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It's that time of the year again. Less than two months away from your inevitable trip to Goodwill, the Salvation Army, or the ditch by the side of the road where you dump all the dumb poo poo your family bought you! Last year my mother got me a shirt that laced up on the front, sides, and back. Because I was sort of goth in high school....ten years ago. How about some food you're allergic to? That thing you already have 3 of? Misshapen tchotchkes of wall-eyed angels or a gift card to somewhere that you'll never, ever go? Wasted money and ever-filling landfills. It's the Christmas spirit! Well, gently caress that noise this year. If you have family and friends that you're super close with and get you great presents, or you're a poor and you need some stuff (o! for some socks without holes!), good for you! But if you're like me, and you're capable of buying most of the things you require and your family is in a similar position, why not donate? You can facilitate nice things like ladies getting mammograms (Planned Parenthood), black people not getting totally hosed legally (the NAACP Legal Defense Fund), the ability to drink clean water (Water.org), improving children's lives (Save the Children) and so on. You can donate in people's names out of kindness or spite, too, so you can totally give ol' racist grandpa that NAACP one, as John Oliver so cleverly reminded us. So, which charities do you know of, like, or support? I'll start with some I haven't already mentioned: NPR http://www.npr.org/series/750002/support-public-radio Supporting well-run news organizations is extra important now to keep us from a hellish storm of Facebook clickbait that threatens to consume us. I have a member card for supporting a regional NPR group and that gets me all kinds of good poo poo at local restaurants and more, so it's a little selfish and I don't care. Kiva https://www.kiva.org/ Microlending is the new cool thing, and its selling point is that you (often but not always) will be payed back, in least in part, by the borrower. So you not only get to choose your recipient, but you can re-lend that money if they pay you back. An ouroboros of self-congratulation. I'll stress that it is very, very important to check up on available charities, because some of them are terrible with their money and your well-meant $10 might just be spent padding the CEO's wallet. For this, I recommend Charity Navigator: http://www.charitynavigator.org/ There are thousands of other charities and non-profits out there, so post some here! I will consider updating the OP with some of the best if I'm not too tired or high.
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# ? Nov 20, 2016 01:07 |
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# ? May 2, 2024 06:56 |
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YOINK. Saving this one for a possible future list.
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# ? Nov 20, 2016 01:13 |
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# ? Nov 20, 2016 02:54 |
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I bet that would be posted in the first page. It seems I underestimated myself...
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# ? Nov 20, 2016 04:02 |
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Anything to help with either cancer research or feeding hungry people.
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# ? Nov 20, 2016 05:08 |
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Compassion Without Borders. http://cwob.org/ It's a small organization that's dedicated to helping both unwanted/street/stray dogs in Mexico and the poorer Central Valley, California towns, and running temporary clinics in these places so that poor residents can get their pets access to proper medical care. They've brought thousands of street dogs across the border over a 15-year period, spayed/neutered them, got them healthy and clean, then adopted them out or send them to other agencies in northern states like Minnesota where there is a demand for small house dogs. Pretty much 100% of all funds donated go directly to helping the dogs, the charity has a top-rating on greatnonprofits.org and I adopted my ex-Juarez street mutt from them many years ago.
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# ? Nov 20, 2016 18:37 |
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While I can barely afford it, I donate regularly to the WWF. There's probably better managed conservation charities out there but few that reach as far and as hard as they do.
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# ? Nov 21, 2016 11:46 |
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porkswordonboard posted:Last year my mother got me a shirt that laced up on the front, sides, and back. Because I was sort of goth in high school....ten years ago. Not to derail this excellent thread, but I really need a diagram of this shirt. Was it, like, quarters of a shirt laced together? Anyway, this year it's probably going to be domestic charities, but in the past my family has bought a lot of charity gifts from Heifer International, which distributes livestock to poor communities to help create sustainable economic production. They do good work, and you get to tell people you bought someone bees in their name, which is a winner.
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# ? Nov 21, 2016 17:24 |
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^ It was like...a corset shirt, I guess? But long-sleeved and laced up in the front, back, and sides. It was hella ugly and I gave it to Goodwill. I like to do Heifer as well, but recently I did some looking around and discovered Save the Children also does animal gifts, and they seem to be much less expensive on the giver's end. An example is a a gift of a goat is $120 through Heifer and $60 through Save the Children. Just something to keep in mind! JnnyThndrs posted:Compassion Without Borders. I've never heard of this before! That sounds awesome. I love and work with animals and if anyone knows of any other good rescues, post 'em up! One thing I found in my forays into the internet for Christmas presents is Rescue Chocolate https://www.rescuechocolate.com/collections/all. They make a bunch of pet-themed chocolates (like "Peanut Butter Pitbull" and "Bananas Foster Dogs") and while they're a little pricey at $6/bar, they donate all profits to animal rescue organizations. So if anyone's looking for tasty stocking stuffers, this might be a good bet!
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# ? Nov 23, 2016 23:49 |
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GBS goons gave tremendously to Matenwa Learning Center in Haiti a few years in a row, to where we were mentioned in the yearly newsletter. I still give to them every year. One of their projects is to translate and provide educational materials in Creole instead of French. https://www.matenwa.org
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# ? Nov 26, 2016 01:01 |
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# ? May 2, 2024 06:56 |
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A program for transgender individuals by transgender individuals and business owners that help the mass of unemployed and indigent transgender men and women, by offering rebates and incentives: http://transcanwork.org/ Good NPR story about it here: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/10/19/494102719/california-restaurants-launch-nations-first-transgender-jobs-program
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# ? Nov 26, 2016 04:42 |