

Ask HN: How do you decide where to direct your charitable giving? - shaddi

Or, what makes a charitable project or organization attractive to you? As the holiday season approaches in the US, many individuals and companies step up their giving. For both individuals and companies, what determines how much you'll give and where it will go? How did you discover the organizations to which you currently give? Are you satisfied with how your donations have been used?<p>For background, I run a tech-focused community organization, and I'm trying to figure out ways to improve our donation revenue this season as we work towards financial self-sustainability. The name's not important here, but you can email me for more info.
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Shana
I believe there are sites that reiew overhead. That's a first big one...

I donate to things are non-denomniational, but of my religious background.
That's a personal choice. They tend to be a top on my list.

Assoicated with children is anohter big one. However it really had to make an
impact.

Also I tend to want to give where there is impact where I live. And I can go
check in. It is nice to not only make a monetary impact, and also a physical
impact.

Also, I was brought up that charity should long term get the person off
charity. Teach a man to fish. The charity might end up self-destructing, but
that's ok. People get up and fall down, and the point of charity is the
helping of the getting up.

Personal views, of course.

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toisanji
I am actually working on a startup to help people decide where to direct their
charitable givings to. In the US alone there are over 1 million registered
charities. It is very tough for someone to figure out which charity is in line
with their beliefs/hopes/aspirations. And on the other side, charities want to
get more exposure to the kinds of people that would be interested in donating
to them. We want to be in the middle to act as a matchmaker.

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mark_l_watson
Just an opinion, but my wife and I both like Heifer Project, and I also like
afsc.org/

