What are your favorite charities? What do you regularly give to? I have some empty space in my “secular tithing” budget that I’m looking to fill in.
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Feeding America - https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/363673599
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Electronic Frontier Foundation - https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/043091431
- No kid should ever go hungry
- Information should be free; privacy is important
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I donate to a local group that provides housing for homeless youth. Before donating, always check where the money actually goes - there’s a few good websites for this that breaks down the org’s budget for CEO pay, marketing, etc.
I’m a member of Amnesty International, and I’ve sponsored kids through Plan Canada for about 10 years. I used to be a professional fundraiser, and those two really struck a chord with me.
UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) and MSF (Medicines Sans Frontieres) are ones I used to work with, and they both do great work too.
In Canada all registered charities are audited annually. Their financials are available online for you to review.
My local food bank is my favorite place to donate and volunteer at. My friend also works as a CASA so I donate to them as well (link is for the national organization, but they’re may be a local group you can donate to directly). Other than that, look around your area for local nonprofits. There are lots of local charities that work with kids, help solve local problems, etc that can always use some financial help. There are several organizations that you can go to if you want to vet and check on the charities to make sure they’re legit.
It might not help you as it seems you might be in the US, but I regularly donate to MIND (a UK mental health charity), mermaids UK (A UK trans youth charity), Stonewall, and Greenpeace. I think they’re all awesome.
I also support the Awesome Socks Club, which isn’t really a charity donation but they’re donating 100% of profits to various charities, they said they’re trying to beat Paul Newman’s company’s charitable contributions which is a huge effort, it supports independent artists, and you get cool socks to top it off. (www.good.store)
I’ve grown disillusioned with Greenpeace, they seem to have lost their north a long time ago, and only hop onto the bandwagon of what’s cool at any given moment. Like, “no fossil, no nuclear, no global warming” are all cool and all… but a contradiction. Or the silliness they’re doing right now in Spain, of combing whole beaches to remove a few pounds of plastic pellets from each… only for more to come the next day… while 30-odd years ago we already used to wonder what were all the multicolored “sand” grains, and some kids used to pick up chunks of tar to chew like gum.
That’s quite fair. Its just the most “effective” climate charity I know of, I’m open to suggestions!
I would suggest either Extinction Rebellion, which has an interesting open governance system with local chapters, and is “effective” in the sense of pissing people off enough to get itself on TV… or any local charity focused on a single achievable goal (sifting plastic pellets from a multi-ton dump at a rate of a few pounds per day, is a populist waste of resources; reforesting some area with native species, is direct and effective; and so on).
Ta muchly!
You’re right-- I am in the States, but your input is still welcome!
I don’t have an Awesome Socks subscription, but I do have a Sun Basin Soap one with good.store! I like Daydreamer, even though it sorta reminds me of allspice (and therefore chicken).
Ah I was quite interested in the sun basin soap but it looked like they only deliver domestically!
Wikimedia foundation and Propublica. Also just local food banks.
Eff, archive.org, local animal shelters.
Looking up local stuff definitely seems best. Lots of good wildlife rehabs around me, that’s usually my go-to.
Thanks for the input, all! I’ve had a bunch of the more ‘obvious’ ones down, but there are a few that I hadn’t heard of (like CASA and Feeding America, who I have ‘equivalents’ to but will likely diversify out to), or hadn’t thought to contribute to (Propublica, UNHCR). Good stuff, everybody.
Others are great, also shoutout to Equality Now. Another one that is not a charity is the ACLU.
Child’s Play, Doctors Without Borders, local soup kitchens, the ACLU, The Trevor Project, Action Against Hunger.
There are a few sites out there that rank charities based on transparency and impact, they might help you find something specific.
Kiva
