What Organizations Do You Contribute To? 92
Cymage asks: "I usually do my charitable contributions in December, and so I am looking at organizations to give to. I try to give to organizations with different areas of focus. Here are some of the ones I have given to in the past/am considering: Basic Needs (Atlanta) - Food Bank and St Vincent, Promoting Self-Sufficiency - Habitat and Heifer, and Digital Rights/Software - EFF, Mozilla, SourceForge, and BitTorrent. What other organizations, especially technical ones, do you give to and why?"
OpenBSD (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Charities (Score:3, Insightful)
You get the *strangest* combination of junk mail (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously. I think my junk mail gets in fights in my mail box.
Year round (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, giving should be year round. Odds are family obligations this time of year take a lot of your free cash. Even if you could give, it is sometimes a good idea to put a little extra into retirement accounts if you are not up to the yearly max. (See a professional for advice, and you need to consider your own situation) I'm not saying give to yourself first, but there are many reasons this should be a month where you might give less than normal. But only if there is a normal.
First of all, give blood if you can. The restrictions are so tough that most of you cannot, but for those who can, please give often! In the same note, make sure you have an organ donor card filled out with the state.
Next, check your charities. I refuse to give to the United Way because they spend so much on promotion. (nearly half the money you give them isn't spent on good causes) Unfortunately they do know the small causes that you should be giving to, so I can't say they are evil, just I don't like them. Don't give to them unless you are at a loss for anything else to give to.
I give to Ducks Unlimited [ducks.org] every spring when their fund raiser comes up.
Every time I get groceries give $3 to the local food shelf. (my local store will add that onto my bill, or they have a collection point at the exit for foods I buy) It isn't much, but it adds up. (disclaimer, I just started this, my goal is to make this last though)
My local electric co-op rounds all my bills up to the nearest dollar. That $6/year all goes to charity, and I don't even notice. Suggest your utilities do the same.
I'm not going to cover what others have said. The important part is to find what works for you, and then do it.
before you donate to the Red Cross... (Score:5, Insightful)
Article [smartmoney.com]
For instance, in its fiscal year ending on June 30, 2002, the American National Red Cross spent $1.16 billion on employee salaries. Spending on actual disaster relief assistance for individuals was only $608 million. Of that, $479 million was for Sept. 11 assistance. This spending occurred only after the media put loads of heat on the organization. During the preceding fiscal year (the one ending on June 30, 2001), the Red Cross spent $1.04 billion on employee salaries and only $149 million on actual assistance for individuals.
Despite all this seemingly damning evidence, Charity Navigators gives the Red Cross a four-star rating, largely because of the organization's financial strength (which after a point, becomes more of a negative than a positive in my view). This is why I think doing your own research is highly advisable, especially if you're contemplating major gifts.
Personally, if you wanted to help through the Red Cross, I'd suggest giving blood instead.