<p>They do have pigs at Heifer.</p>
<p>I would be very uncomfortable with a pet pig. I love bacon (just finishing some up right now), and I could never have a pet that could be edible. Might turn me vegetarian or something. Now I have a dog that is really, really a hog, so maybe that could take the place if you had a greedy honeybadger dog like this.</p>
<p>Feeding America, and our regional chapter of same.</p>
<p>Educational Foundation of our local public schools, whether or not we had a child there.</p>
<p>We donate to the foundation that supports our D’s school and has the mission of educating kids of color of all ages. We also donate to D’s church (we are not members but she is), and H’s alma mater. We also give any used goods to Goodwill-sales support their training programs for low income and immigrant trainees. We keep it local.</p>
<p>We have a great organization in VT that accepts thing to reuse/recycle and then trains homeless people to fix the things for resale. Used to be called Recycle North. They also accept building supplies from demolitions and reuse them. I think it’s called Restore. There is another wonderful organization in NY that trains and employs homeless people, Greyston Bakery.</p>
<p>^We have something similar, the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. You can donate old housing materials still in usable form, or buy them inexpensively at one of the stores. Amazing what people rip out of their houses (or what their contractor orders that doesn’t fit).</p>
<p>When I gutted my kitchen I donated everything salvageable to HfH ReStore.</p>
<p>Money to our local food bank.</p>
<p>Money and time to CASA for Kids.</p>
<p>Stuff goes to GoodWill. We seem to have lots of stuff to donate!</p>
<p>Local environmental groups always get our donations too.</p>
<p>American Jewish World Service and Mazon are two of my favorites. My alma mater and D’s SLAC. My synagogue. One nonprofit I’ve been considering is charitywater. I hear very good things about it.</p>
<p>I’ve worked for several nonprofits and the first thing people need to understand is that the people running and working for nonprofits can very often be quite avaricious. These are not saints. Believe me.</p>
<p>Are you saying that we should not support the charities listed here because avaricious people may work for them? Or that only charities run by saintly people should receive support? Or that, in our naivete, we do not realize that avaricious people may be anywhere and everywhere?</p>
<p>I’ve worked for several nonprofits, too, and in my experience avarice is/was not a primary, nor even secondary, characteristic of my co-workers. Nor am I particularly avaricious, if you don’t mind taking my word for it. I could make more money elsewhere, but I like working with the seniors I help every day. And I admire the missions of the other organizations I support. Of course, I can’t vouch for the characters of everyone on their staffs. Somehow these groups do manage to make the world a better place, though.</p>
<p>My personal favorites are Food Bank/Food Pantry, Salvation Army, WWF, Girl Scouts, Local Cancer Research Hospital, SPCA and Sea Shepherd.</p>
<p>sewhappy, I agree with frazzled1; your post seemed to come out of left field. I’ve been in the non-profit world for a number of years now, and can’t say that I see a lot of avarice. Due diligence is always to be recommended, of course; I personally use GuideStar, others use Charity Navigator. I also spend a lot of time reading publicly available Form 990s as a grantor.</p>
<p>Charitywater is an interesting case in point, though. The founder is hardly a saint (a former club promoter who rediscovered his faith), but he began a charity where 100% of donations go toward building wells in Africa, and staffing costs are paid separately by a benefactor. A great model that’s very hard to replicate.</p>
<p>I’m with frazzled and Soph14, sewhappy. I work for a church, which is a non-profit in itself, and I deal with non-profits every day. Most everyone who runs them and works for them could be making more money working somewhere else, but we do it because we like helping people. Every day I get a call from someone who lists the organizations and agencies that s/he’s already called for help, but which are tapped out since the need is so great in this economy. We’ve seen charities CLOSE due to demand outstripping donations. </p>
<p>Of course anyone making donations should check out the organization, but I don’t see a lot of people lining their pockets with donation money.</p>
<p>I worked at a nonprofit that was badly run. A lot of the old timers had no-show jobs. Received its funding from state and there were issues like the coo was married to someone in an administrative position with influence on our funding. By the time I left I was really disillusioned with the nonprofit world. Have also worked for some good ones My sense Is that there’s sort of a mania of people starting nonprofits and usually getting nice sinecures for themselves while acting as if they are quite saintly. I often see new nonprofits claiming to do what old ones already do but here we go with more. </p>
<p>Sorry don’t mean to offend. I guess I think profit motive is not such a bad thing but is much maligned of late simply saying abuses can and do go on in nonprofit world too.</p>
<p>I donate to our local homeless shelter and our local chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association. I know the AA is a great organization and struggle to provide services.</p>
<p>sewhappy–I’m sure there are non-profits that are as you describe. I have to believe most are not, but it’s good for people to be aware before donating.</p>
<p>I think we know that abuses can and do go on in the non-profit world. I mean, my health insurance company is supposedly non-profit, but its CEO was paid $5.2 million last year. That is pretty messed up.</p>
<p>In identifying our favorite non-profits on this thread, I don’t see where any of us maligned the profit motive. We’re primarily talking about 501c3 organizations that depend on contributions for support, including those from for-profit corporations and generous wealthy donors. There is room for both kinds of organizations - for-profit and non-profit. One can admire non-profits and not be anti-profit.</p>
<p>I don’t really know anyone who acts saintly. Thankfully.</p>
<p>Humane Society of the US
ASPCA
Friends of the IDF
Random Jewish charities in US that help people</p>
<p>Fair discussion here. I give to leukemia & lymphoma society and to an endowment called Telluride Association and to both my kids’ colleges and to our church and to a shelter for battered women back in the city I used to live in. </p>
<p>I think it comes down to personal history. Someone I loved died of leukemia, some one I admired was beaten in a bad domestic situation. We give where our hearts dwell.</p>