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What's a charity/organization that you donate to regularly?
I recently just restarted my monthly donation to the ACLU because.... well... ya know. I was wondering what other people donate to regularly and why! I hope this isn't a contentious topic or anything, I do think that what you decide to donate to does really show what you care about in this capitalistic society.
Other organizations I've donated to within the last year (not regularly though sadly) include Planned Parenthood, Doctors Without Borders, and the Signal Foundation, and I also donate to the Boston Greater Food Bank.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Worldwide Fund for Nature WWF, World Central Kitchen. I also donate to my local food pantry, my county offers free gardening classes and asks that folks plant an extra row to share with food pantries.
You can add one or more charity organizations to your will to receive a percentage of your assets. This makes me feel better about not being able to donate anything right now due to a layoff.
For those not aware of the EFF, they promote internet civil liberties and provide a lot of guides for folks who need help:
Whether you choose to support them or not, please keep them in mind as a resource.
I've considered donating to EFF a few times and I always like what I hear about them, but last time I checked their causes I felt they were very US-centric. Is that the case? Probably still worth it as most tech giants are in US anyways.
I’d say yes and no. They tend to deal with legal matters in the US, but many of those things have far reaching consequences which can have a strong effect on the internet in general. Here’s a list of legal victories they’ve had. Many of those cases involve taking companies like Sony to court.
Possibly it would make more sense to support a similar cause closer to home for you.
Ukraine army to defend from Russia. Have friends that serve, so doing it practically every week.
Edit: forgot to add why.
+1 (err, +2?) on Wikipedia and Signal. I make it a yearly habit, and especially for these two, I think most everyone arguing in good faith can agree that they have a universally “good” purpose (as well as execution, overwhelmingly).
In a similar vein, I “donate” to Bitwarden by subscribing to their lowest tier, although it’s not quite the same, since I actually get something more than the base product/service in return.
Further admirable causes absolutely worth mentioning:
An organization that buys drones (and recently explosives too) for ukraine, backed by people from the czech army. I trust them to make good decisions regarding what to buy, and that the bought material makes it to the front lines.
Archive.org
GiveWell, which I think is very important and more people should consider switching their donations to
Interesting! I used to use CharityNavigator to do research for our "gives back" fund back at home, wondering if GiveWell is better for that now?
They do different things. CharityNavigator tries to rate lots of charities. GiveWell is only trying to find the most cost-effective according to their criteria, using scientific studies to evaluate which charitable causes have the most impact relative to money donated.
GiveWell's top charities are all in Africa because simple health interventions make the most difference there.
Their top charities don't change very quickly. Bed nets (for preventing malaria) have been on the list for many years and now they have a few other health interventions.
I like GiveWell, too. I use their automatic picks for the causes most in need and I haven't been disappointed in how they've allocated it so far.
I've done monthly contributions to ACLU for many years now. Think I started back in 2018. I recently started monthly donations to Wikipedia, especially after you know who's threats towards Wikipedia.
I used to do Planned Parenthood years ago, but I stopped it. Not for any political or organizational reason. Think I just needed my money at the time, but never restarted. I've also given to the EFF in the last year, but yeah not regularly.
Other non-profit organizations that I support -- though that aren't charitable or activist -- are Beehaw (one of the Lemmy instances) and Tildes.
Wikipedia is a good call out, I always tune out their emails but it seems like a lot of people here also do that donation too!
Your Planned Parenthood example is literally why I paused my ACLU donation too, plus the fact that changing a credit card donation is really hard for the ACLU lol.
I would also encourage everyone to look into some local nonprofits in your area, just like the museum example. Smaller nonprofits don't have the big budget to invest into development and marketing teams, it's often the ED or some other person trying their best to get their story out there, but they can still be doing great work.
I'm not saying this to not give to larger, national orgs. I do that too and have to many already shared here. They are also doing great work. I'm just saying if you have capacity to throw a few dollars to something local you care about, it will really make their day.
Yup! It's crazy how little some non-profits have to work with despite doing such amazing work. I'm from the museum world, so I don't know too much about other types of non-profits, but I know of MANY small museums with just one or even zero full-time employees. Even large-seeming museums can be a bit deceiving in how much they actually actually make. I know of some that have to pay massive rent because they don't own their own buildings. And then there are others that that are owned by the local county or city, but the local politicians could not care less about them and so they remain perpetually underfunded.
Also, libraries are another type of non-profit that provide wonderful and valuable services yet are constantly battling to stay afloat.
Yes! Definitely look into something you care about locally, and if you can't give money, see if you can volunteer your time and/or skills!
Lots of theater companies, especially ones for all ages shows, have been struggling as well since Covid, and aren't pulling nearly as many ticket sales as they used to.
I just wanted to add that a great place to donate to is a local museum! Most museums (at least where I live) are non-profits, and a large number of them are severely underfunded. And they often rely heavily on donations as part of their income streams (besides grants, memberships, and admissions). So if there's a cute or interesting little museum in your town about a subject you're interested in, I'm positive they would love any sort of donation you might give them. I'm sure it's the same with other cultural non-profits like zoos and botanical gardens, I'm just most familiar with museums. Even just getting a yearly membership is already sort of a donation by itself, since it doesn't really cost the museum anything, plus you get something out of it in return!
Oh and often times there are rich people that do matching donations, where they'll match any donations like-for-like (or even more than that sometimes). So your donation literally doubles in value without any extra effort on your part. I know of two such matching donation drives going on around me, so check out the museums in your area.
I love both your suggestions! I live in the NYC area so I feel like those museums might already be pretty funded haha but I'll have to look into some of the ones in my state.
I'm not familiar with all the NYC museums but you'd be surprised at how many smaller ones you can find! I'm sure the large ones like the Natural History Museum or the Met are already well-funded, but I'd bet there are plenty of little ones that barely get any visitors or donations. Small historic house museums. Maybe a nearby town's museum. Maybe a museum about a really niche topic.
Money donations: hyperlocal food bank and resource center, my church, local housing and homelessness resource center, another local org working on helping people get housing.
Time donations: my church and local housing org again, a couple of local orgs for supporting folks in prison, a local retreat center, local queer community center.
I like to focus local. A lot of local orgs struggle for money and serve needs that are just as real as those served by big national/international orgs. Also, it's much easier to give time to local orgs, which is something I sometimes have more of than money. It's nice to be able to offer both time and/or money depending on what the org needs.
My local NPR station
I don't regularly listen to NPR but I definitely have a less favorable view more recently because of their coverage of last year's elections. Is there a difference between the local chapters vs the national one?
Yeah so the local stations "buy" access to the national programs, but also do their own reporting. I'm not sure if they "get" any of the national news stuff for free per se, but like "All Things Considered" is something they have to pay for. My local station has done some excellent reporting on local issues and they're one of the better local options, so I'm very happy to support them. I think they're also the only local option for news not owned by Lee Enterprises or the big radio/TV news conglomerates.
I'm also frustrated about national reporting, but many of the other public radio offerings they have - from WBEZ or WBUR, or APR, or even NPR's smaller podcasts that take more diverse perspectives towards news - are very worthwhile. They also get the BBC newscasts and some local music shows.
They haven't hit my "stop listening to them" level the way I've hit my "stop paying for the NYT," so they're not that far down my list, but local stations are separate affiliated entities, so yeah, consider your local station!
Could you elaborate on what you didn’t like about their coverage of last year’s elections? I’m asking out of genuine curiosity and not trying to instigate anything.
There was a debate where they presented a fact checking "on both sides" kind of thing where it was kind of clear that they were really reaching to be neutral. I can't remember exactly which article it was but I remember it leaving me with a bad taste.
Are you satisfied with your affiliate? Everywhere I've lived other than Chicago has just had such disappointing programming that I haven't donated. Like I know the programming won't get better without more money but I actively dislike their correspondents and am pushed away to just not encouraging them rather than trying to build them to be better.
Yes! I try to keep my exact central il location vague but they recently won awards for their reporting, they covered campus protests well and haven't avoided asking tough questions about the university. Where they misstep is often in their student interns sort of jumping to conclusions occasionally but that's the only real concern I've ever had.
Programming wise they have a good selection and avoid the trope of classical music for 12 hours that was my experience with NPR 20 years ago. Good selection of local, state and national (or from other big stations like WBEZ or WBUR or APR) and international news.
They're also big on open houses and forums and have hosted a few big ticket "meet the face behind the voice" events with national correspondents.
Plus it's a payroll deduction for me so that's a nice easy bonus
I hate that without doing too much digging, I can't pinpoint your location because there are three cities that seem to match every description you've given! It's just such a mystery!
I'm sure someone could, I'm not that sneaky but i'm pleased that I've kept it at least a little vague. (Plz don't hunt me down /j)
I do the same, even though I haven't listened to NPR since the pandemic allowed me to start working from home and ended my commute. I'll check out their coverage of stuff from time to time, but I just can't handle the blow by blow on the Trump Administration.
It's worth checking out some of the podcasts if you like the bigger reporting pieces. But I understand the desire to avoid the urgency of the news right now.
Yeah, in the last Trump Administration, I started out, like many people did, by keeping a constant, almost obsessive eye on the news. My mental health suffered enormously as a result, and my wife was definitely relieved when I stopped following the new so closely. Seeing the latest updates from NPR and the New York Times—following every awful thing the Trump Administration was doing—didn't change what I did at all. I'm as powerless to change how the NIH is run whether or not I know what dumb shit Trump and his lackeys are up to.
It's weak and it's cowardly, but, if I'm honest, I just can't handle more than that. It's how I'm "accepting the things I cannot change," I suppose. The 24/7 outrage machine is just not for me anymore.
I've been trying to find a slower, weekly news source that focuses on matters of global importance and not just American politics. So far, I haven't been entirely successful.
I'll be honest, I don't think it's weak or cowardly. There is no obligation to burn yourself out "witnessing.". I say this as someone that is still too tapped in - I'm trying to push my energy into learning and ultimately some volunteer work but work in progress - and who is not better for constantly doing so either. Especially as rapidly as things change - tariffs! Sanctions! Nevermind!
Taking care of your mental and physical health isn't weak, it's necessary. And you're not trying to ignore it all. Both the NYT and NPR do weekly newsletters (and for NPR, weekly roundups on podcasts) where you might be able to tap in until you find something more ideal.
I'm also looking for global news analysis of US politics - I can get coverage but I want the opinion/analysis I can get from the NPR politics podcast or other commentators, just internationally.
I do also follow a few good substacks (slowly building a Bluesky list) of solid longer reads. I don't read everything but I can dig through when I have the energy and skim the rest of the time.
I came up with the idea today that I wish they'd stop playing Trump's voice, and just dub over him like they used to do with the head of the IRA.
Oh, yeah, I would shed no tears if I never had to hear that man's voice for the rest of my life.
I'm watching my dad go through this right now. He has two substacks that he subscribes to and I think ends up on Google News all the time. He is spending his retirement losing his mind about how the world is ending. (And fighting with his Republican former friends on Facebook.) My siblings and I tell him to unplug from it, but he just can't. I think it gives him some kind of illusion of control to know the latest, up-to-the-minute outrage. (As well as ammunition he can use in all of the arguments he gets in.) The world isn't any better for him doing this, but he won't stop subjecting himself to it.
When I last looked at the New York Times' newsletters, the only news ones I could find were published every weeknight. Their "The Evening" newsletter was what I used to read during the Biden administration. But as soon as Trump got elected, I cancelled it. I would be curious what it would look like if they published it every Friday night and could only include the top 15 or so new stories from the entire week across the entire planet. With that kind of restriction, they would have to be very selective at what they considered news.
One thing that drives me crazy about the news is how often things people are talking about get reported. If some moron in Congress introduces a bill for a constitutional amendment to allow Trump to be elected to a third term, I don't think that's really news. It's a publicity stunt. It's not going anywhere. That should be back page political news, if anything. (Not unlike presidential budget proposals, which are equally useless.) Back in Trump's first term, it was exhausting how many news stories were nothing more than the latest outrageous thing that Trump was tweeting.
But news is a business, and they make money on page views. There are few things like outrage to drive clicks. In the digital age, we've been able to "optimize" our news services to know what everyone is clicking on. However bad sensationalism might have been before, it's even worse now. Particularly as journalism seems to be dying since none of us want to pay for it.
Hmmm looks like you're right, I'm probably just misremembering, or they've changed the frequencies.
https://www.nytimes.com/newsletters is their current list.
Similarly with NPR I was definitely thinking about their weekly roundup on their politics podcast, which obviously is uh, much more frequently posting than just that. But you could do a filter on it if you were inclined. I do listen to things like Code Switch and other weekly podcasts.
I'm still finding my balance, I don't want to live in outrage I just want to be informed, work in progress.
Yeah, I haven't looked at The New York Times' newsletter list in a while, but there is a disappointing lack of weekly news updates. That was a good reminder that I could at least sign up for their weekly science and technology newsletters. After all, I listen to their Hard For podcast every week as it is.
Wikipedia. I like to think I live the ideals of enlightenment, and the knowledge contained there is priceless.
A few others
I prefer to make a single payment yearly vs. smaller monthly donations just to keep track of my finances more easily.
Still, the organizations I come back to donating to each year are generally hyperlocal food banks and local-ish environmental groups, including land trusts and wildlife/habitat conservation groups in my area or across Canada.
I pay 3$ a month to Wikimedia Foundation. I set up the money transfer somewhere in 2019 and never looked back.
I wanted it to be an insignificant amount, but through the years I can safely say I've done my part!
It's not a lot to any of them, except the humane society. While Mr. Tired was out of work (He just accepted an offer!), I paused everything but the humane society. Now that he's going to be starting working again, I'm going to resume all of the donations. It's not much to any of them, but any dollar amount helps.
Mostly to organizations like the International Rescue Committee that do a lot of work where it's really needed most. A lot of stuff is important, and I don't really blame people for donating to other charities—I certainly don't do anything near what I should to help others—but I just can't justify donating to organizations like the EFF or even local aid organizations when there are genocides, famines, and wars going on in other parts of the world.
The Carter center because of Guinea worm and other medical initiatives.
Exclusively the EFF.
Might I recommend this TED talk by Rory Stewart titled To End Extreme Poverty, Give Cash — Not Advice? Rory was in charge of the £20b UK foreign aid budget and has come to the conclusion that the best way to help internationally is to give directly. Very interesting talk about having trust and giving dignity to those who just need capital to improve their lives and those around them.
Hospital clowns.
Can you elaborate a bit? I donate relatively regularly to Extra Life which kinda serves a similar purpose purpose (entertaining children in long term care) but I don't think I know of any Hospital Clown specific charity or organization.
In the threads I see that majority of people mentioned US NGOs and communities. I pay my yearly membership fee's / donations which are between 20 € and 70 € per community. I am a member of these Inter/national communities:
International Communities
Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a nonprofit with a worldwide mission to promote computer user freedom. We defend the rights of all software users.
Debian / Software in the Public Interest
Debian is a complete Free Operating System. The Debian Project is an association of individuals, sharing a common goal: We want to create a free operating system, freely available for everyone. Now, when we use the word "free", we're not talking about money, instead, we are referring to software freedom.
Armbian
Ultralight Linux optimized for custom ARM / RISC-V or Intel / AMD hardware. Comes with powerful system config tools. Armbian is highly optimized OS specialized for single board computers.
NetBSD Foundation
NetBSD is a free, fast, secure, and highly portable Unix-like Open Source operating system. It is available for a wide range of platforms, from large-scale servers and powerful desktop systems to handheld and embedded devices.
OpenBSD Foundation
The OpenBSD project produces a FREE, multi-platform 4.4BSD-based UNIX-like operating system. Our efforts emphasize portability, standardization, correctness, proactive security and integrated cryptography. As an example of the effect OpenBSD has, the popular OpenSSH software comes from OpenBSD.
OFTC / Software in the Public Interest
The Open and Free Technology Community is a volunteer-run network that aims to provide stable and effective collaboration services to members of the community in any part of the world, while closely listening to their needs and desires.
National Communities
Ecologists Without Borders
Ecologists without Borders is a non-profit founded in 2009 and one of the leading Slovenian NGOs dedicated to improving the state of our environment — focusing on efficient resource use and active citizenship. Most of our activities deal with waste at its source, but not all are limited to Slovenia. We're an active member of Zero Waste Europe, Let's do it world!, Break Free From Plastic and some other networks.
Radio Club Triglav
Radio Club Triglav is one of the largest and most active Radio Clubs in Slovenia with location in Ljubljana with good amateur radio equipment and good antennas and other equipment.
S5TECH
Electronics and Tehnical community and Forum in Slovenia.
I haven't done it on a frequent basis, but I have donated to Wikipedia occasionally in the past. The charity I do donate to on a regular basis is the Cancer Society in New Zealand.
Planned Parenthood, some national abortion funds, and the ACLU usually. I donate when I can at least.
A local youth at risk outreach non profit. Since 1992.