Ask Slashdot: Making Donations Count

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.

Comments

Re:How about

[bill_mcgonigle]

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 repugnant greed.