Charitable giving

[Homeschoolschooler]

Okay so firstly I'm just referring to those of us who are fortunate enough to have enough spare money to do this, as I know many people don't, and of course looking after yourself and your own family must come first.

One of my new year's resolutions is to organise a couple of regular charitable donations. Please can I ask which charities you think are doing really good work, and how much you think is a reasonable donation (maybe as a percentage of your income)?

Can I give a shout out to Give As You Live in case PPs not heard of it:

www.giveasyoulive.com

Allows you to raise free funds for selected charity if you shop online.

I support Centre for Women's Justice through the above.

Your local charity will not have a team of professional fundraisers, marketers, bid writers, middle management, etc etc. If you expect your donation to be spent directly on service users, you need to realise that staffing costs and overheads are part and parcel of running a charity. Indeed, overheads can be difficult to get from charitable trusts and foundations which is why the bigger charities can be aggressive in their marketing to help cover costs.

Charities where the beneficiaries benefit hugely but there aren't lots of donations forthcoming from the same demographic.
For example charities helping women escape honour-based violence.
They can get reputations for 'telling women to get divorced/disagree with their elders' etc so the communities they support don't support them back. But they tend to be good value for money.

Eg Muslim women's network, shakti women's aid, hemat gryffe or Amina mwrc.

I don't think there's anything wrong with paying staff including middle managers. If it means expertise, a resource to inform government consultations, retention of personell, professionalism.

There are some wonderful small charities too and I tend to find out about them via local church fb pages, local history pages that seem to function as notice boards etc.

@Homeschoolschooler, great idea! I got to this point two years ago.
Started looking around for suitable charities.
Big ones have up to 40% admin. Yes, I am looking at you Cancer Research, Macmillan....etc
If you just want to tick a checkbox, go for it.
If you want to make a difference, do some research and find some local, albeit much smaller charities where you can ‘follow’ your efforts.
Councils can also help with that.

Whichever option you choose, it will make you feel good ☺️🦋☺️❤️

For me it's currently The Hedgehog Preservation Society and The Woodland Trust. I also donate to the local food bank when I do my weekly shop.