Charity in the dictionary © by HowardLake
Thousands of charities exist, many of them supporting worthy causes. While some charities provide help to those who need it, other charities seem to fritter away money on overhead and salaries for “key” people. When you give money to a charity, the assumption is that you are helping a cause — and most of your donations to charities will benefit those who need it most.
Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Before you give away your hard-earned cash, double check the charity.
Vetting Charities with Web Sites
One of the best ways to vet national charities in Canada, you can use Charity Intelligence Canada to help you research different options. This site combs through charity practices, and compiles reports of top picks in different areas. You can search by cause you are interested in, and look for charities that are likely to do what they say they will.
If you live in the U.S. a site to visit is CharityNavigator. This web site offers insight into the transparency and governance of various charities, as well as information about where your donations end up going. CharityNavigator also includes international charities, so you can broaden your horizons, if you so choose.
Donations to Charities: Things to Consider
Additionally, it is wise to look into charities yourself — especially if you decide to give locally. Find out if the charity issues annual financial statements. Look for indications that the charity is spending too much on “overhead,” especially when it comes to salaries for top executives. Do you want to give to a charity whose top people make $1 million a year, or do you think that a charity head making $200,000 a year is more likely to be doing the work out of a passion for helping?
Other things to consider as you consider donations to charities include:
- Number of people on the board: If there are at least eight people on the board, it can be an indication that the charity has strong involvement. This is especially true of a local charity.
- General community involvement: Look for actual results in the community. One of the reasons I like giving to my local food bank is that I can actually see the good the organization does for the community.
- Where the money is coming from: Does the charity have different funding sources? A charity is more likely to be sustainable when it is receiving money from different grants, and from community donors.
Compatibility with Your Values
Finally, make sure the charity is compatible with what’s important to you. I think education is important, so we give to a fund that provides low-cost student loans to the underprivileged in other countries. However, giving locally is even more important, so we give more to the local food bank, and to the local children’s justice center. These are causes that I am passionate about and interested in.
There are many worthy causes, but you can’t give your money to all of them. Consider what’s important to you, and what you think is likely to have the greatest impact, whether that impact is local or global. Then, research likely charities and find out which put more money toward accomplishing their stated goals. You’ll feel better about your giving.
How do you decide how to make your donations to charities?
Good advice on all fronts here, although I’m not sure I agree that “giving locally is even more important,” when you consider that more than 20,000 children die every day in developing countries, in most cases from easily preventable causes. It’s worth reading Peter Singer’s book “The Life You Can Save,” or visit the book’s website at http://www.thelifeyoucansave.com, to learn about how you can save some of these lives. Singer argues that the poorest Canadians or Americans are still rich beyond the wildest dreams of the poorest poor in the world, many of whom live on less than the equivalent of $1.25/day (a figure that’s adjusted for the buying power of that dollar and twenty-five cents, so you have to imagine how you’d live here in Canada on $1.25/day). The best charities to give to in this case are not those that give out handouts to the poor, but who tackle the root causes or who work on prevention of common diseases.
While I agree that we want most of our donation to go directly to projects in the field, it’s worth remembering that aid organizations need money to survive themselves, so I’m comfortable with the idea that some of my donation goes to salaries and overhead. A highly effective charity like Oxfam has to hire international development experts who work with local organizations and people in developing countries, and someone has to pay their salaries and benefits. Big charities with highly paid CEOs may in fact be effective (running a huge charity like UNICEF or the Red Cross is not much different from running a huge multinational corporation), but I do feel like my dollar goes farther with smaller organizations.
We definitely picked charities that are compatible with our values. We support these organizations with money, donation of clothes and food.
I try to find a nice balance between local and global… I like to think that I am contributing to systemic change even while affecting individual lives. It’s always hard though.
It is one of the hardest decisions for us because we always want to support local charities. But then we don’t want to ignore nationwide organizations. Great points!
I usually chose the cause in agreement with my values. One of the charities I give to helps get young people off the streets (helps homeless young people) and supports them to re-build their lives. I also support charities by raising money when I race – mainly marathons and the harder the better. Haver run for a charity supporting prostitutes in a local town to get off the game and for others. But now I am off to chech how are they organised.
Donating time or items (clothes, books, car) can sometimes be a better option than money. These things can’t be squandered on a $200,000 salary either.
Very good point. Donating time helping get work done is fulfilling and a great example to show your children about “giving an experience”.
I’ve read some cool stuff lately on donating shares to charity instead of just money. By doing this you get to send the full value of the stock to a charity and dodge paying any capital gains taxes on the stocks. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me!
I wonder if they can then trade/sell the shares? Or how capital gains and dividends are used once earned?
I have found that the single most important thing in looking at a charity is looking at how much actually goes to projects to help people versus how much is spent on overhead. Some of the larger charities have quite high overhead costs, which means that less money goes to the actual projects of the charity.
A very sound advice on giving to charities. what i have not been doing is looking to see how many people are already involved in the organization. I know there are many small ones out there. 8 sounds like a good number of involved people.
Great advice. I like your point about making sure they are compatible with what you want. This is key. For me, I want to know that the charity is making a real difference and that I can see this difference visibly. If I am unsure I usually just pass on that one. There is an organization not far from me that does a lot of work with immigrants and refugees that I donate to regularly. They do a lot of amazing things for the community.
I don’t know whether you can do this in the US or Canada but in the UK you can Gift Aid a registered charity which means that they get the tax you have paid on the money you have given.
This way some of our massive telethons raise many millions of poinds – we have a Comic Relief event generally in October or November which raised over £100 million which is incredible these days.
I like to donate to local and international, but local tends to happen more when there is a specific event / disaster, unfortunately there have been far too many lately. I’d like to be a bit more consistent though. I know a few bloggers that donate a percentage of their online income to charity which is really nice of them.
My husband and I support a couple of different charities year round. One of those is Jew for Jesus and the ASPCA. Of course the Red Cross is one we donate too.
I find myself donating a lot to animal rescue groups. I save blankets to give to them and if I find treats and food on sale I will buy it to donate.
I’ve always just given to The Salvation Army because I never knew of any other charities or where to look to find reputable ones that actually donate the money I give them. I’ll be certain to check out Charity Navigator. Thanks for the info.
There are SO many places that need donations! We particularly like local agencies where we know the money will be funnelled back into our community which will in turn improve quality of life for all in our city.
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