What charity would be a good choice to will money to, and why? Let’s say several million dollars in a decade or two.
What issues/causes do you care about? Where are you located?
Because pangolins are super-cute and cool - way cooler than many humans - and endangered. Conservation efforts are drastically underfunded. Waiting “a decade of two” may be too late.
What is your goal? What do you value?
I’m leaving most of my money to local food banks, they are always in need, well run with lots of volunteer labor, and get good value for the money they spend on food. It’s not anywhere near your amount, but I feel like it will make a difference in the area where I have lived for the past 45 years.
The values I am following are those that hate to see human beings going hungry where it is not necessary.
I’m giving a good portion to poor universities earmarked for scholarships.
My two target charities are scholarships for “C” students and supporting shelters for victims of domestic violence. I think I’d add the Hospice group that cared for my inlaws in their last weeks.
If you like nature and the outdoors, the Nature Conservancy works around the world, and their work is largely funded by donations: Gift Planning
It’s basically a giant land trust that buys up land and easements to conserve them for future generations, with varying levels of environmental protections. Not as rebellious as, say, Extinction Rebellion or the Sea Shepherd or even Greenpeace, but gets a lot done.
Animal shelters here. I doubt any of my loved ones will survive me. But, well, my Wife will be the last one I suspect. She will be well taken care of.
That kind of personal connection is, I think, a good way to choose a charity to support.
Thank you to everybody so far!
Happy to share, though I wondered what the first few answers would be if I didn’t influence things so far.
I care a lot about animals abandoned or mistreated by humans. I’ve made automatic monthly donations to ASPCA for decades, and my first thought is them. I’m doing a little research on them to make sure they’re who they seem to be.
I also care about LGBTQ advocacy, and, especially, trans youth in today’s climate.
There are many charities that strike me as worthy, but I’ve never liked the idea of donating a little to large numbers of recipients; strikes me as inefficient.
I would do the same - the local animal shelter. I know my money would go directly to their needs.
Please keep in mind that the best charities of today may no longer be the best in a decade or two. I would certainly do your research now, but stay in tune with changes as the charity landscape evolves over time.
With millions, it might be worth specifying that the charity gets the money slowly over time rather than all at once. I would be worried that a charity getting a huge windfall might tempt them to quickly spend it away on frivolous stuff rather than going to the cause of the charity. For instance, the animal shelter uses the $Millions to throw lavish events and the execs get raises/bonuses and office upgrades rather than the money going to the care of the animals. So rather than say they get $Million at once, have your money be in a trust that specifies the charity gets $Thousands every month. I would think with that kind of structure, there’s a better chance your money will end up helping the cause and less chance it’s frittered away.
That’s my top choice.
I guess it depends on what feels better to you… advocacy and outreach at the national level, vs, say, saving individual orphaned animals at the local level. ASPCA has a lot of no-kill shelters, but that often means they are selective about the animals they take in and basically have a racist/classist system where only the most adoptable animals are accepted and the rejects are either passed on to kill shelters or just left to, well, die on their own.
Your local kill shelter might end up with the rejects, and I guess it’s a difficult value judgement whether that old mangy beast that bites everyone and has a ton of medical issues is more worth saving than that fresh litter of cute puppies… =/ My point is just that your local shelter is probably way more resource-starved than ASPCA national, but some of them basically function as “animal hospice” that just try to ease the pain of animals who realistically will never be adoptable…
My partner is a vet tech at a “boutique” vet clinic (it’s more like a giant animal hospital, with radiology and cancer and ophthalmology and dermatology and water treadmills and a daycare and a pub…). She works at the very high end of veterinary medicine, the opposite of what she calls “shelter medicine”. At the shelters, the care they provide is both brutally barebones and assembly-line style, with each individual animal getting far less time and attention than at the nicer vet clinics. But they also serve a crucial community need… those animals would receive no care at all otherwise 
Like in human medicine, it’s the difference between top-end hospitals for rich patients who pay out of pocket for top-notch luxury care (many of her customers are rich retirees who spend thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, on Ol’ Fluffy) vs resource-starved community clinics with months-long waiting lists.
That isn’t a dis on the shelters, but to say that dollars go a long, long way there, and will make a big difference for the individual animals that end up there, regardless of whether they can be adopted out.
Spay & neuter programs, often tied with human hospice thrift stores for some reason, might be another local possibility to consider?
I’m too out of touch with the youth to know the best way to protect them, but for what it’s worth… the few youngins I do know tell me that trans is pretty normalized for their generation, the way (I suppose) lesbian/gay/bi were normalized for millennials. Maybe by the time their generation takes over, it won’t be much of an issue anymore…? Some of these things are just generational forces at work that no one individual charity can effectively address, and it takes a lifetime (or two) for the overall cultural zeitgeist to change. But hell, what do I know, I certainly never thought abortion would become illegal again in my lifetime…
ASPCA is a sister organization to PETA (it is not affiliated with local shelters which may have SPCA in their names), and for many people who work in rescue it’s a dirty word. I don’t know what is true at the moment, but back when I was paying attention, they were killing every single animal they “rescued”. And then lying about it. Donation money went to advertising themselves.
If I were interested in donating to rescues I would 100% go local. And I would check their bonafides very carefully. A lot of private rescues end up being hoarding disasters from which animals need to be rescued again. A lot of government funded rescues end up being infiltrated by PETA. Which you should really read up about. PETA’s goal is no domestic animals, zero. No zoos. And no using even wild animals for food. They feel that humans should go vegan, and exist separate from other animals and never impinge upon them in any way. They’ll lie about this, too, as this radical agenda is not all that popular.
People who raise or use animals for a living, or as a hobby, absolutely hate them.
Personally, I plan to leave what money I have left to local organizations – the town library, my church, local environmental groups, others – but all local. That way I know to the extent possible that I’m not just supporting some bureaucracy or another.
I also wholly favor your donating all your money to Pangolin preservation. They are one of my favorite genera.
I agree on all points.
PETA is basically a parody of activism.
Local shelters and organizations are generally more honest.
The Pangolin is an amazing creature. It has its teeth in its stomach!
Back To The OP
Realistically, I will probably have monetary assets of less than thirty thousand dollars when I die. Heck , even that is probably too high.
I am planning on making a will when I get home from Mom’s medical emergency. If any of my loved ones needs the money that badly, they can have it. In complete and considered seriousness, I would expect actual physical fights to break out over various collectibles. I really need to figure out who gets what.
I have a slightly different take. I volunteer for an animal rescue that works in Langa, Cape Town, South Africa. Langa is an incredibly impoverished suburb.
Me and my boss go into Langa often, providing free food, kennels and assist people with the mobile SPCA clinic, and occasoinally taking animals to the PDSA hospital for treatment
A donation in US$ to either the South African SPCA or the PDSA would be huge in terms of impact, more than any US charity by probably an order of magnitude because of the exchange rate.
I’m not shilling for the charity I work with, we get by, and we really are tiny.
Anyway, please consider these excellent institutions:
I would leave it to a small charity that you know personally, or a group of small charities. Maybe one where you have done some volunteering. A donation at the local level can have a huge impact.
A lot of the larger charities are problematic. The Nature Conservancy has had scandals including misuse of resources, sexual harassment, greenwashing, etc.