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Originally Posted by ccrider
First, let me say that I am not opposed to contributions to wherever you choose to make them. It's your money, time, etc.; your decision. However, now, when I pick up my mail, on some days 4 out of 5 pieces of mail are requests for money. Can't turn on the TV without being bombarded with requests for money. Like most people, I can afford a certain amount of my budget for this, and my question is: Is it better to spread your money around, making smaller contributions to more requests, or to make much larger ones to a few requests. Just trying to get a feel on how other people in The Villages feel.
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We give to 3-4 charities + our church each year with our larger donations. I found that large charities have lots of local presences running as their own 501c3 where you can meet the local staff. For example Habitat for Humanity is huge but they have local 501c3’s all over the place that report up to them. HFH here in TV has Lake Sumter Habitat. I personally met the leaders there and then I felt good about my donations. Here in TV is a HFH club that fund raises and builds their own homes for the actual local HFH organization. Donations to the local org can be redirected to the club for the local home build.
Charity Navigator will show you all the local options.
Then there is the time component. HFH has everything from building houses to retail assistance at the restores. That is worth a lot of $$$ as well and building houses helps with my lack of exercise burning calories. The house building also gives you a chance to meet directly the new home owners and hear their story… that part brings tears to everyone’s eyes. Then there are food banks where you could do things like take your kids or grand kids to say Sam’s Club or WalMart with the list of items the FB needs and take the items to the FB and let the young ones see how charity works. All these options I use avoid money going directly into a black hole and I am able to more closely see who is getting the money.
We also use a Donor Advised Fund which allows for better tax planning and also shields our home address from the charity eliminating all the garbage mail.