Do you give money to charities/non-profits? | Hacker News Reader

Do you give money to charities/non-profits?

4 points1-12-2022-hn14 comments

Hi. Was wondering what is the people's stance towards giving money to charities across the globe.

Do you give money to charities? If so, to which ones, how often and how much? Any particular reason why you chose that one?

If not, I'd still be glad to hear your answer to why not.

It'd be great if you could also share the country where you're based, so as to get a better picture across geography.

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Giving money to charities is a challenging thing. Charities, in most countries, have to deal with local corrupt officials. Giving money to charities unwittingly promotes corruption. I remember few years back there was a sentiment expressed by lots of African NGOs that the west should not send money to the continent as "charity" because that increases corruption; instead they should help stop the root cause of the problem i.e. stop exploitation of resources, stop funding and supplying arms or puppet governments.

I personally have not given any money directly to charities. As I work in tech, my salary was better than others in the family, and I use to give all my salary to my parents. So I was asked just twice(once by my aDad and once by my Uncle) if I would mind if some money was given to charity work. And this was very specificrequests. One was for a blind students school which was run by my Dad's friend and the other was for restoration of a guest house of a very ancient templein Goa(recently I saw a video on YouTube of the work that temple committe has done and was very happy with what they have achieved since I last visited them). My sister on the other hand gives regularly to charities. But she gives very specific things to very specific charities. She first visited those charities multiple times before deciding on supporting them. And she has avoided giving money, instead she gives every month 5kg rice each to an orphanage and a blind students school. She also occasionallyo kids from these two charities for events at a theme park which we own. I once asked her why she does not give money to these two charities and she said that she will not know where this money will go. With specific help, she knows that the real needs are being served.

So my advice to anyone thinking of giving to charity is to actually visit the place multiple times; if possible, volunteer there for sometime and then give very specific help and avoid giving cash.

Thanks a lot for the detailed answer. A very interesting observation that donating money promotes corruption, as well as that the focus should be on stopping the root cause of the problem.

Thanks!

I'm against giving money to charities in principal as the money is often wasted, used inefficiently and, in some cases, enables people to continue to make bad choices in life.

However, I do donate to a small charity in the UK that provides beds for children living in relative poverty. https://zarach.org

Firstly, the money goes directly to help improve a child's life in a clear and visible way, regardless of whatever else his/her parent/s are spending their money on.

Secondly, it's a very small charity with only a couple of paid employees who are necessary for the organization to function and are not just a job creation scheme, for want of a better description.

/relative poverty as opposed to real poverty elsewhere in the world.

Thanks a lot for the reply!

There are a couple of charities that my wife and I donate to but a few are from people we have come to trust (John Green, MrBeast philanthropy) and something particular happened this year during my taxes (US), it was the first year that itemizing deductions made sense and I received an unusually high tax refund.

This is personal very personal but I see my privileged compensation in tech as a tool to help those who were where I was, and also because it brings me joy to help were I can. Talking with my accountant it does seem that I’m rather alone, at least among the population she works with, in my philosophy of giving, but it’s brought me satisfaction and unexpected financial benefits! (Who knew that giving gives back!)

That is a very interesting scenario. Thanks for sharing!

I found a few rating organizations, because my biggest fear was the money was being wasted. They all listed unbound, as the top 3 for effective use of money. Basically sponsoring a child. I auto send money on a monthly basis, so I consider it like a bill / expense and do not fail to provide.

Thanks for the reply. I'm wondering what would be the effect of organizations guaranteeing (suppose they could guarantee) that 92% of your dollar is going directly to the cause and 8% is going for administration costs, and stating that upfront? Would that give you more confidence instead of them saying "_all proceeds_ go to..." when you know they have employees and admin costs?

Do Ukrainian volunteers who help the army count?

My priority in the United States:

1. Children's Hospitals (St. Judes, Ronald McDonalds house)

2. Animal Shelters (local is best)

3. Veterans

4. Teaching/Education Institutions

5. Climate Emissions (Stripe)

Can't tell you that I'm donating thousands of dollars or anything like that, but usually if it asks for a donation at the end, I normally "round up" or donate a dollar.

For children's hospitals, you want to look at what they are doing for not only the children, but the families as well. As far as I know, St. Judes doesn't bill the families. I also listed Ronalds McDonald's house because of what happened to my sister when she was 21, getting hit by a drunk driver, and as a result, was with a fractured skull, fractured ribs, and a lifetime of seizures. The hospital had put her in the children's ward and there was a "Ronald's McDonalds House" which was a room in the hospital with food, drinks, blankets, and beds that my family was using so we could stay close to my sister when visiting hours were over.

To animal shelters, I don't donate money, but I do donate blankets and towels or toys or even pet food and if I find myself not using a cage or a travel bag I bought, I'm dropping that off as well. Anything and everything to make sure an animal doesn't have to sleep on a cold floor and that they at least have something going with them to their new home.

Almost all the males in my family or someone I know who is close to me is a Veteran of some war. World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War, Afghanistan War, and Iraq war. I'm currently taking care of my "second" grandfather, who served under JFK during the Bay of Pigs Cuban Missile Crisis. He's got dementia and colon cancer at 86... but I'm trying to keep him alive by giving him the best life he has ever had. I hope someday I have someone to spoil me like I do for him.

Teaching/Education institutions are often charity to fund educational programs in poor communities that lack the resources of desks, computers, Internet, etc., and childhood education is the foundation of the future of any civilization.

And finally, although I'm not stating that climate change is going to kill us, as humans are pretty adaptable, as the world does see changes over time, I do firmly believe that human impact has affected the climate greatly. There's no way you can run all these factories that emit pollution into the air, have all these cars, planes, and ships burning fossil fuels, and say that isn't affecting the environment. I do not think it will kill humans any time soon, but it does impact animal life and the Earth itself. Affecting animal life affects nature which can't be good for any species.

I don't think Stripe is buying "climate credits" which just sounds like a bullshit scam to me, but what Stripe does is fund "climate projects" that are trying to offset carbon emissions that may be contributing towards climate change, and that's why for any project I create, I donate 1% of the proceeds to their efforts. https://stripe.com/climate

You should always have a charity that you are willing to donate to meaning you've done your research and you know at least 80% plus of your dollar is going to the actual cause. "Administration fees" are always going to be there because there are people who have to get paid to keep the organization running, structured, and also for their outreach/advertising costs too, so that is expected.

Thanks a lot for the detailed answer! And great job taking care of your second grandfather!

One thought of yours regarding charities in general that I find particularily interesting is:

> you've done your research and you know at least 80% plus of your dollar is going to the actual cause

I'm wondering what would be the effect of organizations guaranteeing (suppose they could guarantee) that 92% of your dollar is going directly to the cause and 8% is going for administration costs, and stating that upfront? Would that give you more confidence instead of them saying "_all proceeds_ go to..." when you know they have employees and admin costs?

You want the majority of your funds to go to the cause rather than charity. It'd be great if we did live in a world where all of it could go towards paying for just the cause, but there can be a lot of overhead to make things happen, especially for hospital or bigger charities. I mean, I'd think that donating to an organization where 30 cents of my dollar is going towards the cause and 50 cents is going towards the admin/employee costs.

Take one of the biggest charity stores in the United States, Goodwill. Many people take their things there, drop them off, and they have a bunch of workers in the back getting paid to bring all that stuff in, make sure it works, clean it, price it, and put it back on the shelves, and sell it, for someone else to buy.

This is basically "community charity" where a portion of your dollar is going towards paying those workers, the overhead of the administration, and the locations themselves. CEO salary is about $500,000 to $1,000,000 per year. Is that necessarily a bad thing? Are people unhappy with the direction of the store? Sometimes I think this store has overpriced items for something that was donated to someone else, but who am I to judge? I didn't buy the location, keep the store open, waiting for people to drop off their things, and resell it. So in essence, it may not be a bad thing at all if only 50 cents of my dollar goes towards "charity".

> but usually if it asks for a donation at the end, I normally "round up" or donate a dollar.

"it"? what is "it"?

"It" is that machine where you swipe your card. It asks you if you want to donate an amount or sometimes round up your total bill so it donates the change.

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