Before giving to a charity, talk with former staff to learn the inner-workings of the organization without the PR spin.
Entries Tagged as 'Where to Give'
Policy Instead of Charity
November 22nd, 2010 · 2 Comments · Economics, Where to Give
While most people make charitable donations for the connection with friends who asked or family members affected or communities involved, that small but important percent are focused on how their gifts have an impact. And perhaps, to have the highest-impact, they should not be giving toward charity at all. In today’s Washington Post, Ezra Klein [...]
Tags:health care·obesity·policy
Charitable Donations Include Overhead. Here’s Why.
September 27th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Philosophy of Giving, Where to Give
Here’s how to make a charitable donation and have 100% of the gift go to the Recipient without any part of it going toward overhead: Hand cash directly to a random person. This guy gives gifts without any bit of it going to overhead. He’s the only giver I can think of who regularly gives [...]
Tags:overhead
Should Fundraising Staff Give?
May 13th, 2010 · Comments Off · Fundraising, Philosophy of Giving, Where to Give
All that stuff about whether nonprofit staff should give to their organizations also applies to the nonprofit fundraising staff. Except quadruply so. Fundraisers hear the pitch for support constantly. The pitch is even coming out of their own mouths. People can only make a persuasive argument so many times before they’ve convinced themselves. So if [...]
Should Nonprofit Staff Give?
May 11th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Fundraising, Philosophy of Giving, Where to Give
Donors and funders are always on the lookout for signals that indicate how a charity operates. Fundraisers are always on the lookout for people committed to the nonprofit’s mission, and especially those already part of their community. And so both have taken a looksie at the Cinnabon-ly sticky question of: Do the staff of the [...]
Tags:(The sneaky stuff you can say in parens!)·nonprofit staff
The 40 Days Charities: An Update
April 16th, 2010 · 1 Comment · How to Make a Donation, My Own Giving, Where to Give
After I made the gifts from the 40 days, I dutifully wrote to each charity something like this: Hello, I just made a gift to You, Important Charity and would like to request that any further communications from you come over email rather than through snail mail or phone. I respond best to emails, and [...]
Tags:Heifer International·Nurse Family Partnership·Philanthropedia·Seriously the CEO wrote me about my $10 donation and I nearly fell out of my chair·The chair should maybe have some sort of guards on the sides
Alma mater
April 9th, 2010 · 8 Comments · My Own Giving, Where to Give
Recently my phone rang. The caller ID showed an area code that I know but almost never ever get calls from. It’s the area code for a very rural part of central Ohio. The area code of my alma mater. Kenyon was calling for a gift. I always pick up because I like to hear [...]
Tags:After writing this post I'm gonna need a nap·Sometimes these giving decisions are tough
