SAY - Social Advocates for Youth - A great resource for teens and young adults struggling with whatever. They’ve helped both of my sons in the past.
Children’s Village - My son worked there for a short while and I became familiar with their efforts in helping kids in foster care.
Blood Bank of the Redwoods - They got a pint of me every 8 weeks and an occasional cash donation.
And I make other random donations - Red Cross, Goodwill, public radio, AHA, ALA, Susan G. Komen, and a few others.
I regularly give money to NARAL, Doctors Without Borders, and Heifer Project International, as well as cash, supplies and occasionally time to the local animal shelters, domestic violence programs, food banks, and non-faith-based youth programs.
Irregular donations are made to support others’ charitable actions, like when the staff of an area plastic surgeon went to South America to provide “cosmetic surgery” for severely disfigured children in that area. The community helped with airfare, miscellenaneous supplies and comfort bears for the children.
Ten to fifteen percent of my net, anonymously, since my bank gives me a book of nameless, address-free “counter checks” for my checking account whenever I ask.
Damn, that’s a good idea. I’d give more money if I didn’t have to give out my address with a check donation; my animal shelter and PP donations are done when I see little collection jars, etc., at information booths and the like. I got bombed with “please donate” mailings - even from charities I’d barely heard of - at previous addresses and had been fine until the Anti-Cruelty Society or something similar caught up with me just this week.
We don’t regularly contribute to any charities, but if I won the lottery, I’d give a big chunk to the Shriners Hospitals for Children .
Well, America Cancer Society, of course.
I tap my spare money to pass on the the Red Cross whenever there’s a major disaster.
Toys for Tots and/or the SA Angel Tree get something every year in December.
Also, the Heifer Project and First Book.
I’ve always been fond of the Salvation Army, because they don’t seem at all pushy (despite being religious - and I’m not) and they do some good stuff.
I get an automatic deduction out of my pay for the Police Youth Club (formerly Police Boys’ Club), because I’ve had it up to here with angry and/or drunk and/or violent teenagers and young men roaming the streets and causing shit. If the coppers can provide them with some diversions, as well as stopping the perpetuation of the “all cops are pigs and our enemy” mindset, then that can’t hurt any.
The main ones I support are:
Charitable Works Fund (an all-purpose Catholic church one)
St Vincent de Paul
Salvation Army
I actively avoid supporting the ones that have representatives who stand outside my office and ‘attack’ every person who comes and goes.
I favor AmeriCares; they’re non-sectarian, seem to give to people who really need it, and have an extraordinary 98.8% efficiency rating. (They’ve slipped from four to three stars on Charity Navigator, but that seems to be because of their very low “Organizational Capacity” rating, which in turn I think comes from their “Working Capital Ratio”–they couldn’t sustain their current level of giving for very long if the money stopped coming in. But, hey, that’s a good thing, right? They’re a charity, I don’t want them putting my money in a big warehouse and rolling around in it.)
I also give to the local food bank just to do something more local (and food is a very basic need, so it seems like it’s more likely my charity dollar is meeting a genuine need).
Plus, the cancelled check serves as a receipt for the IRS. 
The Shrine Hospitals for Crippled Children.
:smack: Hadn’t even thought about that since my donations have been mostly cash, used items, or money-plus-time creations.
Are you aware of www.guidestar.org? A far greater list of organisations covered, 1.7 million of them while Charity Navigator has about 5 thousand. Much more detailed information available. Each organisation’s has an annual form 990 detailing income and expenditure. This is a matter of public record, and can be downloaded from the site.
They got a warm place in my heart because of Plumpy Nut.
My employer does a lot of work with Give Kids the World. Basically, for one week, parents with seriously ill children get a vacation, free tickets to all the area theme parks, a nice little house to stay in…for no cost at all. They make one phone call to GKTW and everything, including transportation is taken care of.
The Red Cross is the only charity that I have ever donated time or money to.
The non-profit I work for (a history museum) gets a pretty hefty chunk of my paycheck back. Also Best Friends Animal Sactuary, Docotrs without Borders, the local NPR station, the ACLU, a local animal shelter, and two non-profits (a museum association and an annual cancer run) of which I am a board member. All in all, not counting in-kind, my husband and I give probably $4,000 a year. That will probably go down in cash but up in in-kind next year as he is no longer working a regular job but is persuing a performing career full-time.
In-kind, I do accounting work gratis for a couple non-profits, about 50 hours a year of work.
I always look at a charities’ 990 to see what percentage of their revenue is going into programming and/or grants as opposed to the percentage foing to administration. I also like to see what salaries the top execs are making and whether or not any Board members are being paid. I can get the skinny on them in other ways too. Also, I look for ones that do not have a religious aspect. As an atheist, I don;t want my money being used to directly or indirectly be tied to any religion.
I’ve cut everybody off temporarily because I haven’t been able to work full-time (sometimes not at all) for the past year for medical reasons. However, in the past and almost certainly in the future my primary charity was/will be the University of Alberta Hospital Foundation (I’ve been a patient enough times that I’m happy to let them have a very large percentage of my charitable donations - might as well help them help other patients). Secondarily, I give a “reasonable amount” to War Amps and to a local agency that helps the homeless and/or destitute (but I never give directly to people begging on the street). Lastly, if a friend is going to the effort to help raise money for their favourite charity I can be pretty easily persuaded to give $25 to whatever they have in mind.
Thank you.
There was a fire down in Brunswick a few weeks ago. An eleven-year-old girl was burned over 65% her body (mercifully for a young lady especially) her face was spared. She was flown up to Shriners’ Boston. Shame she needs the help, but I a proud to help provide it.
I can’t afford to spend extra on charity, so I give what I can to the Humane Society ($5/mo plus a Christmas donation).
I also give blood every 56 days to the Red Cross (it’s free!) and I give my time/labor to my church doing building tasks and occasionally other sorts of donations.
I have been giving to Children International for a long time, but I recently pared down my giving to them, because of monetary concerns and also because I’m not crazy about how much money they waste on sending me 38,000 pieces of junk mail a year, yet they won’t pay for my child to send me more than 2 short letters a year.
I also have been giving this year to Orphan Sponsorship International , which I found out about on the SDMB (I can’t remember from who.) I sponsor a young lady named Samanmali from Sri Lanka, and they set up a little web site for you when they document exactly what they spend the money on, and Samanmali and I email each other pretty often through the charity’s liason at the home where she lives. I really like the personal touch of it…Samanmali calls me “Sister Sarah” and I feel like we’re penpals and like I’m helping out a friend.
Planned Parenthood, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the ACLU, and MercyCorps each get twenty bucks a year. I’d give more if I could, but even that hundred bucks is a stretch.
As gifts I’ve made donations in others names to Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF, Heifer International, the American Friends Service Committee, the World Food Program, and the American Refugee Committee. (I know, I’m the person who everyone else hates at Christmas and birthdays and such.)
While we’re on the topic of Doing Good Things, I’d like to just post this link to a sort of coming-together of various groups that are specifically focused at helping young girls in the developing world. If nothing else, please at least just watch their little video; I think it’s extremely well done and worth sixty seconds of your time.