My Crankiness Knows No Bounds, and Yet...

About a month ago, I posted a picture of an envelope on Facebook...

...with a comment: See that envelope? That's in the outgoing mail. Does it have a check in it? It does not. It has a note asking that they take me off of their list because of that ridiculous stunt with the five 1-cent stamps.

Incidentally, this is not the first time that Human Rights Watch has used this direct mail ploy; I wrote about it two years ago, on this very blog!

Today's mail included ANOTHER solicitation from Human Rights Watch. I opened it. (I always open the solicitations, it's like a busman's holiday - you have to check out what other non-profits are doing - and if they're really appealing I might even send them to my Development Department. And sometimes the March of Dimes sends you an actual dime - free money! I digress.)

I had to laugh. Instead of a bunch of live 1-cent stamps, it had printed images of stamp-like doodles.

Well played, Human Rights Watch, well played. (But no, don't put me back on your list.)

What Were They Thinking?

It's time for another round of charitable crankiness. You may recall that in 2012 I kept every charitable solicitation that arrived by postal mail. At the beginning January, I thought I might do that again, but instead of waiting to do a round up at year end, I think I'll do it monthly.

There were ten solicitations that arrived in January - however, two of them were from the same organization so nine places tried to get me to donate.

Of the ten envelopes, four came with plain return envelopes, to which I would have to supply my own stamp:



Five came with business reply envelopes - where the sender gets to mail something and the recipient pays the postage. (I've heard this compared to making a collect call.):



With business reply mail, the post office charges the recipient for each envelope that comes back - plus a premium for handling, and an annual permit fee.

Note that two of those envelopes ask you to put your own stamp on anyway: "your stamp on this envelope is an additional contribution" and "your first-class stamp on this envelope adds to your gift". It's a little disingenuous to call it an additional contribution - but it would arguably reduce the expenses to the organization because they wouldn't have to pay the postage on that particular envelope and would therefore save a dollar or so. However, in my experience as a career non-profit person, who has worked at organizations that have tested using business reply mail, if someone puts a stamp on a BRE, the post office charges ANYWAY. So both the donor and the recipient have now paid postage, and that's ridiculous.

What really chapped my hide, though, was a return envelope from Human Rights Watch - which was a BRE with stamps. Five cents worth of stamps:



I just don't know what they were thinking - so I looked it up. Apparently it's a thing:

Here’s a relatively inexpensive trick that can increase the prominence of the BRE (and make it look like an SRE). Try adding a few low-denomination stamps, such as one-cent, two-cent, or even a five-cent stamp, ideally aligned with an element of your mission. (For nature accounts, we’ve had success using Bobcat or other animal stamps.)

Not only does Human Rights Watch have to pay for postage plus the handling charge for any envelopes that come back, they have also spent money on postage for EVERY ENVELOPE THAT THEY SENT. That seems like a crazy waste of money.

The USPS probably likes it though, all those stamps bought and never used.

The Annual #FuckCancer/Happy Birthday Post

83, she would’ve been, today. I think of her every day. I think she would’ve been delighted that we went to visit the island from which her father‘s family had come, off the coast of Germany (and I can’t believe she never went there). I think she’d be horrified and dismayed by the revelations of bad behavior at the New York City Ballet. I know she would be angry and sad at the political state of this country right now. She would love my beautiful daughter, with her big heart and burning desire to succeed and her grandmother’s love of riding - which skipped a generation. (I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been on a horse, and one of those was a mule.) She’d be tickled that I planted a New Dawn rose that scrambles up my back deck, and wholly supportive of my repair & recycle sewing projects.

[Remember the external fixator?]

I miss her.

#fuckcancer

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If you are inclined to remember Moky, perhaps you’d support my walk-a-thon effort. My sister - who also has lung cancer - has again put together a team for a Lungevity event next month. Join us IRL (!), or by making a contribution. Lungevity does good work funding scientific research, educating on early detection, and providing patient support to help "people live better with lung cancer and dramatically improve on the current 18% five-year survival rate". And, they have a 4 star rating from Charity Navigator.
​

Click the Donate button below, or use this link to Lungevity.



Thank you.

A Four Penny Dreadful

As you will remember, from time to time I rail about charitable solicitations that have annoyed me - especially when there are live stamps or actual dimes involved.

Yesterday brought a new iteration of the live stamp mishegoss.

Yes. The organization glued four penny stamps onto a business reply mail envelope. In other words, the organization just wasted four cents on that mailing because if the BRM comes back, the post office is going to charge them whatever they charge for a BRM (first class postage plus a surcharge which varies depending on how many pieces come back), and if the envelope doesn’t come back, the four cents is gone like the wind. And, since the return rate on charitable solicitations is generally low (like in the single digits low), nearly 95% of those penny stamps are going in the garbage.

You may say “but I’ll add my own stamp so the charity doesn’t have to pay”. Whatcha gonna do, use a Forever stamp that you have sitting around, or rustle up 46¢ worth of stamps? You’re unlikely to do the latter, so it’s a waste of 4¢. Plus, in my experience, even though some postage paid BRM envelopes say something like “use your own stamp and help us more”, like this one does, the post office does not always recognize that. You put your stamp on, the post office may well charge the charity the BRM rate anyway. (I have seen this happen; it’s one of the reasons we’ve given up on BRM mail in my office.)

End result?

International Rescue Committee is off of my list.

Cautionary tale for you?

Don’t put a stamp on a Business Reply Mail envelope.

Birthdays Are Hard

A couple of weeks ago, my sister gave me a bag of ephemera: my baby book, a box of our grandfather's letters & schoolwork in German, a folder of congratulations on the 1925 birth of a baby girl whose mother once upon a time lived across the street from my mother, and an envelope of photos. This here picture is my mother, in about 1995, with my cat Yoyo. I think it was taken in the crazy days leading up to my wedding, because it was in with some outtakes from that event.

Today would have been my mother's 82nd birthday, but that she hadn't died 8+ years ago, of lung cancer.

In her memory, and because cancer sucks, and because my sister has lung cancer, I'm doing something I have never ever ever done before: I'm participating in a walk-a-thon, raising money for Lungevity.

If you know someone who has had, or who has, or who has died from lung cancer - and you surely do - please help. Lungevity funds scientific research, educates on early detection, provides patient support - helping "people live better with lung cancer and dramatically improve on the current 18% five-year survival rate", and they have a four-star rating from Charity Navigator.



Click the Donate button above, or use this link: https://lungevity.donordrive.com/participant/36990

When you've done that, treat yourself to a popsicle. Red. In memory of Moky.

And thank you.

All I Want For Christmas...

Last Thursday was Thanksgiving. Then came the shopping mayhem days: Black Friday and Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday. Today's Giving Tuesday, a day to make a difference.

And, though you're surely inundated by pleas from this great organization and that terrific non-profit, let me tug a little at your heartstrings.

Since sometime in the last century, more than 18 years if you really want to know, I've worked at a small awesome unique tuition-free ballet school. In a nutshell (though we don't put on a Nutcracker), we audition kids in the NYC public schools, and we teach them to dance. And, so that training is frictionless, we have an on-site public school for our students, we help them with transportation, we provide an after school program for working families, and did I mention that there's no tuition for the ballet program? If I may say so myself, we do great work.

In order to conduct auditions, we rent cars - lots of Zipcars - and send teams of people out to the elementary schools. Over the course of a year, we'll audition about 30,000 kids - kids who would never otherwise get a chance to dance. Crunching down the numbers, it ends up costing us just under $13 for each kid that we audition.

Do you have $13 to spare? If so, we'll put it to good use.

Here's a link. It's really fast and easy.



Think of all the people who ask you to sponsor them in walk-a-thons or the like. This is my walk-a-thon. Thank you. Really, thank you so much.

Tzedakah, Tithing, Charitable Giving - Whatever You Want To Call It

I take our charitable giving seriously. We don't tithe, per se, and we don't have a tzedakah box - but then again, we're atheists and those two traditions are rooted in organized religion.

But still, the idea of taking a percentage of one's income and giving it to those who need it more is a good and honorable practice.

With the end of the year approaching, consider charitable contributions to local organizations. The local ones are often smaller and less able to fund the glossy direct mail pieces that are likely flooding into your mailbox packed with address labels and greeting cards. Consider instead:

• A local food pantry
• The homeless outreach program nearby
• The nearest animal shelter
• Your child's daycare center
• The amateur orchestra in your county
• The safe house for domestic violence victims in the next town
• Your village's volunteer ambulance corps

There's nothing wrong with the big guys, it's just that small non-profits often have to work a lot harder for the funds they raise, and will be enormously grateful to you for your donation, no matter how small.

I'm locally encouraging local giving via a series I wrote for our local on-line "paper". My impetus for the series was two-fold: 1) the annual start of the New York Times Neediest Cases fund drive, and 2) encountering a local non-profit at my farmers market that I'd never before heard of. I figured if the Times could encourage charity, and there were obscure non-profits in my very town, my local paper could and should shine a spotlight on our local organizations. Happily, the editor agreed.

So give locally this year, just like you shop locally and eat locally produced food. You can make a difference.

Chimp Sync

The end of the year project in the girl's second grade classroom was biography. Every kid was assigned a person to learn about - people across a historical spectrum, both living and dead. The kids made posters and gave presentations, and today was the Biography Breakfast, where they all went to school dressed as their subjects.

The girl had drawn Jane Goodall, so off she went in khaki pants, hiking boots and Daddy's Filson hat, along with a pair of binoculars and a notebook - totally ready for exploring chimpanzee habitats.

But that's not really the point.

In yesterday's mail we got a fundraising solicitation from - hello, synchronicity! - The Jane Goodall Institute. I was dumbstruck. Really. We've never sent them any money, and I have no idea where they got my name, especially because I always send cranky little notes like "Do Not Solicit More Than Once A Year" and "Do Not Rent Or Sell My Name To Others" back with the contributions I do make.

But I was pleased, none-the-less, yes, pleased to be asked for money. There was a glossy postcard of some chimps in the mailer, which the girl glommed onto and took to school with her. And I think I'll send a little gift off to The Jane Goodall Institute, in honor of the second grade teacher. Better than an end-of-the-year mug, right?

And what a perfect coincidence.

Pulling A The David Cook For Just Give

The estimable Aunt Becky is full of the awesome and the prankdom. First she brought the internet to its knees with that Pulling a John C. Mayer business (and I have no idea who John C. Mayer is, but no matter). Now she's giving away ice cream for Pulling A The David Cook. Pulling A The David Cook, you say? Who the hell is The David Cook? Who names their kid The?

Actually, who The David Cook is is not material to Pulling A The David Cook. What is material is Just Give, more properly the JustGive 10 Year Anniversary Promotion. Here's the thing. You want to Just Give to charity, right? Well, if you Just Give at least $10, via the JustGive 10 Year Anniversary Promotion, Just Give will add $10 to your gift. So Just Give, to the charity of your choice, and the JustGive 10 Year Anniversary Promotion will increase your donation by $10. And because the minimun that you can Just Give is $10, when the JustGive 10 Year Anniversary Promotion gives another $10 - it DOUBLES your gift! Just Give $10, but it's really $20. Win, win.

You might think that $10 is nothing, but it's not. For you, it's a couple of trips through the Starbucks drivethrough, but for your charitable recipient, it's 300 sheets of construction paper, or 40 pens, or 400 bandages. You know, real stuff that people need and use.  And I'm not just saying that. I work for a non-profit and we love every single tiny gift - because though one might seem insignificant, pretty soon you're talking real money.

So Just Give, now. Incidentally, Just Give is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. I suppose you could Just Give $10 to Just Give and they'd give themselves $10. Wait, that makes my head hurt. Pick your favorite charity and Just Give them $10.

Oh, and yes, I did. I just gave $10 to the organization for which I'm on the board, and I emailed everyone on the board to get them to do the same. If they all do, the organization gets an extra $180.

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To get the extra $10 given to your charity, you have to use this link:

http://www.justgive.org/10years

Other terms and conditions are:

• Donations made from October 10 through October 20, 2010 qualify for a $10 match.
• Only one donation per charity per donor qualify for a $10 match.
• Only donations made through http://www.justgive.org/10year qualify for a $10 match.
• Charity gift card purchases do not qualify for a $10 match.
• Only the initial recurring donation qualifies for a $10 match.
• Donations will only be matched up to the $10,000 total gift.

The Distribution of the Thousand Dimes

Remember how I asked you to vote on four charities, each of which would receive a share of $100 based on the percentage of votes received?

I wrote the checks:

Edna Hospital = $24

Partners In Health = $31

Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen = $33

Nothing But Nets = $12

And then I sent another check to the Henry Louis Granju Memorial Scholarship Fund, because Henry's story breaks my heart.

A Grand

It is, this post, my thousandth.

To celebrate, I'm going to give away two things:

1) A copy of the best book I've read in years: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. It's so good that I want to share - it's social and medical history all intertwined with racism, poverty, philosophy, morality and family, in a book that reads like a thriller. All you have to do is leave a comment by the end of the day on Friday 5/28; I used a random number generator to pick Stimey who will get a brand-spanking-new copy. And hey, if I don't didn't pick you, I love you anyway and go find a copy at your library or bookstore.

2) One thousand dimes (because I'm not flush enough to give away one thousand dollars) - allocated amongst the following charities. You get to vote and it's not winner gets all - each charity will get the dollar equivalent of the percentage of votes so 17% of the votes gets $17.

• Edna Hospital - a maternity hospital providing reproductive health care and fistula repair in Somaliland.
• Partners In Health - a Boston-based medical organization "partnering with poor communities to combat disease and poverty"; they've been on the ground in Haiti for years.
• Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen - they feed 1200 people a day, no questions asked, in Manhattan.
• Nothing But Nets - a UN Foundation program to provide bed nets to combat malaria.

A thousand thanks to all of you, for being here, for reading, for indulging, and for enriching my life.

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Tell Me How To Allocate My Dimes:

Cell Phones For Domestic Violence

The other day, BlogHer threw a party in NYC. It turned out that that same day was also "It's Time to Talk about Domestic Violence" Day. I learned about this from someone I met at that holiday party.

Today, in an effort to clean house and do the right thing, I googled to find out how to get rid of some old cellphones that were kicking around.

In a flash of synchronicity, one of the first sites I found was for the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Bang zoom - the phones were in a postage paid box waiting for my mailman - to be either refurbished for use, or recycled. Out of the landfill, and repurposed for good.

From the Rain Comes Hope

It's overcast again, just like it was last year. Actually, it's more than overcast; it's raining and drizzling, stopping and starting. And once again, I'm glad that it's not that shockingly brilliant bright blue sky punctuated by smoke and horror.

This past April, President Obama signed legislation to recognize September 11 as a federally observed National Day of Service and Remembrance. How does one participate?

Just set aside a little time this 9/11 to plan or perform at least one good deed that helps someone else who may need assistance, or to support a cause that you care about. You choose.

As my contribution, I'd like to first point you towards the August Just Posts, as rounded up by Holly and Alejna. As ever, they've compiled some good posts to read, including, if I may pat myself on the back, my post about the cost of a colonoscopy.

Second, if you missed it, there was a special issue of the New York Times Magazine last month, focused on women, and "how changing the lives of women and girls in the developing world can change everything". The centerpiece was an article by Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, excerpted from their new book Half the Sky.

There’s a growing recognition among everyone from the World Bank to the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to aid organizations like CARE that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism. That’s why foreign aid is increasingly directed to women. The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution.

Kristof and Wu, helpfully, included a sidebar labeled Do-It-Yourself Foreign Aid, and so, in the spirit of this National Day of Service and Remembrance, I am going to send a donation to the Friends of Edna Maternity Hospital, in support of the Edna Hospital in Somaliland, and with the hope of helping to alleviate obstetric fistula.

How will you participate?

A Just Post Call For Help

Those fine Just Post women are hanging up their hats this week. For the final Roundtable, they put out this query:

Dear Readers, What say you? Are you a pragmatist or a Heart of Gold? Or are you some other kind of hybrid altogether? Will you join us in becoming an ongoing financial supporter of a cause you believe in? Will you write about it on your blogs or in your tweets? Will you help to raise money AND the profile of organizations that desperately need aid?

And that's what we are asking for as our farewell gift. Send us your link by the 8th and we'll include it in our last Just Post Roundtable on the 12th.

I've always worked for non-profits. Always. Except for stints at Publisher's Clearing House during summers in college, or part-time at a law firm while in graduate school, all of my employers have been non-profit arts organizations in New York City. All four of them (yes, four jobs in 22 years, I put down roots) have depended on the kindness of individuals (and corporations and foundations and government) for on-going support - because even though there's always a bit of earned income, it's never enough.

Can I tell you how much we appreciate that help? We really really do. Even a check for $5 means something - because that person took the time to sit down and write a check for $5, and put a stamp on the envelope, and dropped the contribution in the mailbox. And that $5 is going to be good for something - it'll buy some socks or a ream of paper. And if 13 people give us $5 each, we can buy a pair of pointe shoes for a twelve year old girl, who would never otherwise have the chance to dance. And 100 gifts of $5 - hey, that's $500 - pretty soon you're talking real money.

Opening up the return envelopes from our end of year campaign is one of the high points of my job, and it's not even my job. I just pitch in and help because I really like opening envelopes with checks in them, especially the ones from people just like you and me. Sure, a big check from a swank foundation is fun too, especially when it's for five or six figures, but the little ones really tug at the heartstrings.

As a result, I take my own personal charitable giving seriously. It's certainly not a lot of money - I haven't got a lot of money - but I try and spread it around to places where it seems like it'll do the most good, and that mean something to me.

In 2008, I made cash contributions to 34 different organizations (and dropped some stuff at the local thrift shop which benefits the American Cancer Society). One organization got three separate gifts, but that's because I'm on the board and there were several campaigns and an event. A few gifts were made because of specific requests by friends or acquaintances (like walk-a-thons, or the $50 gift to Rockefeller University requested in lieu of a present by a friend who turned 50). Others were completely local (the volunteer fire department, the library, the volunteer ambulance corp, the nearby hospital).

Some gifts were made as a result of news items. After the Hurricane Ike, I sent a bit to the Austin Food Bank. The Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen was profiled in the New Yorker; they got a gift. Planned Parenthood got a contribution in memory of Sarah Palin. And I sent a bit to CIMIT after reading an article in the Times about their project to build incubators out of car parts.

Of the 34 organizations, 16 were repeat gifts - I've given to them one or more times in the past five years. I give to my college every year. On my birthday - which is just before the end of the calendar (tax) year, I send the New York Times Neediest Cases Fund my age in dollars. This year, they got $48. Next year, it'll be $49.

Oh, and I have rules. I always slip a note in the envelope asking that they not add me to their list, and that they don't solicit me more than once a year. If they fail to respect that, or if they don't send me a thank you note, I blacklist them.

I'm not telling you this to toot my own horn. I'm telling you this because a little here and a little there adds up, and giving becomes part of your life.

The Just Posts have been a wonderful spotlight on causes that move people, on issues of justice across the board, from access to health care to poverty to volunteering. And so in honor of one of the women who founded the Just Posts Roundtable, my first contribution in 2009 was a modest gift to an organization that helps the homeless.

You can help too. $5 really can make a difference.

Healthy Eating

So, the child came home from school with a packet of "work", with a cover sheet that read:

The kindergarten classes had their first Health rotation. We learned about nutrition and how to keep ourselves safe and healthy.

Included was a page on which the child was to have drawn a healthy meal. I'm not sure what they're teaching because on that plate, counter-clockwise from the left, is butter, pasta, grapes, potato, and Tylenol.


Yes, those two pink things under the potato? Apparently, Tylenol is part of a healthy meal. Who knew?  (Let's not discuss the fact that the grapes are bigger than the potato, and there's no protein on the plate.)

Today - 15 October - is Blog Action Day and this year's theme is poverty. Notwithstanding the fact that my child doesn't seem to know what constitutes a healthy meal, she does have enough to eat. There are people, many people, who don't get enough to eat. It's a global problem and a local one.

In NYC, the posh and glittering home of dozens of Michelin-starred restaurants, 1.3 million people rely on soup kitchens and food pantries. To help some more people eat better, I will make a contribution to the Food Bank for New York of $1 for every comment made here before midnight EST tonight.  I don't know how many comments I get on average, but I know it's never been as many as 50 even though I regularly have more than 50 visitors a day.  So, lurkers, come out of the closet and help feed the hungry.  Regulars, be sure and comment today - it's for a good cause.

Another Idea for Donating Books

I've become very impulsive about making donations and responding to requests. When Oh, The Joys posted last month about sending books to a school library in New Orleans, I was on it in a flash. And an oddly similar request came to me the other day, when I got an email from a friend, forwarding on an email from a friend of his, soliciting books for a Navajo library. I promptly bundled up a handful of kid's books - all new but duplicates of ones we already had - and will mail the package tomorrow. And I asked Mark to ask his friend if I could publish her letter. She agreed, so it's below. Can you help too?

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This fall, I found out that the Navajo Nation Library System was able to get space and staff for a new branch in Kayenta, Arizona. Back in 1980, I worked as librarian for the Navajo Nation for three years, and we had a small library in Window Rock, and a smaller branch in Navajo, New Mexico. It was always a dream to add on more branches, but money for libraries is hard to get on the reservation. The Bureau of Indian Affairs didn’t consider public libraries to be within its domain, so it would not fund the libraries, leaving it up to the tribe to find the money. And money was always scarce.

We held fundraisers as much as we could, selling mutton stew and fry bread at events, and holding Christmas craft shows. We had a friends group that helped out, and people were generous with book donations. And that helped us get more books into people’s hands and hearts. We also faced three disastrous floods during my years there, and many more building-related catastrophes after my term. When I left to take another job, Irving Nelson became director, and under his 25 years of management, the library finally got a nice building, space, staff, and is now providing a wealth of services, including summer reading programs, special collections of Navajo history you cannot find anywhere else, and computer access to the Internet.

Irving and I have kept in touch, and I was happy to hear he was finally able to get space donated to open a new branch in Kayenta. He’s been scrambling to get furniture and staffing, and of course, books.

Here’s a photo of Irving getting ready to unload the furniture that was donated by ANEW. And here’s one of Trina, the new staff person for Kayenta, and Irving, taking a break.

When I asked how I could help, he said that getting a good collection of children’s books was the most important thing on his list, since he didn’t get additional funding to buy more books for this new branch.

So here’s your chance to help. It’s easy. Go down to your local book store, and find a kid’s book – a colorful picture book, an easy reader, maybe a kid’s science book or natural history or historical book. Something new and colorful – think “what would be really attractive to kids, what would they like to read, what would keep them coming back to the library?” Buy it, wrap it in a box for mailing, and mail it to:

Mr. Irving Nelson, Program Supervisor
Office of Navajo Nation Library
P.O. Box 9040
Window Rock, Arizona 86515

Or if you need a physical address (like for UPS):

Mr. Irving Nelson, Program Supervisor
Office of Navajo Nation Library
Az Highway 264
Post Office Loop Road
Window Rock, Arizona 86515

Include a note, seal it up, and pat yourself on the back. The kids will appreciate it. I have sugarplum visions of Irving needing a pickup truck to bring back the boxes from the post office.

Thanks for reading this, and thank you even more if you decide to play along with me on this.

You can find out more about the library and its services here, and if you want to get in touch with Irving
Nelson directly, he’s at irvingnelson@navajo.org. If you would like to send a check, please make it out to the Friends of the Navajo Nation Library.

I've started a wish list at Amazon.com of great books to buy. Go here for book ideas!

(One last word -- Please DON'T send Irving and his staff your old books, your great collections of National Geographics, or those computer manuals on your desk. Trust me when I tell you that they had at least three sets of National Geographic when I left, and I can just imagine how many there are now. We are looking to build a fresh exciting collection, one that tempts kids to come in and stay. Thanks!)

13 Ways to Help

For many people, the impending end of the calendar year is impetus to take out the checkbook and give to charity - to get that deduction into this tax year. And it dovetails nicely with the coincident spirit of giving that surrounds Christmas and Hanukkah (and Kwanzaa, though I'm not much of an expert there).

Need inspiration? Here are thirteen ideas:

1. Last week, Oh The Joys wrote about visiting New Orleans, and about how one could help rebuild the Singleton Elementary School's library. It's easy - buy a book via their Amazon wishlist - it'll get mailed directly to the school. Books for kids - what could be better?

2. A whole mess of food bloggers are having a fundraiser for the UN World Food Programme - with a twist. For every $10 you donate to Menu For Hope, you get a virtual raffle ticket toward your choice of prize.

3. Instead of a donation, make a microloan. For small businesses in developing countries, a loan of $25 or $100 can be a real help in getting going and reaching sustainability. There are a handful of "banks" out there connecting lenders and borrowers - one that I've participated with is Kiva.

4. Your local food bank could probably use help - this article from the New York Times explains why. Do you have non-perishable food items that you could spare? Or give them a check and let them put it to the best use.

5. Last spring I wrote about two healthcare organizations in Africa, both tending to mothers with a childbirth injury called obstetric fistula - the Edna Hospital in Somalia and the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia. They both have US based non-profit organizations, so your contributions are tax deductible.

6. DonorsChoose lets you direct your contribution very specifically - to a classroom project of a teacher's devising. I've contributed to two: "Dance Classroom Needs Ballet Barres" and "Building Self Esteem Through Music and Movement". Poke around, you might find something that pushes your buttons.

7. Cancer feels omnipresent these days - despite Richard Nixon's 1971 declaration of war on cancer. This year, I've given to the American Cancer Society (by sponsoring my sister at her local Relay for Life, and by donating old clothes to my local thrift shop), to the Pan-Mass Challenge, to Susan J. Komen For The Cure (supporting WhyMommy's walkathon), and to Joan's Legacy. Likely you know someone with cancer - maybe a donation to a cancer support or cancer research organization is the one for you.

8. Schools are an easy one. I give to my college every year, because I'm a happy alumna. I also support my child's non-profit daycare, because they do a wonderful job taking care of and teaching my child.

9. Since moving to the suburbs a few years ago, I've been spending a little more time in the car. Also, we finally got our clock radio fixed. All of this means that we listen to the radio more than we used to. So I've started donating to the local public radio station. Mine's WNYC. But yours probably needs support too.

10. Doctors without Borders does a great job of providing medical care to people who need it - often in war-torn, famine-struck countries.

11. If you want a bit of whimsy with your contribution, give someone a goat! Heifer International takes care of the actual goat procurement, but you get to sleep better at night knowing that some family has a goat because of you.

12. Planned Parenthood is a really good organization, doing really important work. Lots of people have a knee-jerk reaction that Planned Parenthood is all about abortions. In fact, if their family planning and women's health care services weren't around, there'd be a lot more abortions. Bitch PhD says it better than I can - be sure to read her post. If you'd rather help pregnant women, an article in the Times last month profiled the San Francisco Homeless Prenatal Program.

13. Last but not least, look around at your local community. Before the year is out, I'll likely send a check to the local volunteer ambulance corps (with fingers crossed that I'll never need them), the local volunteer fire department (ditto) and the nearby hospital (where a kindly postpartum nurse gave me spare parts for my Medela pump at 8:00 on a Saturday morning right after we moved in and I'd had an accident with the kitchen sink - and, no, I hadn't given birth there).

Okay, open your checkbooks!

Just Post(s)

I submitted my Kristof Led Donations post to the roundup of March Just Posts, which has just been posted. Go check out some of the others.

Kristof Led Donations

I've just realized that, thus far this year, most of my charitable giving has been either very close to home (my kid's daycare, the non-profit I work for), or prompted by a Times column written by Nick Kristof.

At the end of February, he had a heartrending column about a childbirth injury called obstetric fistula (sorry, Times Select). I promptly sent small gifts to the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia (video link), and to the Edna Hospital in Somalia (video link). I hope that others did too.

Last week, he had a column about microfinance, with a spotlight on a small organization that matchmakes little loans. In just a few minutes, I used my Paypal account to send a $25 loan to a woman in Kenya with a small general store. My $25 was the last of the money she'd requested; I hope that it helps her to accomplish the goals she's set out.

Depending on what Kristof decides to write about next, I could be broke by the end of the year!




Note: The Kiva widget above doesn't show the person that I lent money to - since she's now fully funded, the Kiva widget will rotate amongst others seeking funds.