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

Donations

[Anonymous Coward]

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 )

401K

[gerf]

I know it sounds selfish, but put away a few percent ASAP. Then, the EFF is a good bet, unless you work in government and want them to flag you as a possible terrorist. Then, pick one that has a decent return. http://www.charitynavigator.or...

Constituional Rights

[Kunedog]

Also the NRA since he wants to protect constitutional rights and the ACLU has a few embarrassing gaps in that regard.

Child's Play

[The Raven]

It's not on your list of causes, so perhaps you won't care, but the crew running Child's Play 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.

Re:How about

[ChrisMaple]

The days when the ACLU had any care about civil liberties are long gone.

Re:Donate to your university

[PopeRatzo]

You're a recent college grad. Donate to your university.

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.