Charitable Giving Decisions

[livingdeb]

It's that time of year when I'm making my final decisions on who gets the money I've allocated toward charitable contributions. (Because I have not been keeping up and Uncle Sam is providing a deadline.) I'm happy to see comments on any of the issues below (or related issues).

Step I: Think what the worst problems in the world are. Current answers:
* destroying the earth
* not having enough money or resources even to take care of your kids properly
* being in pain
* being abused
* being tortured

Step II: Find appropriate charities that can actually make a difference and are efficient and not slimy

Environment
* Nature Conservancy
* Conservation International
(I'm not interested in organizations that lobby or educate. I want organizations that actually improve or save the environment. These organizations buy environmentally important land. I know the Nature Conservancy bends over backwards to work with landowners rather than antagonizing them. I'd also be interest in smaller-scale operations, but don't quite even know how to start.)

Poverty
* FINCA International
* ACCION International
* Planned Parenthood
(I'm not interested in band-aids or disaster relief, but want things that lead to long-term solutions. The first two lend money for small businesses that help people pull themselves (and people they hire) out of poverty and then when they pay the money back, it becomes available for more loans. The last helps people have only the children they want without being icky about jamming alien values down other people's throats. I think there are some groups that make water available that might be good too. Chikuru? Would monetary donations help Engineers without Borders?)

Pain
* Arthritis and Cancer Pain Research Center
(I am not interested in education or promotion of mental methods of pain control as much as I would like to see new painkillers that work well without bad side-effects. This organization was the closest I could find, but I don't really know what I think about it. And I wonder if pain is as bad a problem as it used to be. Certainly post-surgical pain can be controlled much more easily now than when my mother had her gallbladder out in 1972. I may actually phase this one out.)

Child abuse
?
(Child abuse sucks, and children have a weird lack of rights, and abuse breaks people in ways that are hard to fix and that can snowball in its effects on other people. I have ignored this issue in the past, figuring that anything I could do would just be a band-aid. But maybe some band-aids can do a lot of good. And some places actually try to prevent child abuse, which, if that actually works, would definitely be good. Someone else has already done some research on this issue and chosen the West Valley Child Crisis Center. Should I donate to that? Should I find one closer to home and donate there?)

Torture
?
(Again, this is something I've always felt was more of a band-aid issue, but with my own country torturing people, there's clearly something wrong with the culture as a whole that needs to be fixed. I've heard of Amnesty International, but don't know how good their results are. I don't know if other approaches would be better.)

Efficiency
*Just Give
(Technically I also donate to justgive.org. I love that I can make anonymous donations through them, and these do not result in any junk mail which would be annoying and also reduce the value of my contribution anyway.)

Comments

[chikuru.livejournal.com]

I like your list--it's well researched.

Engineers Without Borders is harder to categorize than the others--each chapter comes up with its own projects, so there isn't a common theme other than helping people in poor countries through infrastructure projects. EWB can certainly use money (and we did contribute to the UT chapter this year).

[pamwheatfree.livejournal.com]

John and I contribute to the Life and Hope Association - http://www.watdamnak.org/lha/

They help children and families in Cambodia. They believe in getting children into school so they give the families food so the children won't be begging on the streets. They actually follow up on any child that the teachers tell them misses school. They get uniforms for the children. In Cambodia you cannot go to school without a uniform. The organization is run by monks and they are serious about making life better for all the people there. They support the people living in the amputee village. The culture in Cambodia is that if you lost a limb to a land mine then you have bad karma and do not need help since you brought it on yourself. When we were in Cambodia we met some of these people. There was a man with no arms. The monks make sure that he can do useful work even if it is to watch the young children and keep them out of trouble. Anyway, all the money that is contributed goes to food or clothing or education for people who really need it.

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing this. It sounds like a good organization. How did you find out about it?

[pamwheatfree.livejournal.com]

When John and I went to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat, we stayed at a hotel that sponsors local charities. We read that we could donate $5 for a school uniform or more money for various items. We donated rice. We sent out an email that we were donating a ton of rice~approx. $200. We challenged our friends to come up with another 4 tons. Our friends came up with the dough and we took it with us on our trip. Here is our story. http://web.ncf.ca/da710/Rice2005.html

So we found out about it through the Hotel de la Paix.