Do you make large donations to charities?

V

Victor

Senior Member
Location
midwest USA
Have you or will you make significant monetary donations to charities? Or are you planning
this in a will or as a beneficiary? I have some environmental charities but I am not too generous.
I get a lot of solicitations in the mail,. Do you use Charity Navigator?

People complain, rightly, that the CEO's of these charities make hundreds of thousands
that seems hypocritical on the surface. The American Heart Association president makes over
one million a year! So when you donate money, she gets a percentage. They all do good work,
no denying that, but I become very skeptical.
 

I do not. I had a very bad experience with the cancer society and don't trust any of them. I do donate canned food etc. blankets or anything else to our local shelter where most of out pets have come from. They have been in business a very long time and hopefully are on the up and up. The animals seem very well taken care of. I also donated a few years ago to a horse shelter that had an open house. One of the horses needed new shoes,I hope my small donation helped,who know? When I die, instead of flowers I would like the money to go to an animal shelter of my daughters choosing.
 
yes. But you need to define "large" and "charity".
Most of mine is to church and related organizations, such as Rescue Mission, SPCA, Gideons, Ram House (feeds the homeless and poor), Habitat for Humanity, and about 8 others. Some donations are small, such as $20, but others are larger. Church is the largest.
 

I only donate directly to specific location and/or purpose minus the occasional in memoriam as requested by the deceased's family. I haven't donated to a big national charity in decades.

I get enough calendars, note pads and address labels as is.
 
I do use Charity Navigator and my chosen charities have gotten good ratings there. I donate about 18% of my net income (not net worth) annually. Starting this year instead of donating monthly as a St. Jude Partner in Hope, I will have my brokerage make a direct donation of my RMD. That way St. Jude will wind up getting a bit more and I will get a tax benefit (RMDs sent directly to charities are tax free).
 
I don't donate to any large charities, I tried that in the past and felt that my small donations were wasted on mailings requesting more and more money.

I'm a sucker for any group of kids or old folks around a card table, in those situations I make small donations for things like Cub Scouts, Disabled Veterans, etc...

I have also made large, for me, donations to small local charities. In my working years and when I first stopped working my employer would match my donations up to $8,000.00 per year so that was a huge incentive to be generous.

These days I have had to be more conservative, charity begins at home, etc...

I have been thinking about my will and have wondered if I should leave the bulk of my assets to charity, to individuals or some combination, I can see pros and cons to each situation.
 
I give monthly to my congregation by direct giving and to MSF. Together they amount to $4200 pa. I have not as yet decided on making a bequest in my will. I think I would rather contribute while I am breathing.
 
We have already made plans in our family trust to leave our entire estate (yes, 100%) to a non-profit organization that benefits our environment and animals.
 
We have several charities which are set up for monthly donations through our account on ACH. There are others I donate to on a one-by-one basis.

There are two times we've done major five figure donations:
- the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami relief fund. DH's employer allowed employees to donate unused sick or vacation time. DH was a 38 yr veteran (only company he ever worked for, in fact) so he donated a massive chunk of both to the fund.
- we gave a large donation to the seniorcare facility which had taken care of his mom, in the year she died. She loved living there and when she died unexpectedly, so many of the staff and residents came to tell us how sorry they were that she was gone. It's a non-profit and they take great care of their residents, it's one of the top-rated facilities in the state. Half our donation went to the general fund so they could use it as needed; half went to the employees' activity fund as a thank-you for the wonderful care my MIL received.
 
I have always sponsored a "cage" at the animal shelter, to feed and provide medical care for the animal in it for a year. Now retired, I'm going to have to reevaluate my finances to see if this is something I can continue.
 
The large salaries of the CEOs and presidents bother me the most. Are they worth the money? Not 300,000 a year.
Also typically about 20% of their revenue goes toward fund raising and administrative costs (salaries usually)
The CEO should donate part of her salary to the Cause.

P.S> "Large" means whatever is large for you in this post.
 
I like and trust Samaritan's Purse run by Billy Graham's son Franklin because they are rated 100% in accountability and transparency, awarded all 4 stars, and an overall rating of 96% by the Charity Navigator (in business 15 years) https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=4423

Sumaritan's Purse does a lot of good work worldwide from feeding the starving in south sudan to rescuing children in crisis (like human trafficking) and they have a catalogue of of global needs you can can choose from to donate for any amount you choose.

I had 4 children and gave them each money for donation purposes at Christmastime to choose from the catalogue of what Global needs to donate their money for. They chose various needs like farm animals such as chicks and wool bearing sheep, home water-filtering, building schools, freshwater wells, seeds for farming which included training, restoring hospitals, eyeglasses and eye surgeries, bicycles, and so much more. They also serve domestic needs. And my children would fill shoeboxes with Christmas gifts and necessities for children overseas in various locations and put a pic of themselves inside.

Samaritans Purse's list of worldwide needs in their catalogue: https://www.samaritanspurse.org/our-ministry/gift-catalog/
 
I put a couple of grand a year towards my grandkids college fund.

When my daughters house AC went out last summer and she didn't have the $3700 bucks to replace it, I gave her half, $1850 because I believe charity begins at home.

When a pan handler approaches me I generally give them about $5 bucks because I figure no matter what their situation is, they need it more than I do.

When I get a fund raising letter from some charity like the March of Dimes, with a dime attached to it, I keep the dime and throw the letter away.
 

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