Slashdot Mirror
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.
Since it's Slashdot:
Free Software Foundation http://fsf.org/
Electronic Freedom Foundation http://eff.org/
American Civil Liberties Union http://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.
thats always the best bet. keep it local
other than that, id say EFF is a good one
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
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.
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
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?
They're effective, efficient (per dollar), and badly needed. I spent some time looking for something I could be comfortable donating to monthly, and this is the one I concentrated all my charitable donations to (aside from my own volunteering in an unrelated area). http://www.msf.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Underprivileged and disabled people have a hard time getting work, so Goodwill gives them an opportunity to be a productive member of society. The fact that they get government handouts for this means that they have more money to spend on other projects.