NationStates Jolt Archive

My first official payment of charity just left my bank account, which inspired me to make a thread.

Do you give to charity? What sort of organisations and causes do you support? What are your reasons for giving? Do you look into your local community, or to the third world?

And, running the risk of derailing the thread before it started, if you had more money, for example if you weren't paying any taxes, would you honestly give more?

I really can't even imagine "if I wasn't paying any taxes." I would give out more money if I had it though. I do give to homeless people my spare cigarettes and pocket change, both of which exist in greater quantity if I hypothetically had fewer expenses. I don't officially donate to charity in general though.

I give to a homeless charity. Being homeless sucks.

And yes, I hope that if I didn't pay taxes I would pay more. However, to forstall your inivitable follow-up question, I almost certainly wouldn't give as much as is currently taken off me in tax.

My first official payment of charity just left my bank account, which inspired me to make a thread.

Do you give to charity? What sort of organisations and causes do you support? What are your reasons for giving? Do you look into your local community, or to the third world?
I give some money to things my church is collecting for, some to the cancer society and such.

And, running the risk of derailing the thread before it started, if you had more money, for example if you weren't paying any taxes, would you honestly give more?
Probably not.

I used to donate, but I simply can't afford to anymore. I need all the money I can get my hands on.

I donate my time (about 10 hours a week), does that count?
Otherwise, no. If people want my money they'll just have to wait until I actually have any.

It seems like every time someone says "this charity is good", someone else goes "I admire the intent but won't the knock on effect be MASS DEATH?" or something similarly horrifying. So I decided to give money to the least objectionable thing I could think of: WaterAid. And if anybody wants to tell me that I'm contributing to starvation or whatever, I'll be over there with my head in the sand. I give a (relatively) decent chunk of my money to them, mainly 'cause of some kind of feeling of guilt.

I can't answer the question about taxes.

I am charity to my friends, I think that has to count.

I also drop pennies each morning into the charity jar at my local coffee house, I think it goes to some kiddies somewhere.

I donate to several charities on an informal basis. There's usually some sort of ongoing thing at Whole Foods, which can be included in the price of groceries, making it pretty painless. PetCo also has a thing where you round up the cost of your purchase and the difference is given to no-kill shelters - same thing with PetSmart. I haven't seen as many homeless people here in Colorado Springs as I saw in SoCal, but my practice, in the past, has been to buy a bag of nonperishable, easily prepared food and give it to them - it would include an occasional treat like fruit or cookies or, if they had a pet a small bag of appropriate pet food (the Banfield vet used to give out coupons for free visits and vaccinations - I'd grab a handful of these and give them out, too). Sometimes, on hot days, I'd give them bottles of water. Since all of this stuff was included in my own shopping, it was relatively painless and I could be sure that they weren't spending the money on drugs or liquor - I don't think most of them would misuse money, they were just down on their luck and needed a hand.

My first official payment of charity just left my bank account, which inspired me to make a thread.

Do you give to charity? What sort of organisations and causes do you support? What are your reasons for giving? Do you look into your local community, or to the third world?

And, running the risk of derailing the thread before it started, if you had more money, for example if you weren't paying any taxes, would you honestly give more?

I believe that anyone can give money and say they've saved the world...it takes a REAL philanthropist to give the most precious resource of all, their time. By volunteering, you not only make a positive impact, you can learn to relate to a specific cause through first-hand experience. In a perfect world, people would give their money and time.

My husband and I give to various charities and I give blood on a regular basis (not money, but still needed).

Right now, we're a bit crunched for money, so we're not giving as much as usual. So I guess I can definitely say that I'd give more if I had more money.

I don't think not paying taxes would give me more money, though. I'm pretty sure my employer would just lower my stipend accordingly.

I donate regularly -- I just dropped some coats off at the Salvation Army; I buy toys for Toys for Tots at Christmas; I donate books to a veteran's group for bed-ridden vets in the hospital; I donate canned goods at Thanksgiving and Christmas to families who don't have enough to have a good meal; I donate to The Red Cross, to my school, and to various charitable emergencies (such as tsunami and earthquake relief, via my school's Arista society.

I also encourage my students to donate to the various charitable collections our school does through the year, including the twice-yearly blood drive.

Nothing at the moment. Money's tight. I have a few that I give to when I can. I donated my last car to Father Joe (a Los Angeles-area homeless charity). My family gives to the USO and a disabled veterans' fund, which means I give to those when I'm reminded.

I donate regularly -- I just dropped some coats off at the Salvation Army; I buy toys for Toys for Tots at Christmas; I donate books to a veteran's group for bed-ridden vets in the hospital; I donate canned goods at Thanksgiving and Christmas to families who don't have enough to have a good meal; I donate to The Red Cross, to my school, and to various charitable emergencies (such as tsunami and earthquake relief, via my school's Arista society.

I also encourage my students to donate to the various charitable collections our school does through the year, including the twice-yearly blood drive.

You have my vote for the Mother Theresa clone:D

I donate my time to various organizations when I can. I donate cash to the local theatre group, and I make a point to attend community theatre whenever I can manage. I don't support feeding starving children in african countries or in places where impovershment is the result of the stupid choices that people there made. So I won't help trailer park residents when a tornado rips through their homes...again.

Lacking as I do any sort of income, I don't give regularly. I may give if you ask in person and I think it's a worthy cause. I have adopted my parents' policy of never giving money over the telephone.

I volunteer time when I can. Over the summer, I did some work at my old high school. I volunteered at a Relay for Life event at college last spring.

Also, I am of the opinion that whoever had the idea to make donations to charitable causes tax-deductible deserves a medal of some kind.

I usually do about 400-500 hours a year of volunteer stuff through two different organizations each year.

I avoid giving money to charities because I feel so much of it ends up being taken up in 'administration' costs (ie, the organizers ripping it off)

I donate a few dollars here and there, usually around Christmastime. But, taxes don't affect me of course :D.

I believe that anyone can give money and say they've saved the world...it takes a REAL philanthropist to give the most precious resource of all, their time.
So if I were Bill Gates, and every hour of my time spent at work would earn thousands I could give to charity, you'd still say I'd be better off getting my own hands dirty, so to speak?

Anyways, I notice almost everyone donating money to causes in their local communities rather than the third world. Is that a conscious decision?

My first official payment of charity just left my bank account, which inspired me to get a blog.

Ironicized. :D

Do you give to charity? What sort of organisations and causes do you support? What are your reasons for giving? Do you look into your local community, or to the third world?

I have given to charities on quite a few occasions. In fact, I've tried to give money to organizations (eg media outlets, idealistic businesses, individuals) which haven't even asked for donations -- that rarely works I find, the paperwork involved for them isn't worth the income!

The last donation I made was to Sea Shepherd. They started sending me printed material, so I told them by email to knock that off, and they did. Good administration there, some charities ignore such requests, or even pass your name along to other charities so they can solicit donations by mail.

I plan to give to Médecins Sans Frontières once they stop spending the money trying to get donations, with television advertising.

There's a pattern here, and it is this: donations should be for what you believe in ... not what you've been guilted into giving for. I guess it feels good either way, but I think there is a critical difference between deliberately doing good, and defending oneself against guilt.

And, running the risk of derailing the thread before it started, if you had more money, for example if you weren't paying any taxes, would you honestly give more?

Absolutely no question. The more I have, the more I give. It feels good to donate to what I find good, and that will always be a part of my budget.

Really not a question of how much tax I pay. I pay almost none, a little thing called the Tax Free Threshold my friend (<$6000). The Tax Office owes ME money! I should claim it, spend five or ten percent on charities and the rest on my teeth ... but I hate paperwork.

British Legion, Amnesty International & UNICEF. When I buy fish & chips, which is not that often, I put 50p in the Lifeboat tin.

Have in the past given to ICBL, Shelter, British Red Cross, Liberty. 2 of them I cancelled (not earning as much), 1 I forgot about, and 1 I stopped supporting.

I also volunteer for some charities, but that's a bit different.
What are your reasons for giving?
Want to help causes I support, I suppose.
Do you look into your local community, or to the third world?
The latter, I suppose, though I don't really give to development charities.
And, running the risk of derailing the thread before it started, if you had more money, for example if you weren't paying any taxes, would you honestly give more?
Absolutely, yes. Proportionately, not sure, but probably not. I did stop a couple of standing orders that I might renew in the future once I quit my job and took a lower paying one, so by inverse extrapolation, probably.

Anyways, I notice almost everyone donating money to causes in their local communities rather than the third world. Is that a conscious decision?

After seventeen posts, it's a bit early to describe a pattern in the posts.

Have some more faith in your thread ... and gather some more data before drawing conclusions ... hmm?

Do you give to charity? What sort of organisations and causes do you support? What are your reasons for giving? Do you look into your local community, or to the third world?
The Johanniter (no idea how to translate that into English, it's an organization like the Red Cross but smaller) take some money from my account every month, mainly because they actually sent a guy from door to door and I actually let him in... and since they also ran the mobile care service that cared for my grandmother at the time I couldn't really say "no". Happily, it turns out they actually do really good work. They really are like the Red Cross in that they're active nationally (home care, retirement care facilities, ambulances, projects for the handicapped, soup kitchens etc.) as well as internationally in crisis response and long-term projects, which are chosen in a way that makes a lot of sense (often working with local partners and specializing in things often not supplied by other agencies, like e.g. mobile water purification units or specific kinds of tents for earthquake victims in colder climes). They have a Christian background that happily doesn't feature in their projects.

My favourite charity organization, though, is Oxfam. They pick their contributions to crisis response even more impressively by really concentrating on areas or groups that are underserved by the more conventional aid efforts; and from what I can tell they're long-term projects are excellently thought through and implemented. They actually seem to have learned form the decades of "stuff that didn't work so well" and go for small scale but actually self-sustaining and sustainable projects.
They have shops that sell donated wares, and somehow I always find myself drowning in stuff (even after I've already given away lots) and thus am always carrying a lot of stuff to the Oxfam shop. I think it's a brilliant idea - it means I don't have to throw things away (they don't take refuse or crappy things, obviously, only things in good condition, but without them I'd end up throwing out a lot of it anyway because the only other outlet would probably be a flew market and you can only do that so often and I don't have space to store stuff) and they sell them for more money than I could have asked on the fleamarket anyway. I.e. my cast-offs are their money, and not just a tiny sum either. Makes me wonder why not everybody brings their things there - give old stuff, get good conscience. ;P

And I sometimes donate for disaster relief in severe crises. To the two organizations already mentioned as well as others.

And, running the risk of derailing the thread before it started, if you had more money, for example if you weren't paying any taxes, would you honestly give more?
Yeah.

Anyways, I notice almost everyone donating money to causes in their local communities rather than the third world. Is that a conscious decision?
Actually, I'm much more inclined to donate for international causes (probably because I feel they're just so much more urgent and dire). Which makes me feel a bit guilty, hence why the Johanniter are so convenient in that they combine both domestic & international projects.

Just got this via Stumble Upon - it's very à propos:

http://www.globalrichlist.com/

Puts things in perspective quite nicely, I thought.

I give to several non political, non religious humanitarian organisation, mainly CARE and Action Contre la Faim.

Even without tax help, I will.

Do you give to charity? What sort of organisations and causes do you support?
Only specific people or small local organizations I really know to actually produce results.
The cause I find most noble is helping people to stop being homeless and find a job and a place to stay.

What are your reasons for giving?
Usually a bigger bonus than I expected, or making an expensive purchase. I can't bring myself to refuse helping others when I feel my life is going good.


And, running the risk of derailing the thread before it started, if you had more money, for example if you weren't paying any taxes, would you honestly give more?
Yes, way more. That way I wouldn't be feeling that I have to cover up, like a fool, for the government's embezzlement and waste of tax money that were supposed to solve the problems long ago.

My husband's company matches our charity giving up to $10K and then after that they match 50% up to 20K. We give to lots of charities. We give to a local church that provides afterschool programs for at risk kids. We give to a boys home that houses foster kids who can't be placed with families and counsels them so that they can be adopted. We give to a few charities I volunteer with (habitat for humanity, and a program to help with vocational rehab for the mentally ill) and a few that hubby volunteers for (the diaper bank, which provides newborn needs to mothers who need them, and a group that goes around after tornadoes and helps old people clean up their yards).

If we made more money we would give more and also give more of our time (since we wouldn't have to work so much).

We tend to focus on the local, I'm not sure why. I know my kids do collect money in the fall and send it to a charity that provides kids in other countries with school supplies and such. I think one year they bought some chickens for a family in Peru.....but I don't remember how much they cost.

I donate. Clothes to the Salvation Army, food to food drives, money to The Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders.

Id give blood but Ive done it twice and both times the person doing it was so incompetent that they not only had to stick my 8 times to finally get my vein, but I also passed out because they took more then they were supposed to. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth just thinking about it now.

If I had more money, I would donate more.

I don't have the money to give to charity so I give my time. I usually spend time with the youth group at an inner city church. It's a pretty rewarding experience personally.