This year, I did a little charitable giving to various places like Modest Needs, Make A Wish Foundation, and Doctors Without Borders. Along with that were donations to Goodwill to clean stuff out of my house.
In DC, it’s all about the Combined Federal Campaign, or CFC. It’s a side effort for government employees to give to charity. This includes civil and military employees, as well as the USPS, even though they’re not a full government agency anymore, but a quasi one.
At any rate, I don’t work for the government so I don’t participate in the CFC. But my firm does have a formal giving program with regular payroll deductions. There is a theme this year for local communities and environment. I struggled with this for a while. Initially, I picked four-five charities:
American Red Cross
Doctors Without Borders
Heifer International (because they offer sheep and bunnies for spinning and knitting!)
Arlington Free Clinic (public health clinic)
Arlington Food Assistance Center (a food bank)
In the end, it was really hard because all the charities do valuable work, but I decided that I would stick really close to home and give only to the free clinic and the food bank for 2009. It will be the most money I’ve ever donated in one year, and quite possibly for the last 5 years combined. I know I’m doing this partly because I get to do it through work, but also because I can give to two local causes I believe in. I still have friends who are under insured and I can see them easily needing the services of the free clinic, or even a bag of groceries from the food bank. It’s better maybe for me to mention these places than offer my friends money if ever they need a helping hand.
What about you? Even though the economy is slowing down, are you thinking of stepping up your giving this year and/or next?
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I’m still giving to a local food provider once a month. They probably have a higher demand lately.
We have started an Endowed Scholarship in memory of my girlfriends father at her local high school.
I upped my charitable contributions from “random” mode (aka $5 here, $10 there), to making it a point to contribute at least $25 each month.
This is the 2nd month so far, and i’ve been able to find some worthy causes from bloggers writing about them