I’m looking for new effective charities. We have a few regulars, but also try to fund new causes each year depending on current issues. What are your favorites? This year, I’d especially like to help fund education in some meaningful way. I realize there are so many worthwhile causes, but am a firm believer that many problems start with a lack of education! Please list any of your preferred charities (and potentially specific recipients if allowed). Tia!
Room to Read - https://www.roomtoread.org/ - girls literacy and education
ACLU
Doctors Without Borders
If you want an educational based charity look at Donors Choose – it is very direct and you can support a specific classroom/school project (can sort based on topic,location). https://www.donorschoose.org/
We also regularly donate to St. Jude Children’s Hospital. A fantastic place that doesn’t charge for top notch childhood cancer care and they share all of their research so others can benefit.
We don’t do religions so we give in the secular world. A few large donations seem better than many small ones for impact (you define large).
We give to schools locally and where we lived. The local school district may know of local organizations that help pay for clothes and food for K-HS kids.
We also have our list of medical charities. Be sure to vet them and notice precise names. “Cancer” et al can mean excellent or dubious charities.
American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, diabetes, March of Dimes and so many others.
UNICEF of course- especially with what I hear about current US policy for giving.
Public Radio and TV.
Decide your charity budget and pick a number of charities where you give $100 or more to use your funds. If $1000 is your total pick 5 or 10 charities instead of giving $10 or $20 to many.
St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. Not education – but excellent medical care for very ill children – medical care given regardless of their parents’ ability to pay.
https://www.stjude.org/
We donated this year to a place called Rosie’s House in Phoenix. I would urge you to google this…and read and see what they do.
They provide private music lessons, and instruments at no cost to students who would not otherwise be able to afford this. It’s a wonderful program, lots of varied musical offerings, and their only funding is grant and donation funding…as the students don’t pay anything.
We feel very strongly that the arts should be accessible to all kids…so this is where our main donation went this year.
We also donate to all of the colleges where we got degrees…restricted donations to our departments.
Consider funding your local community college. Four year colleges get all the bucks, but two year colleges educate most of the students. I once gave money to my alma mater, but now I think my donations go a lot farther, and to students who need it more, when I donate to the local community college.
A lot of our donation dollars went to supporting political candidates at state and local levels, ones who support and champion issues we care about. It’s not tax deductible of course but perhaps consider doing the same for candidates that support an educational stance that you agree with in the hopes of getting people into office that will support education improvements for all.
The bulk of our giving goes to a local college readiness program that works with minority and/or first generation to go to college students. These students statistically have a low rate of college completion. The program starts when they are in middle school and adds students as they become interested in academic support, summer program funding, college visits, and post HS advising. This program changes lives.
I tend to favor charities taking care of the most dire situations: some of my favorites are Doctors Without Borders, Partners in Health, Church World Service (faith-based but their work is totally secular–I have known the director for many years and trust them), and local food banks.
This year I also am supporting the ACLU and Planned Parenthood.
I don’t have specifically educational ones, but the best way I know to find worthwhile and trustworthy groups in a given area is by searching on Charity Navigator, which very clearly shows which are the most efficient and transparent programs.
St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. They saved my aunt’s (and she was my godmother) life many, many years ago. She was born with a hole in her heart. DH and I made a large donation to them when we married in lieu of favors.
I would encourage you to look locally too. I like to support a group that is a community band for kids about 4th grade through high school. So many schools have had to drop music programs that it is nice to find an organization that offers instruments and lessons to kids who otherwise wouldn’t have a chance. They also took them to Band Camp every summer. Small contributions make a big difference to these organizations.
We donate to our local library and our local SPCA along with some educational based (local) donations.
I tend to focus on the “family” colleges and then local organizations where funds stay local and administrative percentages are low.
My school district has a charitable foundation, yours may as well. It keeps all of the dollars local. I also donate to a hyper-local arts fund which grants $ to local arts orgs and the schools.
Mary’s Place in Seattle provides shelter to homeless women and families. Amazon has allowed them to use a building of theirs as a shelter.
I really try to keep things close to home - the St Vincent de Paul Sunday dinner at my Parish, the arts, schools, homeless, and other food programs. It’s easier to see where my dollars go and the immediate results in the community.
I give to Reading is Fundamental https://prod.rif.org/about-rif which ensured for years that every kid in our school got at least four books of their own choosing to own every single year. I’m also a fan of http://www.reachoutandread.org/ which my college roommate has been involved in. Our local school system has a good educational foundation. I give to the local soup kitchen/pantry. I also give to the local branch of Our Brother’s Keeper.
Additionally I belong to a women’s philanthropic organization. We pool or money, vett the local organizations that request funding, distribute the $, and have follow ups with the groups during the course of the year. We have grown to the point of now being able to disperse about $80,000 per year to groups that benefit women and youth.
https://www.charitywatch.org/top-rated-charities
Look at sights like this to get an idea of which charities give most of each dollar raised to the actual charitable cause.
We give to local and international and special interest groups. But it’s important that most of the money goes to the.cause and not fund raising.
I started donating last year after the election to our local chapter of USCRI (US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants) http://refugees.org
Also Jewish World Service (their work is also all secular.)
Planned Parenthood, ACLU, PBS, NPR and make political contributions.
I also give to my private high school, H’s and kid’s private high school.