Charitable giving in progress

[dreamshark]

Even though I have started keeping a spreadsheet to help me through the end-of-year donation thicket, I find myself making the same awesome discoveries over and over again. For the third time, note to self: the easiest way to make truly anonymous charitable donations is through Network for Good. NFG also provides a way to search for charities by keyword and state, which led me to Groveland Emergency Food Shelf, which focuses on homeless youth, a truly tragic population. Plus searching on charity name, of course, which allowed me to donate to some of my old favorites that had hopelessly frustrating websites.

I managed to find a suitably anonymous way to donate directly to Feeding America (a foodshelf support network) as they now offer payment via Amazon. They are still shaky on the concept of anonymous donation, requiring name and address (but no phone number, which is the deal breaker for me). I gave them my name and put nonsense strings in the address fields, which should short-circuit the junk mail.

Once I rediscovered Network for Good, I made donations to the following:

• Partners in Health - those guys that do all that good work in Haiti


• The Tubman Alliance


• People Serving People


• Groveland Food Shelf

I can afford a couple more. What good causes do you donate to? (or would donate to if you had the money?).

Comments

[pameladean]

Amnesty International and one or more of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Greenpeace, the Nature Conservancy, or the Environmental Working Group.

P.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Amnesty International is on my shit list for sending us about 3 solicitations a month since the dawn of time. They're one of the organizations that drove me to take the anonymous route going forward. There's probably some way to donate to them anonymously, but I no longer feel like it.

Thanks for reminding me of the Nature Conservancy. It's one of the two causes that my mother suggested people contribute to in lieu of flowers for her memorial. (The other one was Hospice).

[pameladean]

Yes, the stream of mail is annoying, but I can't think of another organization that does what they do, so I keep on contributing.

There's certainly no shortage of good causes, though. I am still tickled by the Nature Conservancy's simple plan of buying up land so developers can't have it.

P.

[mle292.livejournal.com]

The Center for Victims of Torture is local, they are located in Saint Paul.

http://www.cvt.org/

My dad volunteers at the Greater Minneapolis Crisis Nursery

http://crisisnursery.org/

Everyone love the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

http://cbldf.org/

[barondave.livejournal.com]

KFAI (Still an important voice, even without Shockwave)

Hadassah

And, though you may not agree, The Colbert Super Pac. Probably the best way to change the system is by making fun of it from within.

[mplsfish.livejournal.com]

Planned Parenthood.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

That's another one that I contributed to JUST ONCE. The grocery bags full of solicitations from them and their endless "sister organizations" continued for years afterward. Clearly, the money I sent them did not even cover the cost of the deluge of mailings that it triggered. Left a sour taste in my mouth and I never contributed again. Occasionally I check to see if they have implemented anonymous donor yet. Haven't checked this year. If they ever do, I will contribute again, since the work they do is so important.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

I had the same experience when I had a windfall and donated to them. I got similar deluges from other organizations to which I donated at the time, so thanks for telling us about Network for Good. I'll check them out if I get another windfall -- or a steady job. :)

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

Heart of the Beast, to make sure we continue to have MayDay parades. Most of what I get from them is email, and most of that is about their productions.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

I went to quite a bit of trouble to get a promise of anonymous donor from them 2 years ago, but they just can't seem to grasp the concept. It's not "anonymous" if you REQUIRE a phone number, guys. They swore they would never call me so I gave in, but they've apparently forgotten; I've been getting annoying messages from them lately on my work phone. We donate at the Mayday Parade, and that's going to be it from now on.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

My list is in a filtered post you can look at if you go back a couple of weeks. The suggestions you've gotten so far are good ones.

As a Development person, I have a question: do you object to phone calls of any sort? If the org takes the time to cal and thank you for your donation, for instance? Is that as objectionable as a call asking for a gift?

Also, I think that an org should make the shit list after they have been told of a donor's preferences and ignored them. If they don't know what you prefer, they can't tailor their communications to your preferences.

K.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

I am INFURIATED by phone calls to "thank" me for my donation. It accomplishes nothing except to interrupt whatever I was doing at the time. The cockles of my heart are not warmed by a stranger reading me a thank you message over the phone. It's also a clear reminder that they have your phone number and can do whatever they want with it, no matter what they may have promised you.

I'm less annoyed by thank you mailings, but it still seems like a clear indication that the organization has missed the entire point of "anonymous" donation. I went through a whole rigamarole two years ago with Meals on Wheels. I had sent them an email expressing disappointment that they did not offer anonymous donation. They sent me an email back promising that if I called them they would arrange it for me. So I did, and sent them a check. A week later I got a thank you card, followed by several more invitations to fund raising events. I sent each of these mailings back with a polite request for them to stop sending me stuff. The invitations finally stopped, but they still send periodic requests for more money (which I have not responded to). At least they haven't called me, but that's probably just because I didn't give them my phone number.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

I rather like the American Friends Service Committee. (Despite my standing distrust of religion-oriented charities -- the Quakers seem to operate pretty much on my socio-political wavelength, they send a maximum of two requests per year, and almost all their fund-raising work seems to be done by volunteers, so most of the money goes to the actual Good Causes.)