(no subject)

[vicarz]

Charity suggestions? I've given to PBS, Doc w/o Borders, and Conservation Intl this year. Open for suggestions.
Gave to CARE last year but they hit me with too much physical spam. I don't give to groups that continue to generate paper trying to solicit more donations.

Had fun this weird weekend - far less Janna on the weekend (but more during the week) while I got to visit with Nicole and Paul who were in from out of town. Got reminded what a fucking great dancer he is! Lots of catching up was caught up.

I swear I had tons to write about yesterday and the day before but it all poof'd.

Comments

[turbogrrl.livejournal.com]

haiti is still hurting, with all the cholera; partners in health would be a good one.

also, its being said that food demands are off the charts this year-- dc central kitchen does a lot of great work.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

Thanks, good point about Haiti again.

[beatnikbetty.livejournal.com]

WPFW DC's Jazz & Justice radio station is listener supported, and I was a member for a couple of years for just $35.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

I actually am not found of them...I like the jazz, but the angry left wing and highly racially divisive talk shows really turn me off to them.

I have a black friend who calls them the "kill whitey" station. I don't disagree with the assessment. I did give to WAMU public radio though.

[oortdust.livejournal.com]

ShelterBox is a charity which provides just that: Shelter, cooking implements, water purification tablets, etc, in a box. They set up after earthquakes, fires, floods, or any international disaster.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

Nice, thank you!

[thesaucemonster.livejournal.com]

Daaaw.

Poof. Like me.

[eolh.livejournal.com]

I don't give to groups that continue to generate paper trying to solicit more donations.

That one has always baffled me. There are some groups that I'm pretty certain have spent more money sending me junk mail after I made a donation than the amount that I actually donated. They won't be getting money from me again -- sorry guys, I'm not paying for you to fill my mailbox with crap.

See also: One year while I was still doing the full-time student thing, I did some temp work over the summer. One of my temp assignments was a week working at a non-profit (which I'll leave nameless here on the interwebs, though I have no problem calling them out in person if you really want to know). My job, while there, was preparing thank-you letters to send to donors, as the regular employee who normally did it was out on some kind of medical leave. Their system for generating the letters was ridiculously complicated -- it involved merging and comparing several lists, checking data, creating the letters and envelopes (which was two separate processes), etc. While I'm sure that, being new to the system, I was slower at it than the regular employee who did it all the time, most of the time was spent waiting for their antiquated system to actually do what it needed to do. In the end, I calculated that based on what I was making (only a fraction, I'm sure, of what they were paying the temp agency for my work), it was costing them approximately $10 per letter to send these out. And I was just making temp wages, not the full-time salary with benefits, etc. that the regular employee was making.

So the first $10 of every one of these donations, before anything else was done with the money, was going toward sending a thank you letter. And that's before all of the junk mail, etc. that probably got sent out after that. The whole thing left me fairly cynical about donating to non-profits.

[colinmac.livejournal.com]

Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation)

[translucent-eye.livejournal.com]

I'm a big fan of Melwood for a local charity.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

They sound great, but they staff my building and interaction with them makes me not want to support them after I've seen the service they provide along with those in our location getting paid for the service. They appear not to be disabled and we have a filthy building for all the money spent. I think it's a great idea, but their particular execution I find lacking.

[translucent-eye.livejournal.com]

That's good to know.

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

How about heifer.org? I tend to give to NPR (or one of the affiliate stations) too.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

Oh I love them and gave last year - thanks for the reminder!