s/o of lottery - what charity would you start?

[dochas]

There were some in that thread I loved. 

I have a sort of a dream that I don't even know if it's possible or how it would work. But with 900 million anything should be possible, right? The general idea is to combine shelter for abused women and their children and animal rescue. There would be a residential portion to live and be safe and get back on your feet. A way to help with the care of the animals if they wished. Almost like the animal rescue/sanctuary was a front to keep the shelter portion hidden. 

Clearly I've done no work with either, but they're the things I'd most like to try to help with. 

[egeiger]

I don’t think I would focus on one type of charity. I want to be like Ellen - giving to those that are doing good things. Catch people/groups being kind and assist their causes - that sort of thing.

[fernweh]

That idea sounds amazing. I don’t think I would start a charity of my own but I would donate a ton of money to the two animal rescues we adopted our dogs from. Probably one other local one that we haven’t adopted from but they do AMAZING work.

[katfco]

An urban literacy center: one that offered after-school programs for all ages, places for kids to just drop in, get homework help, career counseling, just hang out. But it would also be a community center that offered ESL classes, job training, food pantries, etc.

[dexteroni]

Oct 21, 2018 10:23:56 GMT -5 egeiger said:

I don’t think I would focus on one type of charity. I want to be like Ellen - giving to those that are doing good things. Catch people/groups being kind and assist their causes - that sort of thing.

This. I would start a charitable foundation that gives to charities and organizations. Maybe I would start one if I noticed a need that wasn’t being filled, but that wouldn’t be my focus from the outset.

I would live on acreage that served as a dog sanctuary, but that would mainly be for selfish reasons, lol. Maybe there would be tax exemptions available or something, but I mostly just want to have dozens of dogs.

[dochas]

Just adding - generally I would be anti-starting my own charity. I hate when people start a foundation just to put their name on it when the money could do more good going to an established charity without adding more administrative costs. But ... 900 million. LOL

[dochas]

I don't remember who had the idea of buying houses and renting them out at lower rents. You could have a non profit management company that provided jobs for the people running it, hiring local small contractors to renovate, handymen, etc. That's going on my list!

[dochas]

Small scale - but I would love to experience the joy of going in and paying off layaways at Christmas and handing out $100 bills in stores and supermarkets.

[penguingrrl]

I would devote my money to victims of domestic violence, likely by providing grants to existing charities.

[mcmel]

A wildlife rehabilitation center

[Gato]

My city has gone from being 95% white to 60% within my daughters’ generation. H and I would endow and expand the program H volunteers for, which combines ESL learning with coding classes, then finds internships for graduates of the program. We’d promote better policing, access to fair housing, and more diverse hiring within our schools. Plus a lot of other things to encourage immigration (Maine is the oldest state in the nation - we need young people!) and remove barriers.

[toepick]

I would start a voting rights foundation. And I would give the Koch brothers a run for their money, targeting anyone (let’s be honest - they are all republicans) who makes it harder for people to vote. And I would call up my good buddies Barack and Hillary and they would take my calls, because I would have so much damn money.

[Leeham Rimes]

My first thing is I would pay off all school lunch debt for my entire state and then see what I could do about having free lunch for all Florida kids k-12.

Then I’d look at buying (local) hospital debt (pennies on the dollar) and forgiving it.

I’d probably go through my money so quick, lol.

[eclaires]

Student Loan debt. I'd want to pay off student loans. I'd probably do other stuff too, but I'd really like to do that.

[Bernadine]

I would fund a new center for our county's humane society.

[iamgrace]

I don’t know. There’s a lot of stuff I would like to do. I would probably start small scale- as someone else mentioned.

I would like to annonimously support families in my community that needed it. For example- maybe something could be set up through the school to provide funds for families to cover class trips or other school things that cost money.

[jenny1980]

Definitely a foundation. I would want to flexibility to support a variety of causes vs. going all-in on one.

[wildrice]

Affordable housing and criminal justice reform are my two biggest ones so something with that. Likely I'd donate a lot to already existing organizations, but hopefully could sit on the board or even do some work on the ground so that it wasn't just about money (since not working would give me tons of free time!). Along with that I love to support funds for criminal defense so people aren't getting tried after spending 5 minutes with a public defender because they don't have means to pay.

[jinkies]

I currently work in public health, focused on a disease that is very misunderstood and predominantly affects marginalized communities. It is not a "sexy" cause, which makes it difficult to fundraise for. But with the right resources, it could be come close to elimination.

I would definitely direct resources to organizations doing good work in this field.

Eta: I definitely would not start a new charity. Unless you count a family foundation that manages my donations to others.

[farmvillelover]

At least one of them would be infertility related. I hate how most insurance plans don't cover IF treatments. I believe we spent roughly $25k out of pocket to have our first through IVF, most people in their 20s and 30s can't afford that even if they'd be amazing parents. And that fucking sucks.

[katfco]

Fix the water in Flint.
Habitat for Humanity
Fully funded college scholarships for teachers
create a program to provide low-performing schools with an aide for every grade or classroom. Not someone to grade papers or work with kids 30 minutes a day, but someone who would be in one class for half a day to do small-group intervention within the class.

[dancingnancy]

Oct 21, 2018 11:21:38 GMT -5 Leeham Rimes said:

My first thing is I would pay off all school lunch debt for my entire state and then see what I could do about having free lunch for all Florida kids k-12.

Then I’d look at buying (local) hospital debt (pennies on the dollar) and forgiving it.

I’d probably go through my money so quick, lol.

This. Also I would somehow fund the schools programs for providing food on the weekends and over the summer. Seeing so many kids at my daughters school bring home the bags on Friday’s breaks my heart, and they rely on donated food.

[CurlyQ284]

I think I would pick local charities. I'm about 30 minutes from Flint and 40 minutes from Detroit so there would be plenty of opportunities to help locally.

I'm not originally from here but I feel way more invested in the community here in a way that I wasn't when I lived in Northern Virginia.

[nomad100]

Oct 21, 2018 10:29:51 GMT -5 dexteroni said:

Oct 21, 2018 10:23:56 GMT -5 egeiger said:

I don’t think I would focus on one type of charity. I want to be like Ellen - giving to those that are doing good things. Catch people/groups being kind and assist their causes - that sort of thing.

This. I would start a charitable foundation that gives to charities and organizations. Maybe I would start one if I noticed a need that wasn’t being filled, but that wouldn’t be my focus from the outset.

I would live on acreage that served as a dog sanctuary, but that would mainly be for selfish reasons, lol. Maybe there would be tax exemptions available or something, but I mostly just want to have dozens of dogs.

This is pretty much my position too. 

But add some horses to the mix too.  Soft ears on the dogs and velvety noses on the horses are good for the soul.  

ETA:  I have a good relationship with my local community foundation so would leverage that relationship with a charitable foundation of my own.

[eddy]

I would start a foundation so I could sprinkle my money. I don’t know anything about starting a non profit. I would want to support orgs doing good work. A good amount would be put into the education systems in our current city and the two places we grew up. Something like paying off lunches and other things that could have a ton of impact.

Other things I would be passsionate about- gun safety, voter rights, low income access to family planning etc.

Maybe I would just pay for every woman in Iowa to have forever access to her choice of birth control. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[W.T.Faulkner]

Community school, hands down. I’d be going full-on Lebron.

[notsopicky]

I would throw a bunch of money at an organization my dad works for--they train service dogs for wounded veterans.

I also would support the two local rescues from which we got our dogs and cats.

After that, I love the ideas of supporting local schools--I've always dreamed of doing something like Oprah did, to pay for college for an entire graduating class; all they had to do was graduate from HS to be eligible. I work at a relatively low SES school--to be able to do that for my own students would be life-changing, for them and for me.

[cville]

I'm not expert enough in running a nonprofit or foundation to try to run my own. I'd select those that already exist that address concerns that I share (plus my FU Koch and Mercer PAC). Affordable housing, environmental justice, common sense gun laws, criminal justice reform. If after a number of years I saw unfilled gaps, I'd reconsider.

I presume so many people start foundations/nonprofits for tax reasons because otherwise why does every damn celebrity start one instead of just directly giving money to already extant orgs, but I'm not in it for tax stuff.

[yentl]

Foster homes where if there are issues with the kids that the parents can't handle, the parents move out instead of the kids. Parents live there for free. NOT a group home situation. This is actually based on work I did with DHS and foster families.

A cat cafe and I would for sure work there. Love cats and being a barista was the highlight of my service industry days.

Low fee mental health services with community based options for populations that don't qualify for medicare/medicaid (there are often more options for these populations that do community based work) or are underinsured and can't afford therapy/psychiatry.

[waverly]

Pediatric and Neonatal medical research. Pediatric medical debt. Grants to individual families or larger scale for medical related travel, medical devices, lobbying in these areas.

I’ve got a lot of money so maybe a children’s educational foundation and an anti violence foundation targeted more on gun control, safety etc.