Teach me charities

I would like to give some money to charity but I don't know which ones to trust. I know there are some out there which have a bit of shady reputation. Also I don't want to give to any which have a bias towards a particular faith. Also not one of those sponsor kids in a foreign nation. I am about to sponsor a kid in a town in Honduras that I visited on a mission trip.

In reply to 93EXCivic:

Got anything in mind? I know a lot about the charities in Alabama.

Local food bank for the win.

/thread

http://www.charitynavigator.org/

Otto Maddox wrote: In reply to 93EXCivic: Got anything in mind? I know a lot about the charities in Alabama.

Not for sure. I am a big fan of anything which will help people with education though. But I will take whatever suggestions you got.

In reply to 93EXCivic:

The United Way is a good catch all. And it has one of the best giving to expense ratios of any charity.

In interest of full disclosure, I do have United Way ties.

93EXCivic wrote: Not for sure. I am a big fan of anything which will help people with education though. But I will take whatever suggestions you got.

The answer is your local PBS affiliate for education. PBS is the last creator of decent children's television standing (at least in America). And while I know there's tons more to education than children's TV, I think pretty much every parent of a child under 5 owes it to themselves to help keep Sesame Street on the air.

The United Way used to suck. How do you think they built that hella nice building? Maybe they changed their policy after a lot of bad press years ago. When my wife donated to United Way (talk about strong arm) she would designate what charity was to get it. I understand that meant your choice got 100%. I have my doubts.

I would like to think the Red Cross would be a good organization, but seem to recall some issues there too a few years ago. But I do know that they show whenever there is a disaster here in the US of A. Also whenever some local gets burned out.

Find out what percentage of your donation dollar goes to the actual person being helped, versus "overhead." The problem I have with the UW goes back to their former CEO who was pulling down 400 large a year, had his own private prostitute (paid for by UW) set up in her own DC house (paid for by UW). Just kinds makes the whole UW thing look suspect to me.

I had a friend that was turned down by the UW, after she lost her husband and had two very young children.

I would go for the local food pantry. Keep your contributions local.

Cut out the middlemen

In reply to RealMiniDriver:

The United Way doesn't really "turn down" people. They fund necessary agencies in their region. The agencies have discretion about who to help. In any case, there is a good chance that your local food pantry is a United Way agency.

And to BIll:

And you can designate the agencies you want your money to go to. And our region's UW building is a rented E36 M3hole.

Otto Maddox wrote: In reply to 93EXCivic: The United Way is a good catch all. And it has one of the best giving to expense ratios of any charity. In interest of full disclosure, I do have United Way ties.

I give to the UW.. I think I'm up to $0.70/pay.

Instead of giving to a middleman, which is what UW is, find who they give to, and give directly to them.

Even if UW is perfect and has no issues, some of what you donate is kept so that they can do what they do. IMHO, it's better to directly give to the charities that you want to give to, as opposed to a organization who thinks it's their job to figure out how my money should be given out.

As a side note- are there any organizations that help your family directly? American Cancer, Lung, Red Cross, etc? My grandmother got a lot of benefits from "Little Brother"- so I like them a lot.

But that's my opinion, and worth the bytes that this is shown in to you.

I have personally seen the Shriner's do tremendously good works. If I was to donate money to a charity, I would seriously consider them. I don't know if they solicit outside donations or not, but those kids lacked nothing money could buy. Best of everything, and one family member stays with them. No charges at all for any care or room/board of the family member.

Our car club donates the proceeds of our car show to the local ALS society. They directly help ALS victims and their families.

In reply to alfadriver:

Just to clarify, the United Way does the fundraising and most of the administration for smaller charities. This causes administration expenses to be lower for the smaller charities than if they did it for themselves. And the charities end up being run much more efficiently. A lot of the kind hearted wonderful people who work for these charities are not as gifted in financial and management matters.

"...One charity has stayed above all this for 137 years. The Salvation Army is unique among all U.S. charities for many reasons. Let’s start at the top. Commissioner Todd Bassett receives a salary just $13,000 per year (plus housing) for managing this $2 Billion dollar organization. By comparison, Brian Gallagher, President of the United Way receives a $375,000 base salary (plus numerous expensive benefits) and the Red Cross President Marsha Evans receives $450,000 (the article was written in 2002 a wapping 50% increase in 1 year??) plus benefits..."

In reply to pete240z:

Salvation Army is another great choice, with one caveat - they are a religious organization, thus exempt from any federal reporting requirements. You can pull up a Form 990 for any 501c3 charity and see where all the money goes. With religious organizations, you cannot.

93EXCivic wrote: I would like to give some money to charity but I don't know which ones to trust. I know there are some out there which have a bit of shady reputation. Also I don't want to give to any which have a bias towards a particular faith. Also not one of those sponsor kids in a foreign nation. I am about to sponsor a kid in a town in Honduras that I visited on a mission trip.

AngryCorvair and I are the kings of the national MS Society via our involvement with their charity bike rides.

That said, I give to local food banks/food pantries around this time of year.

I also need to remember to pick up a big bag of cat food for a local animal shelter.

Another vote for giving local.

Another one for local food bank. I use networkforgood.org to do recurring payments to several organizations.

It could be argued that it's more efficient to give directly to the organizations. It's worth it to me to tick the box to add an additional (but small) operating costs bump for network for good so that I don't have to remember to send money to multiple organizations, and thus don't flub it.

There is a local medical clinic I support because I used them when I was poor. That and my church.

Oh, and I bought a lady $20 in gas so she could get home, 2 hours away, after she lost her debit card.

The United Way got fired by me after 9/11. Subsequently, they sealed their fate with me by dissing animal welfare organizations. The annual guilt-trip from them via my employer(s) was also a big turn-off. Sorry to the guy who works for them, but I pretend they don't exist now.

Cut out the middleman. There are plenty of good local charities and they aren't hard to find. My basic giving criteria is one of two categories: they have to help those who truly can't help themselves, so that to me means children and domestic animals. I'll also stroke a check for a disease/illness that strikes close to home (Tay-Sachs via a co-worker, Lou Gherig's via two close friends, cancer via too damn many examples). The smaller the group, the more likely I am to be charitable. The bigger they are, the more they tend to waste on 'expenses'. I'm far happier picking something off the animal shelter's Wish List and buying it for them than sending a check to a PO Box in another city.

this ^^ + here the Swannanoa Valley Community Counsel helps people with food / fuel / and meds... but since they receive money from UW they are not allowed to have ANY fund raiser of their own... you can donate directly to them but they can't solicit donations .... have trouble understanding that one

Go to a charity that is doing the work you want to see done in an area you want to see it done in. The UW and other umbrella charities give your money to people and places and for things you may not would want to fund.

I personally am against most organized charities. As people have mentioned the overhead takes a big bite out of it and I don't get the feel goods from giving the money because there's no one it goes to. It goes in a pot that might go to Swahili land or degenerates who live by working the system instead of getting a job.

I prefer to give it to individuals who have a need that I can assist. I know it does where I want it to go and I get the feel goods.

For a big charity, the Shriners do good work.

as mentioned earlier ... local animal shelters , local food banks, something like the community council ( in your area) that I mentioned ... they usually do pretty good and necessary things without much overhead