Score:2)
"Exploitation" is propaganda. (Score:2, Insightful)
The reason the government and Goodwill "exploit" each other and the disabled people is that those disabled people really don't work efficiently enough to be worth minimum wage, and consequently without a subsidy, would be unemployable. Since the government unions won't allow the disabled to be hired directly, Goodwill is the vehicle that allows them to have a meaningful job. Sure, the CEO of Goodwill makes $850K/year, not actually that good for an organization with a $5B annual revenue. They're putting abou
Donate where you are (Score:2)
Aged-out foster children (Score:2)
There's probably a local organization that helps foster children who have aged out of the system. They really get a raw deal in life.
Local arts organizations are also good choices, especially if they have full-time local performers on staff.
And the usual biggies - the ACLU, EFF, Greenpeace, Amnesty International - and some smaller ones, like the American Friends Service Committee and Friends Committee on Legislation.
Get involved and choose (Score:3)
As many have mentioned, the best thing to do is to get involved with an organization or cause that you care about. If you actually work with the organization, you will a) be helping them out significantly with your time and talents, and b) have a better feel as to whether they are using the funds they receive responsibly. I am on the board of directors of a mid sized (roughly $3,000,000/year) 501(c)3, and I know precisely what our overhead is. I also volunteer heavily for said organization (primarily network design, and electrical type work), and donate when I can.
Despite what other people say, any organization that is viable will have overhead. It costs money to ensure the books are properly kept and audited, there are bills to pay, and non-profits of all organizations, should pay their employees a fair and reasonable wage. From a financial point of view, the real key is to ensure that the books are properly kept, and there are adequate controls in place to ensure that the money is spent in an appropriate manner.
Folding at Home (Score:2)
I donate spare CPU cycles, and my efforts in citizen science projects. It's not monetary, but more practical, and less of the donation is wasted.
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There's a website for that (Score:2)
My 3 I give to annually?
EFF - I love what they do
Alzheimers Foundation - My father in law had alzheimer's, it scares the crap out
Ahhh... Charties. Start with 990 forms (Score:2)
First off, I strongly suggest not donating to a charity unless they produce a 990 form.
There are still a lot of charities that are flat out scams, like breast cancer "awareness" charities who's board member owns a marketing firm, that creates awareness by calling people and asking for donations to their breast cancer awareness fund. Avoid "awareness" charities. Most of them are complete bunk.
Here are my top three websites for researching charities.
http://www.charitynavigator.or... [charitynavigator.org]
http://foundationcenter.or [foundationcenter.org]
FIRE is good (Score:2)
If you believe in free speech, due process, and the most basic constitutional protections on college campuses, then FIRE [thefire.org] is good.
Doctors without Borders (Score:2)
Recently a friend passed away. He knew he was dying, had no family, and wanted to donate all his fortune (a few million). He spent his last months researching which charities actually did a lot of good for the money. In the end, he could only find four. He split his estate equally among them.
Unfortunately I cannot remember three of them, but one of them was Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders). He was a smart guy. Worked for Nasa doing risk analysis among other cool jobs.
Givewell! (Score:2)
Please check out GiveWell, a charity research organisation: http://www.givewell.org/ [givewell.org]
They evaluate a wide range of categories over a bunch of different criteria.
Donate according to preferences or prejudices? (Score:2)
I do NPR and Wikipedia, but not much else. NPR because they actually do real news reporting much of the time, and Wikipedia because they are such an important source of reference for many people of the world who don't have access to reference sources otherwise.
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Unfortunately, NPR is a blind mouthpiece for ProPublica.
Invest in many places (Score:2)
Support a literacy organization (Score:2)
Give to a local literacy organization. Most libraries are affiliated with a literacy orginazation, and can give you information about it. Or you might prefer to donate your time instead of your money, and be a literacy tutor.
Being able to read and write opens up so many doors.
"Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, and you feed him for life."
(Of course, you want to check out any orgainization before you dontate to it.)
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Hah!! I'll have to proofread my posts before submitting them. "organization". "donate".
Foundation Beyond Belief (Score:2)
I can recommend Foundation Beyond Belief, at https://foundationbeyondbelief... [foundation...belief.org] . It is a humanist organization, so they are explicitly trying to just do good without promoting a religion.
They forward your money on to other causes (and it is clearly identified what they take as overhead, and you can reduce/increase that as you wish). They vet those causes for effectiveness. Every quarter they change who they donate money to, and you can adjust where your money goes within those groups.
They have an easy syste
I swear to god (Score:2)
Small Is Beautiful (Score:2)
Do a little research into what's needed in your own community. Stay small. Give to a food bank. Buy a bunch of toys and give them to your fire department for distribution at Christmas. Ask a major chain store to sell you a hundred pairs of kids shoes wholesale and give them to a shelter for abused women (You'll have to prove to them that's where the shoes went). Buy a year of tech support or office space for a local non-profit.
Stay away from charities with big budgets, even if they're doing good work
Why is that a bad thing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Too early (Score:3)
Donate to your pension fund if you don't want to become the poor of tomorrow.
Government (Score:2)
Local food pantries and shelters (Score:2)
If you check, you will be dismayed how many people in your own hometown lack basic food and shelter. Help them.
Accusation against GoodWill (Score:3)
Goodwill seems like a great organization until you dig deeper and discover they hire under privileged and disabled people only to exploit the related government handouts instead of doing it to benefit those people.
The summary makes an an unsupported and unclear accusation against Goodwill. If this submission is a legitimate question it should either eliminate this accusation or cite it and explain what criteria the submitter is looking for.
Submitter: What do you mean when you say they "exploit the related government handouts instead of doing it to benefit those people?" What exploitation are you talking about? My concern here is that it sounds like you would only donate to Goodwill if they refused the government handouts. But since all non-profits get handouts, in the form of tax benefits, I fear that no non-profit will meet your requirements.
Re:Local and small (Score:5, Insightful)
other than that, id say EFF is a good one
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They always need help, of all kinds -- donations of food, money, time, etc. I happen to have a truck, so I donate that. I also love the physical workout. Looking forward to doing it again this fall.
And the net effect is almost a half million trees planted in this area in the past 25 years.
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http://pswcs.com/charity.cfm [pswcs.com]
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In addition to that I would say that hungry organisations are good too. If the local charity is hard up for cash they are more likely to make each dollar count.
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if you have homeless people in your own town, what good reason is there to donate to homeless shelters in other places??? minus a disaster its always better to keep your local economy going,
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You bet. EFF and the Chicago Food Depository are two at the top of my list, but we've also made a sizable donation to http://www.law-arts.org/ [law-arts.org] because they helped me out a lot on several occasions when I was just starting out. Also, the Chicago Justice Project, http://chicagojustice.org/ [chicagojustice.org] gets some dough because they're actually trying to do some good here. They're data wonks who are fi
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That's pretty impressive, I always enjoy your posts and hope I'm half as awesome as you when I get to that certain age (though it's not actually that far off nowadays).
What percentage of income do other people spend on directing support to charity? I always feel woefully inadequate since we only do maybe a few hundred dollars per year, which comes out to fractions of a percent of our joint income. OTOH, we feel like we're pretty frugal with money and don't really waste anything... no entertainment budget
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Have to agree with the Wikimedia Foundation - just think how much of your college education was supported by them!
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United Way.
No kidding, every year there was an abduction to watch their "moving" testimonials and feeling "forced" to contribute, after taxes, with no deductions for it.
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American Red Cross is actually highly-efficient, but a peripheral blog called ProPublica has been twisting facts to smear them. It's all bullshit. They do things like take Red Cross's lessons learned (a document where they address everything that goes wrong with any response and plan out what actions to take to make those problems never happen again) and waving them around to show that Red Cross can't do anything right; or they claim that Red Cross pays for services from other economic suppliers (builder