Do you give money to charities/non-profits?

Hi. Was wondering what is the people's stance towards giving money to charities across the globe.

Do you give money to charities? If so, to which ones, how often and how much? Any particular reason why you chose that one?

If not, I'd still be glad to hear your answer to why not.

It'd be great if you could also share the country where you're based, so as to get a better picture across geography.

My priority in the United States:

1. Children's Hospitals (St. Judes, Ronald McDonalds house)

2. Animal Shelters (local is best)

3. Veterans

4. Teaching/Education Institutions

5. Climate Emissions (Stripe)

Can't tell you that I'm donating thousands of dollars or anything like that, but usually if it asks for a donation at the end, I normally "round up" or donate a dollar.

For children's hospitals, you want to look at what they are doing for not only the children, but the families as well. As far as I know, St. Judes doesn't bill the families. I also listed Ronalds McDonald's house because of what happened to my sister when she was 21, getting hit by a drunk driver, and as a result, was with a fractured skull, fractured ribs, and a lifetime of seizures. The hospital had put her in the children's ward and there was a "Ronald's McDonalds House" which was a room in the hospital with food, drinks, blankets, and beds that my family was using so we could stay close to my sister when visiting hours were over.

To animal shelters, I don't donate money, but I do donate blankets and towels or toys or even pet food and if I find myself not using a cage or a travel bag I bought, I'm dropping that off as well. Anything and everything to make sure an animal doesn't have to sleep on a cold floor and that they at least have something going with them to their new home.

Almost all the males in my family or someone I know who is close to me is a Veteran of some war. World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War, Afghanistan War, and Iraq war. I'm currently taking care of my "second" grandfather, who served under JFK during the Bay of Pigs Cuban Missile Crisis. He's got dementia and colon cancer at 86... but I'm trying to keep him alive by giving him the best life he has ever had. I hope someday I have someone to spoil me like I do for him.

Teaching/Education institutions are often charity to fund educational programs in poor communities that lack the resources of desks, computers, Internet, etc., and childhood education is the foundation of the future of any civilization.

And finally, although I'm not stating that climate change is going to kill us, as humans are pretty adaptable, as the world does see changes over time, I do firmly believe that human impact has affected the climate greatly. There's no way you can run all these factories that emit pollution into the air, have all these cars, planes, and ships burning fossil fuels, and say that isn't affecting the environment. I do not think it will kill humans any time soon, but it does impact animal life and the Earth itself. Affecting animal life affects nature which can't be good for any species.

I don't think Stripe is buying "climate credits" which just sounds like a bullshit scam to me, but what Stripe does is fund "climate projects" that are trying to offset carbon emissions that may be contributing towards climate change, and that's why for any project I create, I donate 1% of the proceeds to their efforts. https://stripe.com/climate

You should always have a charity that you are willing to donate to meaning you've done your research and you know at least 80% plus of your dollar is going to the actual cause. "Administration fees" are always going to be there because there are people who have to get paid to keep the organization running, structured, and also for their outreach/advertising costs too, so that is expected.

Giving money to charities is a challenging thing. Charities, in most countries, have to deal with local corrupt officials. Giving money to charities unwittingly promotes corruption. I remember few years back there was a sentiment expressed by lots of African NGOs that the west should not send money to the continent as "charity" because that increases corruption; instead they should help stop the root cause of the problem i.e. stop exploitation of resources, stop funding and supplying arms or puppet governments.

I personally have not given any money directly to charities. As I work in tech, my salary was better than others in the family, and I use to give all my salary to my parents. So I was asked just twice(once by my aDad and once by my Uncle) if I would mind if some money was given to charity work. And this was very specificrequests. One was for a blind students school which was run by my Dad's friend and the other was for restoration of a guest house of a very ancient templein Goa(recently I saw a video on YouTube of the work that temple committe has done and was very happy with what they have achieved since I last visited them). My sister on the other hand gives regularly to charities. But she gives very specific things to very specific charities. She first visited those charities multiple times before deciding on supporting them. And she has avoided giving money, instead she gives every month 5kg rice each to an orphanage and a blind students school. She also occasionallyo kids from these two charities for events at a theme park which we own. I once asked her why she does not give money to these two charities and she said that she will not know where this money will go. With specific help, she knows that the real needs are being served.

So my advice to anyone thinking of giving to charity is to actually visit the place multiple times; if possible, volunteer there for sometime and then give very specific help and avoid giving cash.

Thanks a lot for the detailed answer! And great job taking care of your second grandfather!

One thought of yours regarding charities in general that I find particularily interesting is:

> you've done your research and you know at least 80% plus of your dollar is going to the actual cause

I'm wondering what would be the effect of organizations guaranteeing (suppose they could guarantee) that 92% of your dollar is going directly to the cause and 8% is going for administration costs, and stating that upfront? Would that give you more confidence instead of them saying "_all proceeds_ go to..." when you know they have employees and admin costs?

Thanks for the reply. I'm wondering what would be the effect of organizations guaranteeing (suppose they could guarantee) that 92% of your dollar is going directly to the cause and 8% is going for administration costs, and stating that upfront? Would that give you more confidence instead of them saying "_all proceeds_ go to..." when you know they have employees and admin costs?