# What are the Best Ways to Make Anonymous Donations to Charities? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 4, 2017, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-best-ways-to-make-anonymous-donations-to-charities/803527 "2017-12-04T07:25:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-best-ways-to-make-anonymous-donations-to-charities/803527/1 "2017-12-04T07:25:27Z")
Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-best-ways-to-make-anonymous-donations-to-charities/803527/2 "2017-12-04T07:35:24Z")
Send them cash, or a bank cheque. In theory it’s possible that they could try to trace the identity of the person who bought the bank cheque, but it would be extremely difficult, and why would they want to? ---
**Author:** ![Dereknocue67](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6de8d8/32.png) [@Dereknocue67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dereknocue67)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-best-ways-to-make-anonymous-donations-to-charities/803527/3 "2017-12-04T09:02:50Z")
Last week I made a donation through PayPal and checked the option of hiding my personal information from the donee. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-best-ways-to-make-anonymous-donations-to-charities/803527/4 "2017-12-04T09:25:14Z")
If you have the bucks, a donor advised fund permits you to give anonymous gifts. You can even take a tax deduction. Vanguard Charitable Endowment has a low expense ratio. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-best-ways-to-make-anonymous-donations-to-charities/803527/5 "2017-12-04T18:28:20Z")
Send it to me. I’ll make sure they get it. ---
**Author:** ![pieceoftheuniverse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7993a0/32.png) [@pieceoftheuniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pieceoftheuniverse)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-best-ways-to-make-anonymous-donations-to-charities/803527/6 "2017-12-04T18:29:52Z")
I use [JustGive](https://www.justgive.org/). They send the money to the charity stripped of all identifying information. I started doing this because I don’t want a thousand requests in my mailbox every year requesting money. JustGive only sends a couple of email notices a year, and I can redirect those as needed. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-best-ways-to-make-anonymous-donations-to-charities/803527/7 "2017-12-04T19:26:46Z")
Buy warm clothing and take it to a homeless shelter. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-best-ways-to-make-anonymous-donations-to-charities/803527/8 "2017-12-04T20:31:41Z")
> [@pieceoftheuniverse](#): > > … > I started doing this because I don’t want a thousand requests in my mailbox every year requesting money. JustGive only sends a couple of email notices a year, and I can redirect those as needed. I have a separate yahoo address that I use for ALL transactions that might generate unwanted email. I look at mail that goes to that address every day and delete all of it. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-best-ways-to-make-anonymous-donations-to-charities/803527/9 "2017-12-04T21:28:21Z")
You can also donate to [Kiva](https://www.kiva.org/) microloans and designate who it will go to. Kiva pretty much leaves you alone, other than to tell you when you’ve received a repayment and urging you to re-donate the money. Your identity is not known to the recipient of the loan. We’ve been giving to this worthy organization for many years now.