Choosing my donations this holiday season

[miningshawn]

I vet my donations carefully, just like I vet my investment portfolio. I want to know that the money that I earned, post-taxes at that, is doing things that I approve of and support. I used to drop my change and more often than not a few dollars into the red bucket every time I walked in and out of the local box store. I used to write a check for the holiday drive. That stopped this year - now I carry bill-sized pieces of paper that have "WOKE" and "BLM" written on them to give them support.
Thank God for the Marines and the Toys for Tots. I supported our local, church-driven coats drive, and I donated to the local holiday VFW meals for veterans program. I'm capping it off with a donation to this site.
That's all the giving I'm good for this year, it's been a tough one. I refuse to support charities that try to guilt me, or tell me how I should feel and act, or won't release their books so I can see where I am helping. I no longer feel guilty cruising by the store entrance.
Happy Holidays to you and yours!

 

[Dusty Stevens]

You can always donate to your local or state political campaigns, one of the gun rights orgs, local school programs like 4H or their trap teams, ask the local elementary school if they have a kid in mind you can buy something for. This is the type stuff i do. My wife being a teacher i give a bunch to less fortunate kids like backpacks full of food they can take home (since school may be the only food they reliably get) and definitely donate a bunch of presents to them around christmas time. Every kid deserves a big christmas!

 

[miningshawn]

You can always donate to your local or state political campaigns, one of the gun rights orgs, local school programs like 4H or their trap teams, ask the local elementary school if they have a kid in mind you can buy something for. This is the type stuff i do. My wife being a teacher i give a bunch to less fortunate kids like backpacks full of food they can take home (since school may be the only food they reliably get) and definitely donate a bunch of presents to them around christmas time. Every kid deserves a big christmas!

^^^^ All of this. All of this is a fantastic idea. I am following your advice to the "T". I know a teacher, (most people do), and I am getting some backpacks ready. I hope they like Mystery Ranch and B.O.B.B.!

As far as political campaigns... I am done. I live in a state that went "nuclear red" in the last election, but still manages to vote in a Dem that votes down the party line. I love Montana, I really really do, but it's time and past time for a multiple party system. I want a scotch, bourbon, whisky, beer drinking, hard working, tradesman 2A constituonalist who remembers why I voted him in.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

^^^^ All of this. All of this is a fantastic idea. I am following your advice to the "T". I know a teacher, (most people do), and I am getting some backpacks ready. I hope they like Mystery Ranch and B.O.B.B.!

As far as political campaigns... I am done. I live in a state that went "nuclear red" in the last election, but still manages to vote in a Dem that votes down the party line. I love Montana, I really really do, but it's time and past time for a multiple party system. I want a scotch, bourbon, whisky, beer drinking, hard working, tradesman 2A constituonalist who remembers why I voted him in.

Good on you sir! The teachers know who needs help and how to get it to them. Holidays away from school is hard on some kids eating wise and gift wise too.
and as far as your political pick- if i had the money id announce my run tomorrow.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Oh, be sure if you send canned food to include a can opener and some assorted utensils.

 

[D Coots]

Well the Salvation Army can Stick It....never again a dime. Give locally. Local high school trap is one.

Later
Dave

 

[Old Navy]

I am up to fourteen I donate to every Dec. Disable Vets, ASPCA, etc.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

I am up to fourteen I donate to every Dec. Disable Vets, ASPCA, etc.

Matt Bershadker sure appreciates your donation to the aspsa

ASPCA spending may not be what donors expect, CBS News investigation finds

The ASPCA is not an umbrella organization for local organizations with SPCA in their names.

www.cbsnews.com

 

[Kracken McGraw]

Local donations are the best. It might trickle down to a neighbor who really could use it.

 

[NorCalMikie]

Funny that in most cases, when you feel like you want to make a donation, you end up on their LIST. Bout had enough of that. Don't need the 3 pieces of note paper they send every two weeks, or pictures of sick kids or dogs and cats that have been mistreated.

 

[Infrequent Shooter]

Local food banks are hard to beat.

 

[338 Mollett]

St. Jude ?

 

[Old Navy]

I could post the entire fourteen on here and someone will find something wrong with every one of them. I research them every year to see which ones spends the most on programs. I took some of them off and a couple years later I put them back on again. I actually took the USO off for a couple years. I am a Vietnam vet and was sadly disappointed in them for awhile. Met my wife to be at a USO dance.

 

[Old Tanker]

I vet my donations carefully, just like I vet my investment portfolio. I want to know that the money that I earned, post-taxes at that, is doing things that I approve of and support. I used to drop my change and more often than not a few dollars into the red bucket every time I walked in and out of the local box store. I used to write a check for the holiday drive. That stopped this year - now I carry bill-sized pieces of paper that have "WOKE" and "BLM" written on them to give them support.
Thank God for the Marines and the Toys for Tots. I supported our local, church-driven coats drive, and I donated to the local holiday VFW meals for veterans program. I'm capping it off with a donation to this site.
That's all the giving I'm good for this year, it's been a tough one. I refuse to support charities that try to guilt me, or tell me how I should feel and act, or won't release their books so I can see where I am helping. I no longer feel guilty cruising by the store entrance.
Happy Holidays to you and yours!

I told AUSA that I was dropping my membership until they took a stand against the “wokeness” emerging in the Army. Lots of good that’s going to do.

 

[NorCalMikie]

St. Jude ?

They send the pictures of sick kids. I KNOW the kids are sick or I wouldn't have donated, but every two weeks??

 

[Iowa Fox]

Local donations are the best. It might trickle down to a neighbor who really could use it.

Thats what my wife and I did for the local town veterans. You make the donation at the bank and they administer locally.

 

[HTSmith]

How about your Church? Covid has made it especially hard on them.

 

[338 Mollett]

but every two weeks??

That would get annoying .

 

[NorCalMikie]

More than likely, whoever you donate to puts you on "Their List". Gets annoying real fast. Almost like someone putting the "touch" on you every time you step out of your home.

 

[DiffEQ]

I used to donate > $20K per year to charities. Then I joined the board of one.
The charity was strictly volunteer, 100% funded by donations, $675K at its highest revenue. In the 9 years I was associated with it, at our lowest percent effectiveness to programs (schools and juvenile therapy programs in > 30 states) we were 93% all to the end recipients.
Pouring over the books, I learned to read charity tax records and saw the waste endemic in so many others.
I never cared about the tax deduction. I stopped giving to most charities and started supporting individuals.
What I came to realize was your best charity investment is to keep it local.