Charities of Choice (2008 Edition)

Written by Nickel - 6 Comments

Every year around this time, my wife and I sit down to figure out our charitable giving. I’ve mentioned in the recent past that times like these can be tough for charities, as monetary giving often dries up. Fortunately, we’ve had a good year, and are planning on increasing our giving this year as compared to last. Here’s a rundown of the main charities to which we’re contributing:

  1. Our Local Food Bank (Find Yours — My Review)
  2. Our Local Homeless Shelter (No Review Yet)
  3. Modest Needs (My Review)
  4. The American Red Cross (My Review)
  5. The Conservation Fund (My Review)
  6. Unicef (No Review Yet)

All but the homeless shelter are holdovers from last year. We chose these because we believe in the work that they’re doing, and they all do a great job of putting our contributions to work. That being said, The American Red Cross has stumbled a bit in recent years, so we’re keeping an eye on them going forward.

As for our kids, who put aside 10% of their allowance for donation to a charity of their choice, two have selected the food bank, one has selected the the Red Cross, and one has selected The Conservation Fund.

Whichever charities you choose to support, I urge you to continue helping them despite the current economic conditions. If you can’t afford monetary support, please consider making non-monetary contributions. And if you’re at a loss as to how to find worthy charities, I encourage you to check out these sites:

Published on December 22nd, 2008 - 6 Comments
Filed under: Charity
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About the author: Nickel is the founder and editor-in-chief of this site. He's a thirty-something family man who has been writing about personal finance since 2005, and guess what? He's on Twitter!

Related articles...

» From the Archives (December 23rd – December 30th)
» Charities of Choice 2007
» Charities of Choice 2006, Part III: Our Local Food Bank
» Charities of Choice 2006, Part IV: The Conservation Fund
» Five Ideas for Charitable Giving in a Bad Economy
» Charities of Choice 2006, Part II: The American Red Cross
» Charitable Donations are Down This Year
» Finding the Right Charity

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Comments (scroll down to add your own):

  1. Giving to good charities is such an important thing to do! The American Red Cross really helped me and my wife when our home was destroyed by a tornado. I’ve donated to them for several years.

    I also got the opportunity to donate to Water For People this year. They were the winner of a charity donation giveaway I conducted on my site. Water For People has gotten the highest rating possible for 6 years running from Charity Navigator!

    Comment by Jeff@MySuperChargedLife — Dec 22nd 2008 @ 12:42 pm

  2. I’m a huge fan of charity water. (My review is in the link found below in my name) Charity water drills wells for villages, so it turns your dollar into a gift that keeps on giving and saving lives.

    Comment by Shaun Connell — Dec 22nd 2008 @ 5:25 pm

  3. another way to do good in the world is lend money to micro-entrepreneurs, typically 3rd world women supporting their families. You can do this at http://www.kiva.org which has a nifty gift certificate. The recipient gets to decide to whom to loan the money.
    Eventually it’s paid back, it can reloaned or redeemed.

    Comment by betsy teutsch — Dec 22nd 2008 @ 8:56 pm

  4. Hiya Nickel: you made it to the top half of my list of the top ten tax blog writers. Thought you might appreciate the heads-up.

    By the way, I second Betsy’s Kiva suggestion: I gave my mother a Kiva gift certificate for Christmas last year, and she loved it. For people who are dubious about how cost-effective some kinds of charity are, microloans are a fantastic idea.

    Comment by taxrascal — Dec 22nd 2008 @ 11:13 pm

  5. Every year we give to The American Red Cross as well – what a great organization.

    This year we also gave to Christian Children’s Fund, Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, and the Environmental Defense Fund.

    No matter how much we’re struggling, each year we always give. I think this small act just reminds us that there is always someone who needs help more than we do.

    Happy holidays!

    ~ Jason

    Comment by Jason from Money Theory — Dec 27th 2008 @ 8:58 pm

  6. we are a single parent family in ontario canada

    we have a three hundred by five hundred foot garden
    we grow our own food

    we have ducks chickens geese one beef
    one pig

    we have bills to pay

    want to help someone why not help the individual
    instead of giving money to so called charities

    why not get involved with someone ONE ON ONE

    there is one hundred churches within one hour drive
    and many charities and NONE OF THEM HELP US

    i raised four children alone without a wife or financial support while she is out having sex with drug addicts
    and schezophrenics

    but no bailout for us
    what is wrong with people

    WE DONT USE DRUGS we dont drink

    we just want to live and survive
    YOU WANT TO HELP SOMEONE HELP US

    we give free food to people that come to our garden
    and cant pay

    so why cant people with money give some free money to people that DONT HAVE ANY

    Robert Hillman
    R R # 2 Monkton Ontario
    Canada
    N0K1P0

    we need $ 3600.00 just to catch up and stay a family my oldest is 22 has no job
    and we cant afford a car or drivers training
    for her to be able to EVEN LOOK FOR ONE

    Comment by Robert Hillman — Aug 21st 2009 @ 11:21 am

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