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You! Yes you DnD poster reaching for his third shot of whiskey after reading the Facebook thread. Are you sick of just sitting in front of your computer, reading about all the horrible poo poo happening in the world? Wish you could actually make the world a better place, even if it's just a minuscule difference? Then let's do it. Right now! This thread here is going to be a collection of groups, non profits, and charities that everyone recommends to give your time and money to. Do you think they have a worth wild thing going on? Tell us about them and where to send them money. I'll update the OP here with charities everyone recommends. Charities recommended Coming soon!
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Dec 3, 2015 01:49
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I wrote this in a PM about charities for Syria/Syrian refugees, so I'll post it here: The big six charities are UNHCR, Unicef, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam, the International Red Cross/Red Crescent, and Save the Children UNHCR is the biggest one: https://donate.unrefugees.org/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1873&ea.campaign.id=41829&ea.tracking.id=D15XLJ151XXC Unicef: https://www.unicefusa.org/mission/emergencies/child-refugees/syria-crisis Oxfam: https://www.oxfam.org/en/emergencies/crisis-syria Save the Children: https://www.savethechildren.org Doctors Without Borders: http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/ International Red Cross/Red Crescent: https://www.icrc.org/en There are also charities like International Medical Corps https://internationalmedicalcorps.org smaller charities like http://www.shelterboxusa.org/ and religious-based charities like Lutheran World Relief http://lwr.org/ I don't profess to be an expert on charities, so you can hunt through these sites I found for the best rated charities and/or specifically focused charities: https://www.charitywatch.org/charitywatch-hot-topic/syrian-humanitarian-relief/4 http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=1523#.VkytdmMt18F If I had to pick four I'd say UNHCR, Save the Children, Doctors Without Borders, and Unicef. If I had to pick just one, UNHCR is the most important. fade5 fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Dec 28, 2015 |
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Dec 3, 2015 02:02
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I like International Rescue Committee in addition to the above choices.
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Dec 3, 2015 02:12
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I do DWB and they send a nice newsletter occasionally. They'll call you though, see if they can get you to up your monthly donation, but they only do it once a year.
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Dec 3, 2015 10:27
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Here's my favourites. Equality now! 4/4 rating on charity navigator. Equality Now was founded in 1992 to work for the protection and promotion of the human rights of women around the world. Working with national human rights organizations and individual activists, Equality Now documents violence and discrimination against women and mobilizes international action to support their efforts to stop these human rights abuses. Through its Women's Action Network of concerned groups and individuals around the world, Equality Now distributes information about human rights violations; takes action to protest these violations; and brings public attention to human rights violations against women. The Center for Victims of Torture 4/4 Founded in 1985, the Center for Victims of Torture (CVT) heals the wounds of torture on individuals, their families, and their communities and to stop torture worldwide. We work locally, nationally, and internationally to build healing communities where torture survivors feel welcomed, protected and healed. CVT fulfills this mission by providing services directly to torture survivors; training and providing capacity building support to professionals and organizations who work with torture survivors and refugees; conducting research on the effects of torture and on effective treatment methods to be sure that we are providing the best care we can to our clients; and advocating for public policy initiatives that will help heal survivors and put an end to the practice of torture. 4 Paws 4/4 The mission of 4 Paws for Ability is to: enrich the lives of people with disabilities by the training and placement of service dogs to provide individuals with companionship and promote independent living; educate the public to accept the use of service dogs in public places; and assist with animal rescue whenever possible by obtaining many of our animals from shelters and rescue groups. Funding of a 4 Paws' service dog is the responsibility of the applicant. Applicants typically use fund-raising activities to gather these funds, and 4 Paws assists the applicant as necessary. 4 Paws provides a wide range of funding options, and has no eligibility requirements beyond a physician statement that the person requesting a service dog has a disability as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Adopt a Native Elder 4/4 The Adopt-A-Native-Elder Program supports the traditional Elders who live in the cultural and spiritual traditions of The Dine' (Navajo) People. Most live in remote portions of the Dine's reservation. The Program provides food, simple medicines, clothing, fabric and yarns to help these Elders live on the land in their traditional lifestyle. As they have become elderly, it has become more difficult for them to support themselves on the Land in their traditional ways. The Program supports 500 traditional Elders who live in the Northern portion of Arizona and Southern Utah.
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Dec 3, 2015 18:49
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I give a decent amount of my money to NAMI and a decent amount of my free time volunteering for Heal The Bay NAMI is pretty good at raising awareness of mental health issues. Normally "Raising awareness" means the charity is a pointless tax-deductible money sink but in a world where most people's conversations about mental illness begin and end with "that dude's crazy" there can always be more awareness. Heal The Bay meanwhile is a very local charity so if you're environmentally inclined but don't live in Los Angeles you're probably better off giving to something bigger, but what can I say, they get poo poo done.
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Dec 5, 2015 04:06
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BigRed0427 posted:You! Yes you DnD poster reaching for his third shot of whiskey  You underestimate my power! Seriously though is it okay to give money to Savlation Army?
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Dec 5, 2015 05:42
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Arglebargle III posted:
No, the salvation army is a religious cult that has caused more suffering than it has alleviated.
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Dec 17, 2015 14:32
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 http://nationaldiaperbanknetwork.org/ways-to-give/
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Dec 17, 2015 16:02
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I'm having trouble coming up with something useful since I usually give to local groups. But here's a tip on who not to give to: the Red Cross. Apparently they've been very poorly managed since 2008ish and very ineffective. There was another story about how terrible the work they did in Haiti was but I can't find it right now. https://www.propublica.org/article/the-corporate-takeover-of-the-red-cross http://www.propublica.org/article/the-red-cross-secret-disaster
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Dec 17, 2015 17:16
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Badger of Basra posted:I'm having trouble coming up with something useful since I usually give to local groups. But here's a tip on who not to give to: the Red Cross. Apparently they've been very poorly managed since 2008ish and very ineffective. There was another story about how terrible the work they did in Haiti was but I can't find it right now. https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-half-a-billion-dollars-for-haiti-and-built-6-homes
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Dec 17, 2015 22:11
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One thing I'd find useful to know is how much junk mail and how many marketing calls you get from each charity. I get a ton of junk mail from the ACLU and ACLU MN Foundation, and junk mail and a few phone calls a year from Twin Cities Public Television, and I still get calls from Minnesota Public Radio even though I stopped donating to them years ago. While it's not bad enough for me to cancel, I might've reconsidered if I'd known how much of my time they were planning to waste begging for more money. The EFF has never called, mailed, or spammed me. I wish there was a way to donate anonymously, but all online payments require contact info, and checks have my address on them. Someone on Hacker News recommended networkforgood.org as a potential method for anonymous donations, but I haven't checked them out yet. E: Unrelated, but one other thing I've been meaning to look into lately is charities for the homeless that are not religiously affiliated. Obviously this is more of a local issue, but I guess some other Minnesota goons may be reading this thread. ColdPie fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Dec 18, 2015 |
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Dec 18, 2015 00:25
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sparatuvs posted:No, the salvation army is a religious cult that has caused more suffering than it has alleviated. Seconded. They oppose gay marriage and have spent donated funds advocating against anti-discrimination laws. As an alternative I would suggest donating to United Way. (Full disclosure: the agency I work for receives United Way funds.)
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Dec 18, 2015 04:03
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I would highly suggest giving a charity that is well rated by a good charity evaluator like https://www.givewell.org or http://www.givingwhatwecan.org Helping refugees is going to be popular because it's all over the news, but I can't imagine it's the right thing to do when, according to givewell's estimate, the Against Malaria Foundation can save a child's life for every $2,838 donated. I think it would be pretty hard to do better than that. Hundreds of thousands of people, most of them children, die to malaria each year. Many of those cases would have been averted if the victims had had access to insecticide-treated bed nets.
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Dec 18, 2015 17:50
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:I would highly suggest giving a charity that is well rated by a good charity evaluator like https://www.givewell.org or http://www.givingwhatwecan.org Helping refugees is going to be popular because it's all over the news, but I can't imagine it's the right thing to do when, according to givewell's estimate, the Against Malaria Foundation can save a child's life for every $2,838 donated. I think it would be pretty hard to do better than that. Hundreds of thousands of people, most of them children, die to malaria each year. Many of those cases would have been averted if the victims had had access to insecticide-treated bed nets. So wait, you are saying that it is not ok to give money to support refugees, because of malaria? Would you mind explaining your thought process on that one?
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Dec 18, 2015 20:21
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In a purely utilitarian sense it's better to most efficiently achieve whatever your preferred maximum utility is (such as saving children) and less efficient actions are something you should avoid where possible. If you can't give money to charity (because who has enough of that?) you can always volunteer. A lot of places near you will probably be looking for volunteers (because nobody has enough time, either) and in my experience, volunteers tend to be significantly nicer than the general population so you'll probably meet some nice folks doing it. If you're looking for a new year's resolution you can do much worse. Some jobs also offer useful experience and look good on a CV.
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Dec 18, 2015 20:38
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SedanChair posted:So wait, you are saying that it is not ok to give money to support refugees, because of malaria? Would you mind explaining your thought process on that one? Jeffrey of YOSPOS fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Dec 18, 2015 |
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Dec 18, 2015 20:45
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:More like, you can do more good per dollar donated by helping african children than helping refugees, so that's what you should do. I don't think it's wrong to give money to helping refugees(just suboptimal if your goal is helping people the most), but it is wrong to steer others to donate to refugees if they would have otherwise spent them on bed nets. Since this thread is about encouraging folks to donate to charity, I think we should inspire them to donate to one that has been found to be extremely efficient in terms of the amount of lives they saved per dollar donated. Maybe you could do it without implying that escaped sex slaves and people whose entire families have been murdered should figure it out for themselves until malaria is eradicated.
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Dec 18, 2015 21:04
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I'm sorry that the world is so hosed up that helping such people doesn't even make a top ten list, but yes, that is what they should do.
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Dec 18, 2015 21:19
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:More like, you can do more good per dollar donated by helping african children than helping refugees, so that's what you should do. I don't think it's wrong to give money to helping refugees(just suboptimal if your goal is helping people the most), but it is wrong to steer others to donate to refugees if they would have otherwise spent them on bed nets. Since this thread is about encouraging folks to donate to charity, I think we should inspire them to donate to one that has been found to be extremely efficient in terms of the amount of lives they saved per dollar donated. There are a bunch of issues with the "straightforward" utilitarian calculus, but a big problem is that it favors problems that have easy and affordable solutions. Antimalaria charities are great and do in fact save lives (and if you want to donate to them you should!), but they are demonstrably more affordable than medical care in war-torn Syria or building sustainable agriculture in the third world. These things are all valuable, and we shouldn't be ranking causes based on how well they satisfy some utilitarian math, because people everywhere are in need and everyone's suffering matters. Everyone who can should donate to causes that they find valuable, to groups that do that valuable work efficiently (read: groups that don't use the vast majority of their funds for their work--check out ProPublica's Nonprofit database if you're unsure), and groups that do valuable work well. If I may suggest a charity, I donate to Oxfam every year. They do wonderful work everywhere, and are at the front line of fighting against poverty. And you can get gifts, like a goat, or, yes, mosquito nets. Ghost of Reagan Past fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Dec 18, 2015 |
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Dec 18, 2015 21:19
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Ghost of Reagan Past posted:Everyone who can should donate to causes that they find valuable, to groups that do that valuable work efficiently (read: no United Way) Are you questioning the "valuable" part or the "efficient" part? As for valuable, I can attest to that. Efficient? I'd welcome any evidence to the contrary (yes I know about the misuse of funds that has occasionally happened with local chapters).
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Dec 18, 2015 21:26
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SedanChair posted:Are you questioning the "valuable" part or the "efficient" part? As for valuable, I can attest to that. Efficient? I'd welcome any evidence to the contrary (yes I know about the misuse of funds that has occasionally happened with local chapters).
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Dec 18, 2015 21:28
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Please don't let's turn this into a thread about what causes are "worthy" of donations.
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Dec 19, 2015 17:21
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ColdPie posted:Please don't let's turn this into a thread about what causes are "worthy" of donations. But my beep boop logik!
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Dec 20, 2015 08:33
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Playstation 4 posted:But my beep boop logik!
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Dec 20, 2015 09:05
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:My uhh, beep boop logik would save a lot of lives if people listened so yeah, I'm gonna post it even if you make fun of me mister PS4 sir. It would also kill a lot of others. No looking at dead Syrian kids until Africa is fixed!
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Dec 20, 2015 20:04
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SedanChair posted:It would also kill a lot of others. No looking at dead Syrian kids until Africa is fixed! Go gently caress yourself. I think that RAINN is a good charity to donate to, if supporting survivors of rape and sexual abuse is something that you're inclined to donate for. They're rated very highly on Charity Navigator, and 92 cents of every dollar goes directly to their programs, chiefly the National Sexual Assault Hotline.
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Dec 24, 2015 03:49
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ColdPie posted:Please don't let's turn this into a thread about what causes are "worthy" of donations. Arguing about which causes are most worthy is counterproductive, but some charitable organizations are demonstrably worse than others.
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Dec 26, 2015 23:17
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ColdPie posted:Please don't let's turn this into a thread about what causes are "worthy" of donations. So it's cool to advocate for Kars4Kids, for example? Clearly there are some 501(c)(3) (and other 501 organizations) which shouldn't be advocated and accordingly we should explain why some of these organizations are best not to donate to.
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Dec 27, 2015 02:20
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ThirdPartyView posted:So it's cool to advocate for Kars4Kids, for example? Clearly there are some 501(c)(3) (and other 501 organizations) which shouldn't be advocated and accordingly we should explain why some of these organizations are best not to donate to. I don't know poo poo about Kars4Kids but I always hear their radio ads during mets games. Are they sketchy?
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Dec 27, 2015 06:39
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Ogmius815 posted:I don't know poo poo about Kars4Kids but I always hear their radio ads during mets games. Are they sketchy? According to wikipedia, Kars4Kids "donates its proceeds to Oorah, an incorporated Orthodox Jewish kiruv (outreach) organization dedicated to "awakening Jewish children and their families to their heritage", which is a far worse use of the money than helping kids in malaria zones or syrian refugees.
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Dec 27, 2015 08:39
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:According to wikipedia, Kars4Kids "donates its proceeds to Oorah, an incorporated Orthodox Jewish kiruv (outreach) organization dedicated to "awakening Jewish children and their families to their heritage", which is a far worse use of the money than helping kids in malaria zones or syrian refugees. The problem isn't even that they're essentially a Chabad organization (although I certainly don't think it's worthwhile compared to malaria, refugees, etc.) - it's that they blatantly mislead and lie about the fact that Kars4Kids is a feeder charity for said organization, and have been fined and threatened with revocation of their not-for-profit status a bunch of times as a result. Horseshoe theory fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Dec 27, 2015 |
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Dec 27, 2015 14:36
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Along the same lines, it's not unreasonable to recommend against donating to charities like the United Way and Red Cross. It's not a value judgment on the causes they're supporting (there's nothing wrong with funding disaster relief even while kids get malaria), it's because it is well documented that both organizations are rife with mismanagement and have unreasonably high overhead going to things like relatively high executive compensation. If the causes that charities like those support move you to donate, it makes more sense to give that money to other better run organizations doing similar things, like MSF.
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Dec 27, 2015 17:01
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Discussing specific organizations is fine, I just meant the "the only cause worth donating to is X" bickering.
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Dec 27, 2015 18:02
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Along the same lines, it's not unreasonable to recommend against donating to charities like the United Way and Red Cross. It's not a value judgment on the causes they're supporting (there's nothing wrong with funding disaster relief even while kids get malaria), it's because it is well documented that both organizations are rife with mismanagement and have unreasonably high overhead going to things like relatively high executive compensation. If the causes that charities like those support move you to donate, it makes more sense to give that money to other better run organizations doing similar things, like MSF. United Way and MSF have very different missions. If anybody knows of a good, efficient national-level charity that supports homeless people in the US I am all ears. I give to MSF and Medical Aid for Palestinians but I think that in general people need to think more about how to fix problems in this country, even though they are less sexy and generally serving populations a little higher up on the hierarchy of needs.
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Dec 27, 2015 20:15
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SedanChair posted:United Way and MSF have very different missions. If anybody knows of a good, efficient national-level charity that supports homeless people in the US I am all ears. I give to MSF and Medical Aid for Palestinians but I think that in general people need to think more about how to fix problems in this country, even though they are less sexy and generally serving populations a little higher up on the hierarchy of needs. Yeah, that may not be a perfect comparison. MSF and United Way both do disaster relief work in the US, but United Way seems to do more ongoing charitable work here. Surely there's an organization out there that does that kind of work without paying its own CEO over a million dollars?
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Dec 27, 2015 20:49
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I'm going to donate to the Komen Foundation and the fight against breast cancer
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Dec 28, 2015 00:19
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Yeah, that may not be a perfect comparison. MSF and United Way both do disaster relief work in the US, but United Way seems to do more ongoing charitable work here. Surely there's an organization out there that does that kind of work without paying its own CEO over a million dollars? I'm not sure it's possible to sustainably and efficiently run a national organization with all the required elbow-rubbing with legislators, millionaires etc. without putting a well-paid CEO at the top. I would like to believe it's possible but I don't have any evidence. Charity Navigator says over 90% of United Way funds go to programs, which is pretty remarkable even if we think too much of the remaining <10% is going to one man.
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Dec 28, 2015 00:35
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I'd rather donate to a charity that (transparently) takes $1000, pays $900 to the CEO, and spend $100 to save two lives than one that takes $1000, pays $100 to the CEO, then spends the $900 to save only one life (or help jewish children discover their heritage, or whatever other small-scale cause you can dream up). I certainly wouldn't structure a charity the former way if I had a say in it, but as far as what exists, I also don't think "pays their CEO excessively" is a particularly good reason to reject a charity.
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Dec 28, 2015 02:09
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If you really want to change the world you should donate to a political party with a military wing of its own!
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Dec 28, 2015 16:18
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