I need a charitable giving strategy

[ohgillian]

I don't really have any sort of charitable giving strategy, except for the following:

- I try to give 5% of gross income
- I try to give it mostly to one organization rather than little drips and drops here and there
- I include my shul dues in the 5% total
- I frequently find myself at about December 15th thinking, "%&*#! -- I have got to get this done ASAP!"
- I make my donation via stock transfer rather than cash

I wish I would pick a charity and stick to it, but I haven't done that. Last year I switched to a new one, and yet this year I don't feel compelled to choose that one again.

Do you have any sort of plan/strategy? Or just any advice for me? DH wants no part in helping me with it -- he's not averse to it, merely apathetic.

Thanks.

[ssmjlm]

Do you have anything that you're passionate about and want to support?

[ohgillian]

Aug 28, 2012 10:16:35 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

Do you have anything that you're passionate about and want to support?

Sort of.... I tend toward hunger-related causes. I used to do America's Second Harvest (I can't think of its new name), but then thought that perhaps the rest of the world was worse off, so I switched to Action for Hunger.

[ssmjlm]

Aug 28, 2012 10:17:50 GMT -5 ohgillian said:

Aug 28, 2012 10:16:35 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

Do you have anything that you're passionate about and want to support?

Sort of.... I tend toward hunger-related causes. I used to do America's Second Harvest (I can't think of its new name), but then thought that perhaps the rest of the world was worse off, so I switched to Action for Hunger.

What about going local with a local food pantry?

We love animals, but donate to a local shelter instead of a large org.

[casmgn]

The majority of our charitable giving goes to the local chapter of a disease-specific organization that was a great help to my family and funds a lot of great research and advocacy. Although my mom passed away, we continue to give.

In recent years, I've also started giving to local charities that help the underserved in the area. In particular, I give to one organization that runs a food bank and provides some other services for those in need, and another organization that provides housing and case management services for homeless people. Both have great reputations, and I like knowing that my dollars are going to directly help people in need in my area.

The key with charitable giving is to find a cause that really interests you and touches you, and go from there. Since hunger-related charities interest you, I would decide whether you want to give to organizations that help people locally, or larger organizations that help people around the world. There's no right or wrong answer to that, it's what you feel called to do. And then above all, do some research to make sure you are giving to reputable organizations.

[lys]

Besides giving to my church I give to the local Women's shelter, Food pantry, Homeless shelter, and Medical Access Coatlition. I like local rather than national organizations.

[Nonny]

We do one local thing that selfishly benefits us (our local NPR station) and one international charity that benefits others (Heifer International).

[Deleted]

We've picked our causes and do automatic debit for one and post-dated cheques for the other. We could quit any time we needed to, but making it automatically monthly has been the easiest way to stick to our goals.

Both are small and local-ish (our church, an agency in Vancouver that works in the rough part of town that one of our friends works at). We give random donations to runs and fundraising drives as people ask through the year, but the majority of our funds go to just the 2 places.

[So_Fetch]

I use my company's payroll deduction plan (through United way - which kind of sucks) to donate to orgs that I'm mildly interested in (like $5 a month per charity....a native american health org, the local musical theater company, and a couple others). I give directly to the animal rescue org that I volunteer for (no deduction from united way for admin fees!) and the shelter where we adopted our puppy.