I’ll start here:
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Thanks for starting this thread!
“Your gift this Giving Tuesday will help the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) provide free mental health resources for all. Mental illness is much more common than you think. Help people get life-saving resources.”
All donations given on Tuesday will be matched 100%. I can’t speak highly enough of this organization. They are really focusing on young people and suicide prevention now. They’re reaching lots of teens with their texting line - it’s staffed by trained young people. 
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Here in my state we had “Give to The Max Day” a few weeks ago. I decided to go 100% local this year. My large donation was to a charity which supports food banks in our state (full disclosure: SIL is on the board of this organization). I gave smaller amounts to our local library system, the local HS Performing Arts and our neighborhood association which sponsors a lot of community events.
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My favorite aunt was very involved with NAMI, as her 2nd child (and my mother’s godson and favorite nephew), was schizophrenic and struggled throughout his adult years. I have heard often about how effective this organization is.
Every so often I wish I had just a fraction of the resources that are available to McKenzie Scott or Melinda French Gates for making a difference. My community college was the recipient of an unexpected $15 million donation from Scott in 2020 and I know how this funding is continuing to make a difference in our service region.
My church bulletin detailed our chosen Advent offering, sponsoring a free lunch program for girls in Africa, this morning & reminded me that it doesn’t take millions to make a difference:
Thirty girls will receive lunch five days a week for nine months of school.
Before this program, girls without this lunch money asked for the money from men who
took advantage of their situation. “our church” funded this program last year and there
was a dramatic decrease in girls dropping out of school, early pregnancy and trafficking.
Our goal is $10,800 which will fully fund lunches for two years.
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Although my donation won’t be anywhere near finalize by Tuesday, I’ve decided to endow a scholarship (equivalent to full tuition) at the state flagship U in memory of my late husband. It will be for a FGLI student majoring in certain fields.
DH was a FGLI student (so was SIL) and they both have spoken about how the struggle to pay for college almost led them to dropping out of school. I’m negotiating with the university so that the scholarship funds can be used for things beside tuition (since my state has a strong state scholarship program that covers tuition for many students). I want the monies to be available to pay for housing , meals, health insurance and all the stuff not covered by the state scholarship.
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We donate to D’s university fund that covers those kinds of costs not covered by scholarship.
We also donate locally to support food insecurity and homelessness, but that was last week before Thanksgiving and not on Giving Tuesday.
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For Giving Tuesday, I’m going to give to two local community organizations. I feel that both of these organizations improve the quality of life of my neighbors and friends. I’m also on the board of another community organization and all of the board members have agreed to match any donations the organization receives for Giving Tuesday.
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We already gave earlier in the year to the charities we are involved with—my nonprofit, a national nonprofit I’m on the board of, the local foodbank, the public radio station and some nonprofit orgs supporting democratic action.
Giving from a retirement account when you have to take required minimum distributions but use qualified charitable distributions can help trim taxable income some.
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Your local foodbank
The ACLU
Teacher requests via donorschoose.org
The Brennan Center (voting rights and election law)
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There are so many worthy charitable organizations. H and I donate (time and money) to ones that we feel are meaningful to us personally and to the greater community.
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Yes, do your due diligence to be sure that your donations are doing what you believe they do instead of lining pockets of people you aren’t meaning to help. There are so many worthy organizations that do so much good with so little money. Our local food bank says that $1 donated is able to be multiplied many times in how much food it can produce instead of when folks donate food (but both are welcomed).
When you’re active with an organization, you have a better idea of how funds are being spent and what the organization is really doing. Some orgs look great on paper but really are just paying a ton to their top execs and not that much is filtering down to the people they are supposed to be helping.
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This is a helpful website that I found out about from Colorado_kid.
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For detailed info, donors can also try
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One thing to note, there are many smaller local charities which aren’t on Charity Navigator and other sites because they are tiny, don’t have much budget but still do great and much needed work. For many of the larger places to recognize and org, there has to be an independent audit which can cost thousands of dollars small orgs simply can’t spare.
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https://www.cyclebreakers.info/
About Us
Cycle Breakers is a student organization that helps current and former foster youth. Only 3% of foster youth graduate from college, 20% experience homelessness once they age out of care, many become pregnant or incarcerated, and most are unable to support themselves financially by the time they are age 25. We partner with other organizations to identify and meet the needs of this population. This past year, we spent 40 hours supporting former foster youth identify the best areas to move to given income, healthcare, disability, and other constraints. This holiday season we are hosting a toy drive to benefit current and youth who have aged out of the foster care system. Many foster kids do not receive any presents from their foster or biological families. Youth who have aged out often receive no presents during the holidays. Together we can bring a bit of light to these children and youth this holiday season. Cycle Breakers was founded by Aleksander Nikolov whose mom aged of foster care. He attends Stuyvesant High School in New York City.
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I’ve been impressed with the work done by World Central Kitchen, both in the US and abroad.
Closer to home, the food bank in the adjacent city has a good reputation for being well run as does the local St. Vincent de Paul charity.
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Check if your employer has a special donation match on Tuesday!
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Many churches are taking donations for schools/kids this time of year. They also often are involved in preparing and serving meals at local shelters.
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If you are looking for ideas and don’t have one this might give you some.
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If none of the above ideas speak to you, please consider donating to your local Meals on Wheels. It allows older citizens to stay wel nourished in their homes, leveraging the volunteer army of deliverers.
Also it provides a safety net. Last month I got a call from MOW about an elderly church friend not picking up her food at the door. She lives across town, so I reached out to her neighbor…. they ended up needing EMT help.
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