World Vision.
My parish church.
Occasionally, various disaster relief funds.
I’m a member of the Metropolitan Opera Guild, and probably will remain so even though I’m no longer a resident of NYC.
In the past I’ve been a member of the ACLU.
In general, my charitable giving is somewhat tempered these days by the knowledge that, as soon as I give, I shall be signing myself up to be dunned on a regular basis for the rest of my life. The Met is by far the worst example of this: July is almost over, and they’ve called me… let’s see… nine times this month. In the last week, they called Friday, Saturday, Tuesday and yesterday. Basically, the only person who actually calls me on the phone is the Met. It makes me not want to give to them, or any other charity.
Regular donations to:
[ul]
[li]Our synagogue[/li][li]Planned Parenthood[/li][li]Local NPR station[/li][li]Foundation Fighting Blindness (I have retinitis pigmentosa)[/li][li]Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (several relatives and friends are Hodgkin’s survivors)[/li][li]Local food bank[/li][li]Local homeless shelter (Mostly volunteering)[/li][li]Heifer International[/li][li]American Jewish World Service[/li][li]MAZON (a Jewish organization working on food security issues)[/li][/ul]
We make irregular donations to a number of other organizations that I can’t recall at the moment.
Have you ever considered asking them to stop? I’m a fundraiser - if a prospective donor asks to be taken off our list, they get taken off our list immediately. If the organization refuses, find out who their Development Director is, and ask them if they’re a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), and if they’re aware they’re violating the Donor Bill of Rights, and that you’d be happy to report them.
Since you’re a first-time poster here I don’t know if you’ll come back and find this thread again, but here’s your answer: Because we’re not fighting cancer the singular disease. Cancer is actually a collection of dozens or hundreds of diseases that function in similar ways (crazy unregulated growth) but have different root causes and triggers and ways of being taken down. And they need different ways of fighting them, not to mention that the individual person’s own body and genetics may prevent some treatments from working so well or may help them work better.
Plus, we’ve only permanently beaten two diseases so far, smallpox and rinderpest (a disease of cattle), and those are infectious diseases that have vaccines. Cancer may be with us as long as humans are around to analyze it, but hopefully we can beat more and more strains down into submission with decent treatments, get better rates of cures/remission, and find good screening methods for the silent ones like pancreatic cancer.
It sucks, I know. It’s not like the movies where we can wrap up his battle in a neat package. This is a war of attrition.
I donate my money and time to Hereford House. I work the intake desk every Saturday and Sunday.
What exactly are they violating? The only thing I see regarding lists is IX, which has only to do with those lists that the organization might share. Say what you will about the Met, but at least I don’t have the NY Philharmonic or the NYC Ballet or fucking Jazz at Lincoln Center calling me every day in addition to them. (IIRC, I have gotten a very occasional mailing from the ballet. Doesn’t bother me.) Anyway, no, but then, I don’t see how they could take me off their list–I’m not a prospective donor, I’m a guy who had a subscription for two years and is a member of the Metropolitan Opera Guild. I think I’d have to ditch the latter to get off their list, and I’d rather not–I enjoy supporting the opera (and my subscription to Opera News).
I kind of feel the same way.
I personally prefer to donate to charities that benefit animals. But I also sponsor a child in Africa through Compassion Canada.
Human rights campaign for a number of years, but currently none.
Huh - that’s a really good point. However, I don’t know anyone that I’ve worked with that wouldn’t take you off their solicitation list if asked.
Arts organizations do a lot of things differently than most non-profits, but I would be really surprised if their database didn’t have the ability to take you off a solicitation list, but keep you on your subscription.
I donate stuff to Goodwill and Habitat for Humanity, and I give cash to the Peace Corps in my late niece’s name at Christmas time in lieu of a gift to my sister.
Well, I’ll give it a try next time they call me. I figure odds are about even money they’ll call me today or tomorrow, shooting up to near 100% if we include Saturday as well. 
Well, I’ve never worked with arts organizations - they really are a different breed. And there could possibly be a chinese wall between the fundraising department and the ticket office.
I donate through the federal Civil Service’s Combined Federal Campaign (they give you a list of charities, and you deduct a certain amount from each paycheck). I prefer to give to charities that are “off the beaten path”; for example, some years I donate to USA Basketball (the organization that, among other things, is in charge of the basketball teams for the Olympics), in part because I have a feeling a number of people think that it can get all of the money it needs from the NBA players that are on the Olympic team - in fact, this fear was the reason USA actually voted against letting pros play in the Olympics 25 or so years ago.
However, the two I tend to give to on a regular basis are the UN Foundation (aka “Nothing But Nets,” coined by Rick Reilly - it gives mosquito nets treated with repellant to areas where malaria is a serious problem), although it’s not as “under the radar” as it used to be, now that WWE has gotten involved with it, and the Achilles Track Club, which supports disabled track & field athletes.
I can’t usually donate cash, but I donate “stuff” all the time. Before I moved in with my husband I donated a ton of stuff to the Salvation Army Thrift Shop near my old apartment. I joked that they should name a section of their store after me.
Now I drop stuff off at whatever Goodwill, Value Village, or Salvation Army is on my route for that day.
There was a shit-ton of cleaning products and other useful household goods that we’re cleaning out of my grandmother’s house - my mom put together baskets for the women’s shelter. Every year a client at work gives us a beautiful gift basket that we immediately donate to the shelter as well (they can use it or raffle it for cash).
We give old towels to the animal shelters and every Christmas I buy a bunch of boxes of pick-up bags and kitty treats for the SPCA shelter.
It broke our hearts to have to throw out that metric fuckton of food from my grandmother’s house that had expired because we would have loved to have donated it to the food bank. Sadly, it had been hoarded for so long that it would be poison by now.
I’ve done the CN Tower climb a couple of times for the World Wildlife Fund and every year my dog and I do the SPCA Walk-A-Thon. The races I do all the time always have a charity component that I know part of my registration fee contributes to.
Having left NYC, I no longer have a subscription. I am (and am willing to remain, if they’ll stop calling me) a Guild member, though. We’ll see. 
Kiva
It’s not so much a charity as it is a loan. You give out loans to third world workers trying to improve their lives through whatever trade they possess, and they pay you back. It’s a beautiful thing.
They’re not all exactly charities…
The Brain and Behavior Research FoundationNets for Life (Malaria/mosquito related)
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Human Rights Campaign
Minnesota Public Radio
Update: As I was walking to my car after work last night, guess who called? I answered, let the nice lady do her spiel and then explained that I wanted off the list, citing the high volume of calls. She explained that it was a computer thing–because I don’t answer, it keeps putting me back into the system. She was very nice and apologetic and agreed to take me off the solicitation list. So, victory! Hurray. Thanks for the advice, Munch. I may actually do what they asked and re-up my Guild membership early as a result of this.
Childrens Backpack Lunch Program I give money to.
The local food bank I give food to. Usually peanut butter and/or rice.
The local homeless shelter I have auto deducted from my pay.
There are so many good causes out there and I don’t have a lot to give, but I try to keep it at about 10% of my net. If I can’t live on 90%, I’m spending to much on me and mine.
Kudos to everyone posting here or not that cares enough to help out!