My husband works in construction and is an engineer. This guy started off as a manual laborer and moved up to be the assistant of the guy who looks at the architectural plans and then measures and draws the lines on the wall (ie send this tube for plumbing through here, wire this light here, etc.). He was making like 600 dollars a month at the time and college costs 250 a month. He also supported his mom and girlfriend and brothers and sisters. Needless to say, his savings account for college was growing very slowly.

Anyways, point being, we decided we were impressed with this guy and wanted to help him. At the time 250 a month was a small amount for us to pay compared to how much we were making. The degree was a three year degree (is, he’s finishing this semester). So when he started my husband and I were 25 and 28.

When he graduates he has a potential job already lined up where he will be making over 2400 dollars a month. That is a HUGE earning increase. Huge. Enough to break the cycle. His own family will not live in poverty the way he did and the way his parents and grandparents did.

My husband and I went through some lean times where paying his monthly tuition fees was difficult. At one point my husband was laid off and I got hit by a car and had to quit my jobs right afterwards so we were both jobless. But we still continued to pay for Marcelo’s education.

I think it is SO important to realize that you IF you want to, you can make a difference. I may not be changing the world here, but I am definitely changing one person’s world. And as if I could feel any happier about what we’re doing, Marcelo has decided he’s going to now pay for himself to continue his education and that once he’s done with that he’ll pay for college for someone else who deserves a leg up.

So I’m going to say this, even though you may find it harsh — I find not giving at any stage of anyone’s life, inexcusable. Make it a priority. There’s always a way. And there’s always an excuse. I didn’t want to give money to charities either, and I found a way to give directly and make a huge impact. You could too.

Oh, and we’re looking for a girl to sponsor for our next student

Read through the links to understand that they make maximum use of donated material for the benefit of the poor.

http://www.ecowalkthetalk.com/blog/2011/05/26/goonj-not-just-a-piece-of-cloth/

http://goonj.org/Final_Product_Catalogue.pdf#

http://goonj.org/?page_id=48

Now that you’ve decided to give, you will begin to see opportunities everywhere. But it doesn’t have to be so complicated. I have a friend who, with her husband, travels to various parts of Africa and Haiti to provide free dental care. As part of the project, they take children’s shoes for the youngsters in the communities they visit. ALL I had to do to help was collect shoes from my friends, family and coworkers and deliver them to her in time for the trip. We sent 900 pairs. Easy and rewarding. A few years ago, a friend of mine who lives in Senegal had a cholera outbreak in her village (people died). They only had one well and needed a few more. ALL I had to do was stand up in church, ask for some money, keep track of it and send it off periodically. In a few months we had sent enough to dig 3 wells. I later visited and it was a incredible experience. The church didn’t survive but the wells are going strong (so in a way it did). I’ve also been part of a giving circle in DC and we give money to small local non-profits serving women and girls. All of these people are somehow connected to each other. For me the key was opening my heart. The Universe took care of the rest…and continues to.

I have considered sending in a donation along with the message, “I’m going to donate every year, but only if you stop wasting the money I give sending me marketing materials and thank you notes.”

For example, this post alone probably inspired a significant amount of contributions to charity; probably much more than you could reasonably contribute yourself.

Few people could have written this post, so your skills have made a proportionally large difference here (versus the difference you could have made by investing the time you spent writing in another charitable activity).

Often, it is the boring task is what is most needed. And the emotional connection that you want in giving charity is also what drives up the costs. Not saying they should be accountable but it bothers me when people complain about overhead yet still want personalized responses from the people they donate $ to…

What a LAZY reason not to give to charity in FOUR YEARS. It couldn’t possibly take that long to research charities, especially with the internet. If I worried that every little dollar that I donated needs to be allocated in the most effective way, I’d NEVER give. I really feel that this excuse is just a cop-out. The real problem is that you hold your money so close to yourself because it’s “your hard-earned money”. What better way to spend your money than helping those less fortunate? The reason Christians are encouraged to give is that it’s a reminder that none of our money is “ours” and all of it is God’s and that none of it is going with us when we die. I realize that you’re not Christian, but at least the Christian view of money is healthier than the standard American sentiment of “it’s all mine and I need to hoard it all for myself”.

a) awesome. there’s been a major generational shift away from giving, and i think it’s important to think about (and hopefully reverse!).

b) look local! not because the others aren’t worth it – not at all! – but because it is way easier to address your concerns about how your money is spent and what exactly the group does when you are dealing with smaller organizations.

c) most importantly – i think that when people say they can’t afford to give, what they are really saying is that they can’t afford to give *much* – and if it’s not a lot, what’s the point? (or it’s an excuse =)

so, i just want to say that small gifts are *huge*. $5 once a year? awesome! because any amount of money is a concrete measure of people saying “i like what this organization does and how they do it.” and that is worth a *lot* to us! most concretely because small money leads to big money – donors who give a lot and foundations (where a lot of nonprofits get most of their money) what to know that people are behind you, that you are really representing something important and not just a nice idea.

so, don’t wait to give until you feel like you can afford a “worthwhile” gift – think of your gift as a show of support, not as bankrolling and it makes more sense to give small amounts.

That’s why it’s such a win-win.

Personally, I’ve focused on local giving. I like to give to Audioreader (a reading service for the visually impaired), KCUR (local public radio), Harvesters (food bank), a woman’s shelter and my local libraries. I need to organize my donations better and also I’d like to add an international component. Maybe 70/30, domestic/international. As others have pointed out, my dollars can have a disproportionately large impact in many international locations.

Medical volunteering has many pitfalls too. I encourage you to also read widely on the subject prior to volunteering. Your medical training will teach you how to practice within the United States or other English speaking, industrialized countries, but you will not get training that would prepare you for working in developing, resource-limited countries with tropical diseases. I am a physician trained in the USA and I can tell you that when I go to Africa, it makes me realize that we American doctors are worth much less without lab tests, radiologic studies, consultants, supplies, and without the diseases we are used to treating. Add to that then that you don’t speak the language or understand the culture, and you have put yourself in a position where it may be very difficult to help people, and in fact you might actually harm people by giving them improper care, or giving them care with inadequate follow-up or access to care if complications arise.

Also note that when volunteer teams come in to resource-limited areas and provide short term ‘camp’-style medical care, it reinforces local beliefs that they need wealthy foreigners to come save them rather than helping themselves, and undermines the existing medical system that has to charge money to be sustainable.

When I have observed medical care in Africa, I have been struck by the fact that many problems people try to ‘solve’ through medicine (i.e. malaria, diarrhea, STDs) are actually byproducts of public health problems that you cannot solve through medical care. Public health is the way to go to help more people, if you want to work in global health. Otherwise you could try to execute certain types of very specific surgical cures, as long as you had well trained medical translators to work with, the proper supplies, and adequate patient follow-up provided for – but make sure you’re teaching local physicians to do the surgery at the same time…

I think medical tourism is actually much more fraught with potential for harm than the average volunteer tourism. I can understand the fact that people enjoy traveling and want to get to know other cultures and understand the needs of the people they want to serve, even though it can be frustrating to those of us who run charities that people are willing to pay thousands of dollars to do short term volunteer tourism trips which don’t have the potential to make a great impact, but if making donations of money that could be used to implement a local, sustainable and well-designed plan with the proper preparation, monitoring, and evaluation, they make much smaller donations. But at least it supports local economies!

JD, I’m so glad you’ve decided to try philanthropy, I think you will find it incredibly rewarding…. and addictive, despite how complicated it can be to figure out where to give your donation, be it time or money.

It’s OK whatever you choose for giving. It’s also OK to judge people for not giving or for giving to the “Wrong” cause, but it’s even MORE OK to to keep your judge-y-ness to yourself.

I’ll just throw in a suggestion to send those school supplies to those in need through an organization called the Pencil Project (thepencilproject.com). Great way to help (without worrying about the shipping!).

Cheers,
Claudia

If you do want to travel to a location for the experience and volunteer while you’re their, I recommend booking the trip yourself (cheaper anyway) and asking organizations if they need assistance from volunteers with filing, preparing meals or other simple tasks.

It’s a pretty cool organization.

But I would propose you do the mental accounting in another manner. Namely, count the expense of airfare/lodging/food to your benefit. This is your ‘vacation’, you’re getting to experience another area of the world, meet new people and be involved in their lives.

Now account for the rest of your time/expenditures towards the service opportunity. This is the benefit received by those you serve. It’s also important to remember that this is still not costing -them- anything.

They would much rather you made an inefficient trip to them, than no trip at all.

I don’t mean this in any way to say that you’re wrong and that volunteer tourism isn’t an inefficient form of charity. But most people are more likely to use this as an excuse to not do anything at all. By all means you should be considering how you can best make a positive impact!

Often times, volunteering at a foreign place will let you evaluate if it is a good steward of its resources, then you can make regular contributions to it after your trip. These can be much more efficient, and you can rest assured that your charity is being well used.

Very good thoughts!

Most people have to travel to make/receive organ donations and must stay 2-6 weeks near the hospital to recover and lodging expenses can add up very quickly.

This is a cause I am very passionate about because laster (June 10, 2010) I donated a kidney to save my father’s life and the people at the Gift of Life House provided us with a place to stay that was affordable and a perfect environment for healing.

I’d love to chat at some point about helping you volunteer abroad. We connect international volunteers responsibly with our work in the field and you can go for weeks or months. We have opportunities in Nepal, India, Thailand, and Cambodia and will be adding Kenya next summer.

I hope that we can connect soon!