I was thinking about it. I donate to quite a few charities, but they specifically mean something to me. Others I don't really think about, though they're good. I guess we all have a threshold or we'd be broke and for many that could be no donations at all or just a fiver the the street guy.
Lots of wealth hoarders are donating money to avoid taxes. A lot of charities profit from this and aren’t actual charities and it’s all down to syntax of what a charity is.
And supermarkets that ask you to donate is for their own PR.
So much of life is a lie and a scam.
Just save up your loose change and give it to someone outside the liquor store. At least then you know where the money is going. And it’s possibly the more ethical option.
I don't usually donate to charities because the vast majority of the donation never actually goes to the cause it was donated for in the first place. However, I try to give cash to the homeless as often as Ican. On my drive home I frequently see homeless people and I try to give money and also bottled water that I usually have in my car. I don't know what they'll use it for, but it's something I can do right there and then for them and I know they at least have the opportunity to buy some food / necessities, and I know they have water.
I don't donate money because over half of my paycheck is already deducted from my pay. Germany does already a lot of welfare in my name and I'm proud of this and okay with this.
Also I'm aware of issues donations can cause, like material ones for instance, that can disrupt the economy of a poor country and prevent them from growing their own, so I don't do that either.
I also believe it's not good to keep another country depending on donations, because in the long run it will create more suffering when the donations can't keep up. It's a bit difficult to explain as a lot of processes interconnect here and it sounds heartless without explaining it in detail. Let's say there are a lot of exceptions to the last part, as for instance a country currently at war should get as much donations a possible. However I personally also draw the line on countries who are at war constantly, as they seam to lack interest in stopping blood for blood conflicts and I'd rather not get involved into this, as it's hard to tell who's the good guys.
I thought about donating to local pet shelters and I might do that in the future, because they have a lot of pets suffering and not receive enough money to properly care for them. On the other hand I eat meat and where's the differences between a dog or a cow? It almost feels hypocrite to eat one and trying to save the other. So probably reducing meat consumption is the best I could do. Much better than donations.
I accepted that I'm a human with needs and wants and therefore also egoism, else I'd donate all my money, as there's always someone who's life is worse than mine. But I don't do that.
I am really poor by UK standards, living on disability payments which are among the
lowest in Europe. Sometimes I have to use the foodbank in winter.
However, in summer I also donate to them and also give to local charities and homeless
people. I know a lot of people say do not give directly to the homeless, but I think that
is wrong.I have been homeless and found a community of folk just like everywhere
else. Some do spend it all on drugs, but many more do not!
It is not my place to judge.
I've given money to both charities and people. Here's the thing about donating, though: you'll get on all sorts of mailing lists and shit, and you'll get lots more begging letters, emails, phone calls and texts. You know those PBS/NPR donation drives, where they're like "We just need ten more donors this hour, it doesn't matter how much!" or those charities that send you pre-printed labels and say "Hey, just send us five bucks, that's all we need"? Yeah, they're harvesting your information. If you even send them a penny, they'll be back for more, and they'll sell or trade your information to other charities.
I give money to our local volunteer fire/ems department every year, but I don't use their pre-printed mailer; I hand them cash when Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny come through on their trucks. I have one of those pre-paid Visa gift cards that aren't tied to an actual person; if I do an online donation, I'll use that and give them fake information. The money is legit, the information is good enough to pass, but they can't come harass me for more.
This includes all donations, by the way - political, religious, civic, charity, social, whatever. Do it in cash or by an anonymous Visa gift card.
Yeah. I gave Kamala $46.50 the day Biden dropped. It was my first political donation (even though I'm old) and i was pretty excited about it. Now i get at least 4 emails per day. I finally started unsubscribing today. Seriously, I'm voting for you, but you're gonna need to back the fuck off.
I deleted 148 mostly political spam emails that I got from Saturday to Tuesday. I'm glad to have donated a few bucks, but fucking Christ. I hear from a dozen people daily (or more) plus "guest solicitors" like half of Hollywood.
Just feel it should be pointed out that money isn't the only way to contribute. Time is another. Volunteer hours are important for many charitable organizations too.
I prefer to donate time. I'm now president of one local non-profit (in addition to my paying job), and a regular participant in another. Sometimes I'll donate supplies that we need, but never money.
If a time comes when I have little time and a lot of money, maybe I'll switch. Donors are necessary. But I know that we need hands more than dollars.
We are members of a few charitable organizations, and we have subscribed to a charity lottery (we have a chance to win something, but we are absolute OK with not winning, too, as we know where the money is going to)
Yeah and my rationale for deciding how much is a little involved... Essentially, carbon offset markets are either straight up scams or over hyping the impact. Instead I donate directly to charities doing good work related to the environment or the fall out from the climate crisis. The U.S. EPA estimates that each metric ton of CO2 emitted costs society and the environment around $200 in damage from things like natural disasters, civil unrest from displacement, extinction of species, etc. the average US household emits about 17 MT/year.
So around tax return season I go to FootprintCalculator.org and estimate how many MT of CO2 our household emitted the year prior. Then I set monthly recurring donations to the charities to roughly equal the amount of $200 times MT spread across the year. So it's fairly automated/low effort, and just comes out a little bit each month.
The types of charities vary, but they're all doing incredible work, here's some of them:
Coalition for Rainforest Nations (the operate globally with indigenous and local communities to do everything possible to protect rainforests and reforest areas. The donations really stretch far because they predominantly work in low income areas)
ProPublica (no paywall investigative news organization that has really hard hitting reporting that holds polluters accountable by government agencies)
Lahaina Community Land Trust (supporting Native Hawaiian victims of the Lahaina fire and trying to prevent their land from being bought up by private equity and billionaires)
World Wildlife Foundation (great work with preserving biodiversity and raising awareness of nature with the public. It's hard to care about something if you don't know about it)
Local food bank, urban green space advocates, and housing support orgs (the most vulnerable people in our communities experience extreme weather much differently than those of us with AC and a solid roof)
Also agree with the other commenter about giving time
I check administrative and fundraising costs. 90% of my donations are local organizations that directly impact my community, mostly the food bank, animal care and shelters, and school or student groups.
I donate to food banks and educational charities. I grew up with little and now I'm better off thanks to charities and scholarships that supported me, and I want future generations to be given the same chances I was.
I only donate to the Red Cross, too many others are scammers, and I don't have time to filter. I also don't donate blood anymore as most centers near me are for profit and I won't promote actual blood money. I am still an organ donor on the basis of "I'm not using it anymore and the rest is getting burned".
I donate blood at the UCLA Blood and Platelet Center because I know it's going directly to the hospital. Of course I expect it to be used for others, but on a selfish note, it helps keep their supply of my blood type topped up just in case I need some one day.
No, but I donate time and sometimes items. I’ve seen how wasteful so many “charities” are. When less than half of what is donated actually goes to the end user that’s a problem. So I donate things that have to go to the end user, or at the very least in support of the end user.
Yeah, it's tricky that, especially with international stuff. When something kicks off internationally and suddenly a bajillion charity groups appear, it's troublesome.
And it's my rule of thumb to just disregard anything from a religion, I won't even bother checking into them. Whenever there's been a charity called out for being evil, it's ironically Christian-based.
We allocate money for the kids to donate to charity. Some loose rules around what does and doesn't count but generally the kids get to decide.
Not technically charity but I've made a push to support OSS and other small-tech projects this past year. Regular contributions of a few dollars a month each to things like the maintainer of my linux distro and the guy that makes Kodi plugins I use, and pushing to financially support commecial OSS such as Proton Mail and Bitwarden. I'm just realising I don't actually have a list, I should probably work out exactly where my money is going.
I am poor, I live in a country with a fraction of US average salary and high expenses. Although I have a house and car, I also have a family to support. I barely make it as it is, so no, I do not donate money.
Kinda, I go overboard on tips, I cover night out bills for friends, I round up on receipts, biggest charitable act I participate in is helping my dad out with an org his church is a part of (normal "doing the good works" kind of church that doesn't do weirdo evangelical shit), and recently supporting the org my GF works for because I like bein' a cheerleader for the schtuff she gets excited about :3.
Yes. I donate to various open source projects (e.g., KDE, Sunshine, Dark Reader), the conservation fund, the ACLU, and the EFF.
As for how, I try to do it via their preferred platform on an annual basis instead of monthly (if possible) to minimize fees.
Why? I believe charity is a path towards shaping the world for the better (and I can afford to). Rule #1: take care of yourself before taking care of others.
I had some good fortune and more money than I was used to a while back. I tried to help good causes when they presented themselves, as my way of paying it forward.
Nowadays, things are a bit more tight. I'm asking homeless people for change. Ok, not that bad, but it's definitely not my time to share.
My wife and I contribute to a few local organizations on a regular basis. They all offer donations on their websites. There's a clinic we donate to. The shelters where we got our cats get regular small donations. We also donate to the local food panty plus warming centers in the winter.
We also exchange donations in lieu of gifts with our parents at the holidays. We're all in positions where we don't need more stuff, and it's a nice way to still exchange something. My mom encourages donations to the rescue where she got her dog. I ask that she makes a donation to an organization that maintains and protects a local river basin.
I feel it is important for the human condition - it's also a part of my faith system but entirely separately from that it also seems to me to lead to the most "zen", as in if we only focus on ourselves that seems like the fastest way to unhappiness? (Is Jeff Bezos happy? Is Elon Musk? Is Steve Huffman? money flows like a river and if it only comes in but never is given away then that leads to imbalance)
But so very many organized charities have been revealed to be frauds that I am extremely wary of giving to one that I had not vetted, especially one associated with organized religion. But that requires so very much effort... still it's part of it and connects you to it.:-)
One thing I love to do is tip. I'm in America btw, so it's an important part of what they need, and these are people who are WORKING for it - like, they aren't just street beggers (although I've given to them too - I usually have quite mixed feelings about that one though, and tend to not). Especially if I'm ever in a southern state - 10-20% just barely does anything for a $6 meal at a Waffle House, so those rules should not apply. According to my way of thinking, it is just part of the cost of the service - like I could go to a grocery store and make my own food, but if I to "out" to eat then I want to do what I can to counteract the evil fuckwads who decided that $2.25 an hour or whatever it is before tips are counted towards their paycheck (so not minimum wage + tips but that amount instead).
And as others are also saying, don't neglect the non-financial ways of "giving" as well - something as simple as offering to flip a mattress for an old person or trim someone's yard for someone dealing with an injury, which may be trivial for one but exceedingly difficult for another.
Also compliments. I'm not good at this and virtually never do it actually - but it might just be more important than anything else you could do for someone, e.g. could you prevent someone's suicide just by offering such a simple gesture of support? (possibly not entirely intentional too, like a fentanyl overdose) Maybe I'm being too naive here and inflating the power of such... or maybe I'm still underselling the importance here?
Anyway it's more about you than it is them - who do you want to be, someone who takes takes takes or someone who gives gives gives? Like when someone sees you walking into the room, do you want them to cover up their wallet/purse or beam with an authentic smile?
But don't be stupid about it. If you give away your paycheck and then cannot pay rent, then you'll be the one needing help. Therefore, treat financial "giving" like any other budgeted amount - not a "I feel like it today so here's a good tip", and more of a "every single time I go out, this is what I expect to offer" (and if service is poor so you feel that you can't give it to them, then find someone else to offer it to?). The vast majority of us really need so much less than consumer culture says that we do - and I for one find chasing the monetized dream to be a futile endeavor, but giving is one of the most sure-fire ways to produce, if not "happiness" (not every time) then at least a settledness/peace overall.
Dare to be different, especially if you know that you are doing a right thing, and "remember the human" very much seems to be that, for me.
If you want to practice compliments, a safe choice is often some version of "cute shoes!" Obviously some shoes aren't cute, they're "super" or "dapper," or (some adjective I'm too old and out of touch to know) or "I bet you can run real fast in them."
I donate to quite a few people close to me, as many are much worse off than my family and I are. I help them with projects, car repairs, house repairs, and dinners when things are tight. They never ask, I offer, and they'll accept maybe 50% of the time. I keep good company.
I've also put a few hundred dollars this one election cycle towards a few select political campaigns I care about, especially now that I'm in a good paying job. Not something i've done before, and it's not much but enough to at least feel like I'm helping get rid of fascists.
Yup. Be aware that if you do donate money you'll get bombarded with snail mail, email, texts, and phone calls for the rest of your days. I don't say this to discourage anyone from being charitable. Just be ready for that. Politicians are the most aggressive about it.
I've NEVER donated to anything besides the Cleveland APL. I STILL get regular texts from people posing as trump asking for donations. I block ghat number, but they have endless numbers. I block all that text me.
Most of the time I round up whenever I'm asked at drive-thrus, especially if it's for St. Jude. And then there were a few times for some internet people who did me a solid.
Those round up things are a scam. The business collecting the money takes a huge tax break, even if they do pass it on to the charity. Just donate to the charity and take the tax break for yourself.
I believe that's misinformation that was spread. I've read discussions on this before and the conclusion was that it's not true. The restaurants don't get the tax break and customers can actually claim the tax break if they have the receipt.