Charities- how do you choose?

[CathB2]

Although I have always given a modest amount to charity (random donations every month or so, usually in response to mailshots) plus child sponsorship I seem not to be giving so much of late. Its partly that I seem to get so many mail shots that I cant decide, but I cant quite bin them all either (especially when they send stuff - notelets, small change etc - I get cross at being manipulated but then think well what if they are making a loss?). Anyway inertia has broken out so I wondered what other mumsnetters do?

Is it better to give a small amount every month to one or two charities and ignore everything else or give more occasional donations to more charities?
Also do you only give to particular types of charity (with me its generally third world and human rights, I dont tend to give to animals or environment type charities). I would be really interested to know what you all do.

CathB2 from the charities' point of view it's really useful for them to have some predictable income. So if you can do a direct debit, even a small amount each month, this is very helpful to them. Also make sure everything you give is gift-aided.

Impulse - cash - giving is great, as it's "extra", but it's not very efficient.

Personally I don't like the unsolicited mailshots (we don't get any here though) as my grandma used to be manipulated by them.

i tend to give more to cancer charities as i know people that have died from it and i also give to animal charities .

I think you have to choose the charities you support. I support prem baby stuff and am thinking of sponsoring a child for each of my two children. I just want a non Christian organisation to go through (being jewish) and have been really lazy about organising it.

I know the charities prefer to plan but I wonder if that tends to benefit the bigger charities who mail you more. I suppose you have to take that into account when you choose who to support.
I am making very heavy weather of this I know, but we seem to get 2-3 mailshots a day which does make you despair about the state of things.

crunchie, if it is of interest we sponsor a small boy in Haiti via Plan International and they seem to be pretty good and are non denominational (I think). We have sponsored through ActionAid in the past but the community concerned decided not to have sponsored children but to use the money for the whole community - we get info from time to time on what they have been doing with it though.

I give to children's charities as I think they are the least able to fend for themselves and have the longest to benefit from any help. I also sponsor an ethiopian child for my dd and might do another now for ds.
These are all regular donations.
Anything else unsolicited I bin as I have made my decisions over what to support.

i tend to support childrens charities as well. i havent looked into sponsoring a child, but it sounds like an excellent idea. cath can you do a link?
i think for your own sanity, you have to bin the mailshots, or write to them telling them you want off their mailing lists. i know there is a number to get off phone lists, there must be something for mail as well.

The link for plan is link{http://www.plan-uk.org}

Cant get this to turn into a link but that is their address.