What charitable causes are close to your heart?

National Center for Science Education
James Randi Educational Foundation
International Dark Sky Association
Contra Costa Food Bank
Doctors Without Borders

There are others, but those are off the top of my head.

Sierra wildlife rescue in my community
Majestic Waterfowl sanctuary
A local horse rescue
I adopt all of my pets through my local shelter and give to homeless people at random.

I spent 10 years volunteering in my local wildlife rescue, 5 years running a 4-H youth group and support my local “friends of the river.”
My charitable passions are mostly animal and environmentally oriented.

I don’t tend to give money, mostly because I don’t have that much of it. But I donate blood to the Red Cross. I build fences with The Coalition to Unchain Dogs. I demo and build with Habitat for Humanity. I lend my expertise to several wildlife rehab organizations, and hand-raise neonates for the local shelter. I participate in fundraising events for both of the local shelters.

I support the group in our local chapter of the disease that my father died from. We participate in the walk they sponsor every year. And a close friend of mine does a fundraiser every year for Doctor’s without Borders, so I donate baked goods for the cause.

Currently, I am supporting anyone who provides abortions where douchebags are trying to stop them from happening.

My goose “Marwyn” in my avatar, was a domestic rescue sent to me 14 years ago as a 2 week old gosling. He is my most beloved charitable cause. Happy 14th birthday Marwyn on July 9. :-)

My last donation went to Mary’s Meals.

I support a local food pantry and a food pantry in my hometown. I also support a local soup kitchen and a volunteer garden co-op. We donate our veggies to the soup kitchen. I volunteer with friends at our local Meals on Wheels program. I am a volunteer reader at an elementary school and I volunteer at a nursing home. There are a couple of women I know who don’t have cars. They only have golf carts. If they need to go somewhere that requires a car, I volunteer my husband to drive them.

I support a dance organization. Also certain educational institutions. A few specific disease organizations. Things that have affected my own life.

I was, for many years, involved in off-leash dog parks. (Can’t now because my greyhound can’t be off-leash with other dogs.

I did transports for animal rescue groups in Florida (both greyhound and other).

I love thehungersite.org because I can donate by simply clicking each day, and it doesn’t cost me anything to help. I also use Goodsearch.com the same way.

I donate to St. Jude whenever I have an extra buck or two. I also donate to Salvation Army or American Red Cross.

The Heiffer Project
Docs without Borders
Habitat for Humanity
Local library
Local food coop.
Local Humane Society
Two family memorial funds; one for teachers, the other for grad. students in environmental biology.
A college fund for a young friend whose father was killed in an avalanche when she was 9 months old

Animal shelters, Battersea Dogs Home being the charity I give to the most. I donate £10 a month to them by way of standing order and spread the word about their work as much as possible.

Conservation charities are also important to me, anyone that is trying to prevent certain species from extinction (Orang-utans, gorillas, tigers etc) gets my support.

Food pantries in several towns , animal shelters ( have T-shirts from around the world ) and many soup kitchens.

The Smile Train They do cleft palate surgeries and every once in a while I send them $250 and that pays for one surgery for a child and that changes that child’s life forever. I like knowing that I have changed a whole person’s life.

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital because they take care of kids, never turn anyone away and do good research.

I also donate to my local food bank. Most of the grocery stores in my area have a little food bank placard at the check out where you can pull a $1, $3 or $5 dollar ticket off and it has a barcode, they scan it along with the rest of your groceries and the money goes to the food bank. About 75% of the time I do at least $1. That, the $1, is not really going to make much of a difference, one way or the other for me, and it adds up over the year. And depending how flush I am, I try to do a $3 or $5 as often as I can.

Those are the regular donations I make. The rest of my “philanthropic” activity is kind of random.

And if anyone is interested charitywatch.org is a great site for evaluating charities and non-profits. You can find out how much, what percentage of the money they take in is actually spent on the cause they support, how much they spend on overhead, how much their executives are paid, etc.

What percentage of the money these organizations take in, that is actually spent on doing what these charities do is really important to me. I have a limited amount of money to donate and I want to know that as much as possible of the money I donate is actually going to provide services to people these charities serve.

And I also lend money through Kiva.org. I intended to mention that, but forgot, though it is not exactly “donating” money to charity. I have been essentially lending the same $300 dollars for about 5 years now, though I occasionally donate to Kiva itself and “top off” my $300 with $25 here and there. Kiva is a great organization. Micro-lending is a great way to stretch your “donation” dollars.