Charity to leave money to?

[thorny_locust]

@Ulfreida

I plan to leave what money I have left to local organizations – the town library, my church, local environmental groups, others – but all local.

I haven’t any to leave; but that’s my recommendation.

Local organizations are very often extremely short on funds. And it’s relatively easy to figure out which ones in your area are actually doing good. I’ll add to the list above food pantries, ambulance and fire departments, as others have said local animal rescues. Local vets. might like a fund to pay medical bills for animals whose humans can’t afford to pay for what they need.

I will also add to those mentioning Nature Conservancy; which works on a site-by-site basis, allowing specific compatible uses to continue on some properties while restricting others more drastically, depending on the needs of the species on the site. There may also be local groups doing similar things in your area – here we have the Finger Lakes Land Trust.

Also agreeing with those who say to check the specific group – I know multiple local groups in my area that are doing genuinely good work, but it’s true that some places may be a scam spending most of the money on the people running it. And even aside from those with deliberate bad intentions, some animal rescues don’t know what they’re doing and may cause considerable harm out of ignorance.

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

Disaster relief.
When Nature goes mad, we all need help.

[Dewey_Finn]

@Napier

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.

My understanding is that the ASPCA mostly works in and around the New York City area. It doesn’t provide services in much of the country. So if there are other animal welfare groups in your area, you may want to support them directly.

As for LGBTQ youth, there is The Trevor Project, which is nationwide. But there may be other groups more local to you.

[Reply]

@madmonk28

A donation at the local level can have a huge impact.

Yeah… bang for buck, the small local ones are where your money will have the greatest impact. And where you’ll feel the awesomest

@madmonk28

A lot of the larger charities are problematic. The Nature Conservancy has had scandals including misuse of resources, sexual harassment, greenwashing, etc.

Doesn’t that happen, well… everywhere? Maybe the larger ones have more bureaucracy and thus more opportunities for corruption and cover-up, but smaller groups have their own controversies too. The much smaller environmental groups I’ve been involved with have had their own share of scandals for sure, sexual and otherwise.

I guess addressing those at any org requires an impetus for change, whether it’s internal whistleblowers or external DEI pressure. But IMO that has to happen gradually alongside their main field of work, slowly improving (hopefully) year after year at both the individual and cultural levels. I do think, though, that the bigger orgs are more prone to just glossing over the fixes, cynically checking boxes for the sake of reputation… and then once the cultural tides ebb, they give up (like is happening across all the big US companies now).

It’s a bit different with conversation orgs, though, IMO. They’re not chasing annual shareholder profits, but often targeting impact timescales of decades at a minimum, if not centuries, and across multiple cultures whose sexual and social norms may not be the same as ours. By the time the fruits of their labor really pay off, we’ll all be dead, and who knows what the societies of 200 years later will be like… but at least they’ll have a tiny shred of green space left!

It’s planting trees, literally or otherwise.

[madmonk28]

@Reply

Doesn’t that happen, well… everywhere? Maybe the larger ones have more bureaucracy and thus more opportunities for corruption and cover-up, but smaller groups have their own controversies too. The much smaller environmental groups I’ve been involved with have had their own share of scandals for sure, sexual and otherwise.

Yes, but if it is a small charity that you are familiar with and do volunteer work for, you’re more likely to know if it is ethical or not.

[Reply]

If it’s a small charity that you work for, maybe… but if you’re a volunteer, I think the charities will generally try to shield volunteers from all that (and internal politics in general)?

At the larger orgs, you might even have a better chance of hearing about it just from hearsay or media attention or internal organizing and such.

That’s just for the more scandalous stuff, though. For day to day impact work, yeah, you can better gauge the charity’s culture and effectiveness by seeing (or being a part of) their on-the-ground work.

[Babale]

@Reply

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.

To be clear, are you saying they are racist/classicist against dogs?

[Reply]

@Babale

To be clear, are you saying they are racist/classicist against dogs?

Yeah, lacking a better term for it. “Adoptability criteria” might be better, I guess.

[Dewey_Finn]

Do you have a cite for that claim about the ASPCA?

[Reply]

About what? How no-kill shelters determine which animals to accept?

[Dewey_Finn]

That the ASPCA rejects dogs for being unadoptable. That they turn dogs over to other shelters without a no-kill policy.

[madmonk28]

@Reply

If it’s a small charity that you work for, maybe… but if you’re a volunteer, I think the charities will generally try to shield volunteers from all that (and internal politics in general)?

The two small charities I volunteer with have one employee each. That’s it. Everyone else are volunteers. Maybe Sarah who has two jobs in addition to running the community center is living large in secret, but I highly doubt it. If I gave her organization some money, it would have an instant and visible impact.

[bobsmom101]

@Napier

I’ve made automatic monthly donations to ASPCA for decades

@madmonk28

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

Agreed. I personally reject “big charity” whose foremost interests seem to be executive compensation and large advertising budgets. I used to donate to Nature Conservancy, but now put money into my county’s conservancy organization.

@Reply

Spay & neuter programs, often tied with human hospice thrift stores for some reason, might be another local possibility to consider?

Yes, if you truly want to improve the lives of local pet animals (as opposed to pangolins, which I’d also heartily support!) the local spay and neuter clinics are IMO the best way to do it.

Another great group that I donate to through Patreon is Ocean Conservation Namibia (https://www.ocnamibia.org/), a bunch of volunteers who spend their free time disentangling seals (and occasionally other marine life) from discarded fishing nets. Their YouTube videos are very well done.

[Reply]

@Dewey_Finn

That the ASPCA rejects dogs for being unadoptable. That they turn dogs over to other shelters without a no-kill policy.

(EDIT: My mistake, sorry. It is not the ASCPA itself doing these things, just no-kill shelters in general. ASCPA itself operates very few shelters on their own, whose intake criteria aren’t readily available. They may or may not be open admission shelters.)

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Gotcha. Sorry, I erroneously assumed this was just common knowledge… let me try to find some cites. I don’t know if ASPCA itself will discuss it in those terms, but I’ll try to find some other sources…

OK, so it’s more generally known as the difference between a “limited admission” and “open admission/open door” shelter: https://www.ocpomrescue.com/post/what-is-the-difference-between-a-kill-shelter-vs-no-kill-shelter. For practicality, no-kill shelters can’t accept every animal; they’d have to provide for them indefinitely, and they have limited space and funding.

Limited-admission shelters, also known as “no-kill” shelters, can be breed-specific and hold the right to turn away dogs due to poor temperament, overpopulation, inability to be adopted, or health condition. […] The dogs that are turned away from limited-admission shelters have few options left, which are dumping at an open-admission shelter, abandoning them on the streets, or taking them to be euthanized at a veterinary clinic. The limited capacity at “no kill” shelters does have somewhat of a hand in the overpopulation rates at open-admission shelters, which leads to an overwhelming number of dogs deemed as “un-adoptable” in open-admission shelters.

That isn’t in reference to ASCPA shelters and affiliates in particular, just no-kill shelters in general.

Or a NPR article: No-Kill Shelters Save Millions Of Unwanted Pets — But Not All Of Them : NPR

But she says the phrase no-kill is misleading. Unlike government-run, “open-access” shelters that take all the animals that come in, most no-kill shelters limit the number and types of dogs and cats they accept.

Or a Humane Society PDF: https://www.humaneworld.org/sites/default/files/docs/all-shelters-are-not-alike.pdf

“Limited admission” shelters usually accept only selected animals that they feel they maximize their organization’s unique skills – some focus on only highly adoptable animals that they can rehome quickly, while others might concentrate on special needs animals that their local open admission shelter doesn’t have the resources to care for.

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So that’s the general concept of it. ASCPA itself isn’t explicit online about the intake criteria of its first-party shelters (at least I couldn’t find any info). I think it doesn’t like the term: FAQ | ASPCA

Because the term “no kill” has different meanings to different people, it’s not a term we typically use. The ASPCA’s number one priority is improving positive outcomes for animals. Specifically, we seek to increase the number of lives saved and decrease the number of animals entering shelters.

Anyway, ASPCA itself only has a limited number of shelters that it runs directly, and their intake criteria isn’t readily found (or they may even be open admission? not clear).

They do support no-kill coalitions: No-Kill Community Coalitions | ASPCA

But they also run a special center specifically for hard-to-adopt animals: Behavioral Rehabilitation Center for Cruelty Victims | ASPCA

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So, sorry… I guess that “common knowledge” is just me reading between the lines and making my own assumptions. It is not clear to me what the acceptance criteria for ASPCA first-party shelters are. Of their partners and affiliates, each will have their own criteria. Some may be open admission. Overflow animals will go to different places depending on local availability. If an area is altogether at capacity, they may try to rehome animals elsewhere (including through ASPCA assistance).

These cites do not support the claim that ASPCA itself operates no-kill shelters (and sorry about that — I confused the national org with the local SPCA shelters that may not have any affiliation with ASPCA).

[bobsmom101]

I have to add one more, given current events: ukrainefrontline.org

This is a registered 5013c charity in the US, so donations are tax deductible

[Dinsdale]

@madmonk28

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.

That is what I was going to say. $10k locally might have more of an impact that $50-100k nationally/internationally. I donate primarily to local music and environmental causes.

Why wait til you die? If you imagine dying with several million, why not enjoy giving it while you are still alive? And not only charities. Look on Kickstart and Patreon to see how you can support well-intentioned and creative individuals.

[Napier]

@Dinsdale

Why wait til you die? If you imagine dying with several million, why not enjoy giving it while you are still alive?

Because we don’t know what will happen to us. For example, if one of us winds up in a memory care institution, that could run down our savings until the other one of us becomes destitute. (There are forms of insurance against this but we have failed the medical requirements.)

[Dinsdale]

Yeah - that is a concern/choice. I intend to off myself - and have obtained assurances from my family to assist me if I am incapable of doing so by myself - if the prospect arises of needing to go into such an institution.

Each person gets to make their own choices, but I’d far rather direct whatever wealth I have in what I consider positive directions, than to line the pockets of whatever institution profits from keeping alive a shell of who I used to be.

[Wesley_Clark]

It depends on your values.

I was planning to leave most of my money to neuroscience research. Which will not be a ton of money, but it would be nice to contribute to such an important field.

You can also leave some of your money to friends who have been there for you throughout your life. I was planning to leave money to a couple friends who have been there for me during hard times.

[Wesley_Clark]

@Napier

@Dinsdale

Why wait til you die? If you imagine dying with several million, why not enjoy giving it while you are still alive?

Because we don’t know what will happen to us. For example, if one of us winds up in a memory care institution, that could run down our savings until the other one of us becomes destitute. (There are forms of insurance against this but we have failed the medical requirements.)

For me personally, I’ve thought about this and my plan is to move to a middle income nation. You can get quality long term care for dementia patients in mexico for a few thousand a month. A lot of other nations also offer memory care much more affordably than the US. Here in the US it can cost 10k a month or more.