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.
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.
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.
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 $200 times MT spread across the year. So it’s fairly automated/low effort, and just comes out a little bit each month.
The types of charities vary, but they’re all doing incredible work, here’s some of them:
Coalition for Rainforest Nations (the operate globally with indigenous and local communities to do everything possible to protect rainforests and reforest areas. The donations really stretch far because they predominantly work in low income areas)
ProPublica (no paywall investigative news organization that has really hard hitting reporting that holds polluters accountable by government agencies)
Lahaina Community Land Trust (supporting Native Hawaiian victims of the Lahaina fire and trying to prevent their land from being bought up by private equity and billionaires)
World Wildlife Foundation (great work with preserving biodiversity and raising awareness of nature with the public. It’s hard to care about something if you don’t know about it)
Union of Concerned Scientists (political advocacy org)
Local food bank, urban green space advocates, and housing support orgs (the most vulnerable people in our communities experience extreme weather much differently than those of us with AC and a solid roof)
Also agree with the other commenter about giving time
I check administrative and fundraising costs. 90% of my donations are local organizations that directly impact my community, mostly the food bank, animal care and shelters, and school or student groups.
4$ a month to wikipedia. It’s the most valuable thing the internet has spawned hands down
I used to but I don’t anymore. I can’t afford to give money away when I can’t even pay for my own bills.
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.
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.
Lots of charities focus on solving basic problems in developing countries, like building infrastructure or fighting corruption. They dont necessarily cause a dependency. Not saying you are wrong though, it is a complicated matter.
Your right, there’s for example Netzpolitik which fights for our internet rights. I’ve donated to them once. Totally forgot about them, shame on me.
Reduce meat but don’t be hard on yourself about it, you’re an omnivore and you can care about animals. This is not mutually exclusive it’s just facts. Don’t let out of control vegans try to pull you into shit logic that addresses nothing of real value arguments. Reducing meat intake does a lot against the irresponsible commercial farming, and thank you for the efforts. Feel free to go look after some puppies now and nourish yourself with some proper intake iron every now and again. Acknowledge a life was given for it and dont take advantage of that. Be grateful and conscious about where it’s sourced.
I started donating last year, 2 years into my first job. I was unsure then because my impression of charities was that the money probably doesnt go where they are saying, or just a small portion does.
Then I stumbled upon the GiveWell( https://givewell.org ) foundation. Their goal is to identify the most efficient charities using a range of criteria. I decided to start with 100€/month distributed 50/50 to fighting poverty and climate change respectively. I also decided that for every raise I get at my job Id raise the amount by 100€ and have done so once by now. I read that its easier to part with future money than with what you already own and it makes a lot of sense.
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(and why should a money monger benefit from anyone else’s good deed when they have plenty to donate or even pay their staff a living wage instead?)
So much of life is a layered 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.
Not all charities are like that, there are many that operate very transparently and actually make a difference. Just because some people take advantage of the system behind it does not make donating less impactful if you do a bit of research.
What would the internet be without the no true Scotsman argument?
Oh that’s right: scammers with no vitriol.
Not sure what you mean. What would the No True Scotsman argument be in this case? It would need to make the same generalization while excluding the ones I mentioned, I dont see how that would work.
Terrible, no-good, cynical, nihilist take. If everybody took your advice, the world would be a worse place in short order. Sorry to be so blunt.
Your apology assumes I care about your opinion way too much.
- Planned Parenthood - Gave my wife quality routine medical care when were broke.
- Pfblocker - fuck ads
- Physics Girl - I gave hospice care to my Dad for a couple months. That was literally the hardest most painful experience of my life. I can’t imagine surviving giving full time care to someone for years like her husband has. Me chipping in a couple bucks every month might help reduce money stress in a small way.
- Harris campaign - I would like Democracy to continue and the opposition seems directly against that happening.
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.
I donate small amounts to open source projects and content creators that .make stuff for everyone because I really believe it’s a great way of fighting capitalism and many of the problems it’s caused.
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)
Yep donate to a lot, but I make sure it’s out of my planned donation budget or out of my (set amount) “feel like it” budget categories. I consider patreoning creators / journalists / FOSS seperate from charity, but I try to pay a fair subscription amount I’d give to paywalled stuff. Political donations I do occasionally as well but that too is not charity.
CharityNavigator is important to vet charities, and a good starting place to look for charities in causes you care about.
I try to focus 50/50 on local vs international stuff, which amounts to 10/90% impacts due to wealth discrepancies. I donate typically to organizations doing the work, but also do a smaller amount to UnitedWay (which if you are too tired, stressed, or distracted to do charity research is worth the lost efficiency as they do a lot of charity vetting for you).
I don’t donate monetarily to strangers on the street, but I do donate (time and money) to shelters and assistance programs who can bring a lot more aid per dollar than I can.
If you work for a corp, be sure to check if they have a matching program, you can double your impact.
I highly recommend using a email alias provider as you’ll get a lot of spam. I block most charity calls/text attempts to my phone number if they get it (I don’t understand how that is effective at all, but they all seem to do it).
I started donating to the local animal rescue. None of them get any public funding whatsoever, so all the money is going to the animals’ care.
They’re pretty open with what it costs to take care of the various animals, and I feel it’s a critical job they do.
Haven’t gotten any spam so far either, so that is respectful.
