What is your favourite charity organisation and why?

http://www.heifer.org/

Shriners Hospital for Children I’m a also a volunteer hospital van driver for the children.

I pick the Red Cross . Goodsearch also does good works.

Partners in Health because they do good work setting up and running health clinics in some of the neediest places around the world, do disaster work, and I know Dr. Paul Farmer personally and have worked with him before PIH and again during the Haiti earthquake disaster. I know how the money is spent and that a large percentage gets to the intended targets. I have worked with their DMATs and know how dedicated and knowledgeable the crews are. Great people doing good and necessary work. They build health systems and they stay.

Their Charity Navigator finacial metrics rating assessment states that a whopping 90% of every dollar spent by PIH goes to their programs and services. They have a 100 point rating (out of 100) for accountability and transparency, and a 88.19 point rating overall.

They were on the front lines during the Chile earthquake and the Ebola outbreak a year ago, and got home without any casualties. Farmer also has the recognition in the global medical community and the political pull to make things happen in a big way. PIH has no affiliation with any religion and do not have a political agenda. Money to PIH is well spent. This is what they do.

And they have Employment Oportunities for any of you Flutherites who would like an experience to tell your grandkids about. These opportunities are not just in the medical field. They need good managers, clerical workers, HR people, finance officers, field operations directors, research associates, people with good organizational skills. Check it out

Excuse the shameless promoting. It’s a good outfit. I love these guys.

@Espiritus_Corvus Thanks for mentioning PIH. I heard about them after the Haiti Earthquake, they are one of my favorites.

I won;t donate to the Red Cross because they don’t use funds raised at the place they advertise, plus they have a lot of overhead. I will give to Medicines Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) because I like the work they do and how they spend money.

My sister takes me to CostCo every few months to stock up on staples. We usually go halvsies on about 100 bucks of Blue Box, Raman, pasta, pasta sauce, and brownie mixes and then we drop them off at a battered woman’s shelter.

I generally don’t donate to online shit. I have made bets here where I asked if I won they would donate to Doctors Without Borders.

And I still do the Cake Thing

Alzheimers Disease Society because I used to work with patients.

I make bowls for Empty Bowls where they auction off pottery to raise funds to help feed the needy and I volunteer at Fox Valley Special Recreation Association to help run their programs for special needs children in my area.

Someone here on Fluther got me started on Kiva and I think it does an excellent job of making a difference while making the whole experience feel one-on-one. You don’t have to have a lot of money, you don’t have to give a lot of money and the recipients are asking for a lot of money.

It feels like people helping people out – half way around the world.
I hear of tragedy on the news and then I see the people actually living in that area, asking for a tiny loan so they can work to bring their families from abject to simple poverty.

Just a side note:

One of the reasons people don’t give their time and money to charities, even though they might otherwise be inclined to, is because of all the fraud we see reported in the media. It has made even the most generous people cynical. There is an outfit that was recommended to me by the Veteran’s Administration that checks out US charities and compiles the most detailed reports of all the charity watchdogs. The federal government, professional grant writers and providers use Charity Navigator to investigate US charities before contacting them. You simply punch “Charity Navigator, (name of charity)” into Google and the Charity Navigator report on (name of charity) will pop up.

For example, if I want to check on @ibstubro‘s favorite charity, Kiva, I simply punch in Charity Navigator, Kiva and I get this, which is a full, detailed report on Kiva’s income, sources, activities, the portion of every dollar donated that reaches their intended targets, and other financial metrics. Kiva, by the way, has one of the highest overall ratings I’ve ever seen, coming in at 93.7 (out of 100).

Here are the CN reports on the other charities listed in the above posts, except for the UK and Irish Republic charities.

Amnesty International, Republic of Ireland Financial Report 2013, pdf, (NerdyKeith)

Heifer International (janbb)

Shriners Hospital for Children (Tropical_Willie)

American Red Cross (YARNLADY)

Doctors Without Borders, US (zenvelo)

Empty Bowls/Wichita Falls Area Foodbank and the Fox Valley Recreation Foundation (Cruiser)

Alzheimers Disease Society, UK
GuideStar (UK) Charity Watch Report, (ucme)

Kiva (ibstubro)

The Cake Thing isn’t rated by CN, but gets the Fluther Golden Pancake Award for Direct Anonymous Giving without regard to tax deduction. True altruism. (johnpowel)

We all have used Wikipedia. I use it multiple times daily. Here is their CN report: Wikimedia Foundation

Every registered charity in America that has an annual revenue of at least $1m and that has filed at least 7 years of the full Form 990 with the IRS is analysed by Charity Navigator, which is in itself a pretty useful charity.

Charity Navigator on Wikipedia

National Center for Charitable Statistics (Urban Institute) CN Evaluation

Charity Navigator on Charity Navigator

Seeing strings like this really makes me feel good about being a member of this community.

www.marysmeals.org.uk

@Espiritus_Corvus Thank you for that, that was certainly very informative

PBS… my grandpa found that I was learning science from NOVA and he donated $10,000 to them in 1995. PBS is Public Broadcasting Service. I watch NBR (NightlyBusinessRreport). I will donate some money later when I have cable back in July.

I donate regularly to Kiva.
I also sponsor three children through World Vision. I’m aware this is not the best charity according to the Charity Navigator site, but we’ve sponsored children for many years.
I also support campaigns through the SumofUs organisation. And also through GetUp. Action for Australia.
I like to give to crowd funding appeals too. Usually to support Indigenous media and requests of that nature.
And I regularly donate clothes, household items to charities like St Vincent De Paul, the Samaritans etc.
Other charities I like are the Fistula Foundation and the Fred Hollows Foundation. I don’t give regularly to these charities, but I have in the past and will in the future.