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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.
Don't donate to any organized cause. Even the best run, most efficient ones still have part of your dollar go to administrative or marketing costs.
As you move through life, you will meet plenty of people that need help. Give that pan handler on the side of the road a hamburger. Help your single-working-mother neighbor by paying for a baby sitter so she can have a night out. Buy groceries for the person in line at the store behind you that is using food stamps.
Or, donate your time. Join Habitat for Humanity and build a house for someone.
While all these options take more time/effort than just entering your credit card into a website, those donations of money/time will be completely dedicated to the person in need.
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes
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.
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 )
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...
Also the NRA since he wants to protect constitutional rights and the ACLU has a few embarrassing gaps in that regard.
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.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
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."
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.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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.
As someone else pointed out, I significantly underestimated the size of the UofC and Harvard endownments. Rather than $1 bil and $2 bil respectively, it's more like $8 bil and $36 bil.
I suppose I was still thinking about how rich the endowments were back when I first realized the size of the scam some years ago.
It also tells you how fast these endowments are growing.
You are welcome on my lawn.