Charitable giving - Pimp your charity

[pixy0stix]

Along with our selected charity, I also like to do a post every year where people promote the charities that they give to throughout the year that are close to their hearts. To that end, please post your charities here.

[Deleted]

Syria's Need is a campaign from Canadian Lutheran World Relief to get Syrian refugee children shoes.

We also support Jacob's Well in one of the roughest parts of Vancouver. Close to home I tend to go with our food bank. 

[KateAggie]

www.pawsandstripes.org/

they train shelter dogs to be service dogs for Veterans, at no cost to the Veterans.  This includes mental health treatment for the Veteran.  Lots of info on their site, and there is a show on A&E called "Dogs of War" that follows what they do.  Helping people and dog s in need.  It's amazing.

[Deleted]

Greyhound Friends of New Jersey helps give sweet retired racers like mine homes all over the NYC metro area and provides medical care for dogs forced into retirement due to injury (usually a leg break).  The rescue runs an amazing Prison Foster program with a youth correctional facility in NJ--my red boy, Asbury, is a graduate.
 
We also partner with a galgo rescue in Spain to bring galgos to the US for adoptions and occasionally pull sighthound mixes and non-sighthounds from high kill shelters if needed.  

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[Brie]

HappyBottoms is a diaper bank that provides diapers to thousands of children in the Kansas City area.  As has been discussed here before, diapers are not covered by WIC or SNAP, and diaper need is a huge issue when it comes to both children's health and allowing parents in need to get back to work and utilize childcare.  HB helps cover that gap and I can personally attest that there are many, many good folks doing hard work there.

[nomad100]

Refurbished Pets of Southern Michigan www.rpsm.org They pull dogs from local shelters, put them through and training program where they are trained by inmates in one of MI's prisons. We got both our silly mutts from there.

[bimbi284]

Thanks pixy0stix!

If you are friends with me on FB you may know a bit more about this, but I am on the board of a wonderful organization called Students for Sensible Drug Policy. I've been a member and leader of my university's chapter since 2009 and was recently elected to the national board in September. As part of my board duties, I'm required to raise at least $1,000 per year that I am on the board (its a 2 year gig).

I'm not sure how much I should go into details, but I can at least share a bit about what this org means to me, and share a little more about what we do. I'm of course happy to answer any questions you might have about it too.

As a mental health clinician, my reason for joining SSDP initially was due mostly because of the way that our current drug policies negatively impact my clients. This includes those who use drugs and want to effectively work to abstain from drug use by having access to treatment that works. This also includes those whose lives have been negatively impacted not because of their drug use, but because of the draconian drug laws that discriminate and stigmatize against recreational users. More often than not, it has been the impact of the drug laws that has been the biggest barrier to positive change for the individuals with whom I’ve had the privilege of working. As a clinical professional, the most important thing for me is that these people have a chance to move forward with their lives, and thus our current drug laws prevent me from effectively doing my job. This frustration is what fuels not only my work as a therapist but especially my work as an advocate and activist.

I maintain my role in SSDP because I believe in sensible drug policies, and this org obviously supports these views. From my perspective, a sensible drug policy is one guided by compassion and research which eliminates or reduces the harms associated with drug use. This includes a spectrum of harm from the direct harms an individual may face from using a drug (risk of overdose, infection, illness, etc) to the collateral consequences faced by society and individuals as a result of the laws initially intended to eliminate drug use (being refused access to housing, education, disproportionate incarceration rates, etc).

In my view, a sensible drug policy is one that is humanistic in nature, focusing on the well-being of individuals for the good of the community and society. A sensible drug policy is one that takes a bottom-up approach where the positive impact of meeting the needs of the individual user will expand to benefit the community and society as a whole. Considering the perspectives of those who these policies impact the most and including their voice in the development of such policies should be best practice, and could allow for the greatest positive impact.

SSDP is an international grassroots org which is made up entirely of students who want to end the war on drugs. Our work has led to more just policies and laws on our university campuses as well as in our communities states. To read more about SSDP, you can view the website here ssdp.org/about/

For more up to date info, you can peruse our latest annual report here, which also provides a break down of expenses and what that money has gone to in the past year. ssdp.org/documents/SSDP-Annual-Report-2014-final-print.pdf

Finally, if you've made it this far in my novel and are inclined to help, there are several ways to donate.

(TL;DR - I love SSDP, the drug war is bad, SSDP is an org of students that is helping to fight the drug war, please help me raise $)

First, you can make a one-time donation here: ssdp.nationbuilder.com/donate

Second, you can make a recurring donation here by joining the Sensible Society: ssdp.nationbuilder.com/sensible_society

If you choose one of these options, I would very much appreciate if you would include my name in the "why did you donate?" box, which will then give me credit toward my fundraising goal. If for whatever reason you still want to donate without giving me credit, that's okay too.

If you shop on Amazon, you can also donate a portion of eligible purchases via Amazon Smile and selecting Students for Sensible Drug Policy and your charity.

We also recently started getting donations via iGive, which works similarly to ebates (with a button in the toolbar and apps), except that the percentage goes to SSDP if you choose us as your charity when you sign up at iGive.com (you can select different charities too, and I think decide which you want to donate to for certain purchases). A bonus to iGive is that for every new person that signs up in the next 3 months, we get an additional $5 donated to us. If you do sign up, I think I might be able to get credit if you let me know and share your name with me, and then I can just let our fundraising person know, who keeps track of donations.

We also have a CrowdRise page: www.crowdrise.com/ssdp2014

And other ways to donate here: ssdp.org/ways-to-donate/

I know that with Amazon you can't specify whether you are donating on behalf of someone (me, if you wish), but I still recommend them as easy ways to donate a little bit if you're shopping anyway.

Thanks for letting me share all of this, and please don't hesitate to ask me questions. If you donate and would like to do so on my behalf for my fundraising goal, please send me a PM and I can share my name and e-mail with you.

[meshaliuknits]

Berkeley East Bay Humane Society  The furriest members of my family were adopted from there. Everyone should be so lucky.

Donors Choose We fill a lot of requests for the local schools through here.

Child's Play  This one is new to me. I learned about it from the blanket Geek Along I joined this fall. They provide kids in hospitals and shelters video games. Because a little escape is good.

[debatethis]

Ditto meshaliuknits on Child's Play. They're amazing.

Also: Lost n Found Youth. They're based in Atlanta and seem to be pretty new but their mission is finding homes for LGBTQ teens who've been kicked out of their homes. lnfy.org/ I believe they're establishing a network of other similar groups to help around the country.

[ijack]

The Kingsley Foundation is an organization started by our neighbors after their son was born with a brain disorder. During the holiday season all their fundraising goes toward The Butterfly Program which is a hospice program for children and works with families to make sure their needs are met. For Thanksgiving the money goes toward meals for the family and for Christmas it goes toward meals and presents to help them celebrate. Because most families have huge amounts of medical bills on top of low income their wishlists are usually necessities like socks, clothing, sheets, diapers, wipes, etc.

[anonymous]

Mandy Reichman feeding program, started in memory of one of my best friends who lost her life to cancer at age 22.  This is an old article but gets to the heart of the program: njjewishnews.com/njjn.com/030807/cjSynagogueMarksFifth.html

[niemand88f]

Best Friends Animal Society , specifically the new No-Kill Utah campaign which I volunteer with in their kitten nursery.
"NKUT is an initiative led by Best Friends Animal Society that brings together passionate individuals, city shelters, and an entire coalition of animal welfare organizations to end the killing of dogs and cats in shelters throughout the entire state of Utah by the year 2019. Our plan is straightforward: provide spay/neuter services where they are needed most so that fewer animals go into shelters, and increase adoptions so that more animals are placed into new homes. Step by critical step, we believe that together, we can bring the number of pets killed in Utah shelters to zero. "

[mnvegas]

Humane Society of Sarasota County - this is the shelter where we found Amber Leigh -  www.hssc.org/

CARE Shelter (Critter Adoption and Rescue Effort) -  www.careshelter.org/

Southeastern Guide Dogs -  www.guidedogs.org/

[Scout'sHonor]

In addition to the local shelters, I love National Search Dog Foundation. They rescue dogs from shelters and train them to do S&R.  And I posted this yesterday on my FB, but Leukemia & Lymphoma Society now has a place in my heart.

[cattledogkisses]

We've donated in the past to the Maine chapter of Canine Commitment, who brought us our furry daughter.

I recall some people have issues with the American Red Cross (although I can't remember why at the moment) but my mom is very heavily involved with them, so we've also charitably supported them in the past.

[LoveTrains]

I am very heavily involved with the Pug Rescue of New England (http://www.pugrescueofnewengland.org/). I do all of the home visits in my state, attend fundraising events, etc. We are 100% volunteer based animal rescue, and we take in pugs of all shapes and sizes, no questions asked. Our vet costs are often more than we collect in adoption fees. We are committed to helping pugs find their forever homes. They post available dogs on Facebook if anyone wants one!! We recently took in a bunch of pugs from a hoarding situation.


www.facebook.com/PRoNEPugRescueofNewEngland

[Michelle]

ALSA since Batter Up for an ALS Cure has not been operating since its founder died.

[alleinesein]

Locally I give $$ and linens our local animal shelter; they get a ton of big dogs (pit mixes) and quite a bit of livestock so they love getting blankets and large towels.

One of my good friends is a teacher so I support her projects via Donors Choose www.donorschoose.org/project/chromebooks-for-21st-century-digital-lea/1313536/?challengeid=186790

I spent a few months this year working/volunteering with an NGO in India. They aren't very big but they are trying to make things better for the children they work with. This year I supported them by giving them 300 hours of my time; I am hoping that next year I will be able to send some $$ for the projects they support.
www.reachinghand.org/

They have a home that houses up to 50 children. Most of the children are orphans or their parents are unable to care for them. One of the organizations goals is to be able to build a permanent home for the kids and to be able to provide housing for up to 500 kids. www.reachinghand.org/index.php/new-home/

They also support government schools and have adopted 35 schools in the poorer sections of Bangalore. In conjunction with Modi's push to have all schools with functioning toilets (especially for girls) they are working on raising funds to refurbish, upgrade or build girls toilets in their adopted schools.

The Girls Glory project provides sanitary napkins for girls so that they do not have to miss school each month because of their menstrual cycle. www.reachinghand.org/index.php/girls-glory/

[mominatrix]

I know there was some interest in organizations doing anti-racism work, and IMHO the absolute best of them is the Southern Poverty Law Center.

From their webpage:

The Southern Poverty Law Center is dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society. Using litigation, education, and other forms of advocacy, the Center works toward the day when the ideals of equal justice and equal opportunity will be a reality.

Founded by civil rights lawyers Morris Dees and Joseph Levin Jr. in 1971, the SPLC is internationally known for tracking and exposing the activities of hate groups. Our innovative Teaching Tolerance program produces and distributes – free of charge – documentary films, books, lesson plans and other materials that promote tolerance and respect in our nation’s schools.

We are based in Montgomery, Ala., the birthplace of the modern civil rights movement, and have offices in Atlanta, New Orleans, Miami, Fla., and Jackson, Miss.

Dees became famous suing the KKK and winning... and parlayed the organization into one that not only follows hate groups of all kinds but also provides educational resources to teachers, helping the next generation. (through their Teaching Tolerance program: www.tolerance.org/ )

[ttt]

Don't forget MSF/Doctors Without Borders! They do amazing work and they're the main organization we give to in our households. They're the ones who are still in the places you stopped hearing about and who are now in the places you've never heard of. 

ETA: they work in the United States too www.msf.org/united-states  

[Saint Monica]

www.prestonshope.com