Five Charities Worth Supporting

It seems that daily many of us are inundated with requests from charitable organizations. These requests can be as simple as television advertisements inserted in between our favorite shows. At other times they can come in the form of junk mail in our mail boxes or as spam in our email inboxes. Sometimes these requests take on the most annoying form of calls at inappropriate times from telemarketers. As a side note to telemarketers it is always an inappropriate time to most of the people you are calling. The deluge of requests can reach a point where it becomes overwhelming, to many people, to the point where it causes inaction, in some, in regards to charitable contributions. The television commercials are quickly forgotten as people become re-involved in their shows after the commercial break, the junk mail thrown in the rubbish or recycling bin, spam is deleted from inboxes, and telemarketers are promptly hung up on. However, many of us would still like to help out with some of these requests. Where do we begin? Which charities should we support?

I believe that a good rule of thumb to follow when choosing a charity to support should be if that charity shows promise of an immediate effect and if they can give you some type of proof upfront as to how they are going to spend the money that is donated to them. For this reason I suggest that, when donating to human and animal charities, people pick ones that have set goals in mind and have actual solutions that can be seen by the perspective philanthropist. With charities that deal with the needs of humans, it is better to support those which have a concrete objective, rather than an abstract one. With animal charities it is better to support ones that are concerned with the welfare of animals, rather than the abstract notion of animal rights. In this piece I will showcase five charities that I feel that meet this criteria. I am sure there are more that also meet this criteria, however I do not have the space to list them all in this piece. Readers may add any they feel meet this criteria in the comments section at the end.

Plan Canada-Gifts of Hope

This is a wonderful organization that allows people to contribute actual items to meet the needs of those they help. These items start out as low of $12CAD, for a mango tree, and go up to $10,000CAD, for Girl’s School Residence. There are donations at the $1000CAD level that provide clean drinking water for a community and at a $50CAD level that provide the same for a single family. Many of the gifts are items that allow the people being helped to acquire a source of an ongoing income. These gifts can range from sewing machines to rickshaws. Some gifts deal with literacy and education, while others are aimed at preventing polio and blindness.