Gift Giving: Charitable Causes

image If actual physical gifts are not your cup of tea this year, you always have the option of charitable donations in honor of someone, anyone, or everyone. Charities are feeling the pinch as much as anyone in a tight economy, so every tiny bit helps.

So while I’ve been doing goofy, silly, and ridiculously bizarre gift ideas, I also wanted to feature a few charitable organizations that I like, and ask which ones you direct donations toward. As Newark Mayor Cory Booker said on the Rachel Maddow show last April, too often we allow our inability to do everything undermine our ability to do something. Every little bit helps, even if it’s a tiny little bit!

I’ve given gifts of animal donations to Heifer International – which allows you to print out a greeting card to go with your gift to let the recipient know of the donation. I’ve also given to the American Jewish World Service (worth visiting the site just to see their video by Judd Apatow) and Feeding America this year.

I’ve also donated to First Book, and to Reading is Fundamental.

Plus, you can always look up the score of a charitable organization that you like on Charity Navigator to see how their money is spent, or find a new organization with high scores to give to.

So what organizations reach you? Which do you donate to? I’m always looking for more good folks doing good work so when I can donate, even a little bit, I have lots of options.

Comments are Closed

  1. Cat Marsters says:

    I never pass a vet selling poppies either – OK, so the vet is usually my dad, but still.

    I’m curious, is this a US thing? In the UK, the Royal British Legion collects money via the Poppy Appeal, centred around Armistice Day in November, during which most of the British public ‘buys’ (donates for) a paper poppy to wear until Armistice Day. It’s a huge national campaign, culminating in the massive televised ceremony at the Cenotaph in Whitehall.

    But mentions of this have usually met with confusion by foreign friends, amongst whom I count northern European and Americans. It’s a cause I always donate to (although I consider it as a November appeal, rather than a Christmas one) and I always wear my poppy with pride. I’m curious: where else in the world uses the poppy as a symbol of Armistice Day? What sort of customs or ceremonies does it entail?

  2. Rose D says:

    A great all year round charity is the Hugs and Hope Foundation for Sick Children.  YOu can send cards and letters to terminally ill sick children and their families.  They also have birthday boxes, valentines, Santa’s elf, and wish lists you can participate in.  It is sad, but a wonderful cause.  I still communicate with a family in CA (I am in NJ) that I helped at Christmas about 8 years ago.

  3. Kathy says:

    I gave to my daughter’s Monday school program.  There is no official preschool in my community unless you are a “special” needs child.  So, once a week a church in my community sponsors a Monday school in which the children learn letters, numbers and an emphasis on christianity.  The leaders of the school have been doing this for free for about 35 years.  They are all in their 80’s by now.  I, for one, would not and could not deal with 25 preschoolers.  And especially not in my 80’s.  So, hoorah for local Monday school program.

  4. fifi trixibelle says:

    @ Cat Masters

    Our Legion holds the Poppy Drive from the end of October right up until November 10.

    They are usually sold by Veterans in Legion uniform, military cadets also in uniform, and many stores have boxes with poppies and collection cans on the counter.  Make a donation, take a poppy to wear.

    In Ottawa, the tomb of the unknown soldier is covered with poppies after the national service on November 11.

  5. Love giving to Heifer International! That’s what my mother gives my siblings and I every Christmas and it’s perfect because it comes with this nice little booklet that tells us what our pig or flock of geese or honeybees mean to the people who get it/them.

  6. sandy says:

    thanks for the info.. so love it.. company profile

  7. orangehands says:

    FREE ways to help: I’d like to point out the Click to Give site. There’s also Free Rice, which helps you learn too. And Free Kibble and Free Kibble Kat to help feed animals.

    My personal list is mostly centered on YesICAN (International Child Abuse Network), ASPCA, Amnesty International, Planned Parenthood (usually time only), World Wildlife Foundation (my first charity as a kid), Salvation Army (I have issues with some religious aspects but we tend to donate the majority of our “items” there as its our closest charity center), Habit for Humanity (time only), and then ones here and there I hear about during the year and do a one-time donation to.

    My parents have some of these on the list (my mom and I work mostly with YesICAN), but they also give to a few different cure-this-disease charities (especially cancer, but my mom also did a marathon for strokes) and Jewish organizations and my dad’s college and law school to help support scholarships. We also all tend to give books and/or money to different literacy programs. And help our local library.

  8. Jodie says:

    Room to Read, Shelter and now the LGBT Foundation are the ones I try to regularly give to. At Christmas we usually get gifts from Oxfam (of the send ‘kids to school’ variety) from others. Right now I just wanted to tell you about a charity effort that’s going on at The Bloggess, matching people who are having a tough time this Christmas with donors who will send them gift cards: http://thebloggess.com/?p=9474

  9. N says:

    I am a big fan of Fisher House (a Charity Navigator 4-star charity), which is essentially a Ronald McDonald House for military families, providing free accommodation at veterans medical treatment centers. They are all over the country so you can even donate to one near you. Their web site is here: http://www.fisherhouse.org/donate/index.html

  10. I sponsor a child in Honduras through Childfund International (http://www.childfund.org).  I’ve been doing this for three years, and I get letters from her (she’s 12) every quarter.  It’s been fun to watch her grow and know that I’ve helped make her life a little easier.

  11. Donna says:

    Sorry, took a while to get back. In the U.S. The Buddy Poppy a program created by the Veterans of Foriegn War. It’s not so much an Armistace Day thing as a fund raiser for VFW programs for Veterans.

    The minimal assessment (cost of Buddy Poppies) to VFW units provides compensation to the veterans who assemble the poppies, provides financial assistance in maintaining state and national veterans’ rehabilitation and service programs and partially supports the VFW National Home for orphans and widows of our nation’s veterans.

    http://www.vfw.org
    They’re usually sold on or around Memorial Day.  I get hit twice a year. Once when I run into a local vet in May & then again from my dad because his unit sells them on Veterans Day when the weather is more temperate in Arizona. 
    I have an ever growing string of them hanging from my rearview mirror as that’s wear my parents always put them when I was a kid.

  12. Donna says:

    Wear? Wear? Just as I was patting my self on the back for using the correct they’re. Oh, the shame.

  13. I donate money to charity and send an ecard instead of physical cards. I’ll be donating to a cancer charity this year, as I lost a relative to cancer last year.

    I recently edited an anthology which donates a percentage of the proceeds to charity, too. Uniform Behaviour, an erotic eBook, will donate a percentage to UK charity Help for Heroes, which helps servicemen and women wounded in current conflict. I have friends in the forces and wanted to do my bit.

  14. Tessa says:

    Room to Read: they partner with local communities in Nepal, Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, etc. to build schools and libraries offering local language instruction and books (in some places they publish kids books in the local languages). 

    They have a strong emphasis of providing education for girls, and I know they work really hard to keep the admin costs down and only do things that actually work.

    If I ever finish this novel I’m writing, I’m hoping to model those writers who donate a percentage of their earnings to a charity.  There is something very pleasing about turning the sale of one book into books and education for others.

    http://www.roomtoread.org/Page.aspx?pid=183

  15. Fi says:

    Well my mother always gives to Bart’s hospital in London because she studied and worked there, and we give to Jewish Blind and Disabled in London, because my grandfather set it up. Also Medecins sans Frontieres, because I want to work there later on.

  16. Elise Logan says:

    Nice timing.

    We donate in lieu of gifts for my parents and Hickepedia’s grandparents. We also do an annual “family” gift for our nuclear family (me, Hickepedia, Munchkin). It keeps the whole thing grounded for us.

    Over the last couple of years, we’ve done holiday donations to Habitat for Humanity, Heifer, ASPCA, RAL (local animal shelter), Orangutan Foundation International, the National Zoo, Angelfood, and various things through our church.

    I like Charity Navigator, but you have to keep in mind that the way they rate charities gives an advantage to larger charities. The capacity measure really favors the big ones.

  17. allison says:

    I give to Heifer, Habitat for Humanity, my local foodbanks and the local AIDS Foundation.

    Something to keep in mind is that gifts don’t have to be large. At the non-profit animal shelter where I work, we can get a 40 lb bag of dog food from Hill’s Science Diet for $5. That 40 lb bag of dog food feeds anywhere from 30-60 dogs (depending on size, of course). So, for five dollars, you can feed 30 dogs. That’s one heckuva deal.

    I also have to second the concerns with Charity Navigator. The metric they use isn’t very fair to smaller non-profits and doesn’t make a lot of sense. We kept our expenses down this last year by realigning programs and we lost our 4 star rating because our expenses went down. To have kept the 4 star rating, we would’ve needed to up our payroll by about 100k a year which we weren’t willing to do.

  18. Jill Purinton says:

    Our big one is MDA through our HOG (Harley Owners Group) Chapter. The Labor Day Telethon takes place in our dealership in Joplin, MO but MDA fundraising is a part of every activity-like our Christmas Party this year. I also participated in the local Lock Up this week. Our local food pantry (serving 500+ families) ran out of food so that has been a community wide project.  A new one for us this year is Back Pack Snack Attack

    http://www.warwickvalleyschools.com/district/newsmore/0910/bkpksnack.htm

    Our county has been declared a poverty area. The Back Pack program serves 130 kids in our rural county in 3 schools. The kids are given the back pack bags (descretely) on Friday as they leave school. There is enough food in the gallon zip lock bag for 3 meals a day and a snack for 2 days for 1 child.

  19. Jen B. says:

    I support my kid’s school by donating supplies and clothing.  I try to tailor my gifts to what the school needs the most (like for the K-5 school, small sized uniforms and winter gear).  I also support the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network.  I feel like they are doing great work in teaching the public about food allergies and helping to get legislation passed that makes sense.

  20. SonomaLass says:

    I’ve been a Kiva addict for a while now. I love getting my money back and loaning it again. It’s the “gift that keeps on giving” for real.

    My mom loves to give the farm animal gifts, although she uses a different organization than Heifer. I know she’s going to love the beehive I chose for her this year. I also like Charity Water, and of course Doctors Without Borders. I have also given through Our Voices Together, a group of 9/11 survivors and families working to prevent future acts of terrorism by improving conditions in Afghanistan. They work through Global Giving now.

    Great ideas here!

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