Charity

luvflyin

luvflyin

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Luvflyin
Looking for ideas of Charities to contribute to. No, I ain't giving to you, but give it your best shot:)
 
aviation related or general?
 
The mission of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is to advance cures, and means of prevention, for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research and treatment. Consistent with the vision of our founder Danny Thomas, no child is denied treatment based on race, religion or a family's ability to pay.
 
My personal motto is "Be a Force of Positive Change in Your Community."

Therefore, I'm a huge fan of local charities. Even if there's a national umbrella organization, there may be a regional, state, or even county-based 'chapter.'

Locally, I am a huge fan of Meals On Wheels: contribute money and volunteer my time. They're a-political. And while not in this state, my grandmother used to volunteer for them and later received their generosity.

I'll stop the list there - you probably know best what causes you wish to promote and which you do not want to support.
 
Not aviation related: The Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, MA. Small group punching way, way over its weight producing basic science for medicine.

-Skip
 
Money to your local food bank and blood or platelets to your local blood bank both tangibly benefit people nearby. Lots of other options out there.
 
One of my friends started The Warrior Bonfire Program. I've been more active in it each year. It's a great organization and is making a difference in the lives of service members who have given up their personal health and happiness for our freedoms.

http://warriorbonfireprogram.org/
 
SPCA! I know the one I work at survives entirely on donations. The small adoption fees don't even cover the vet bill they run up. Myself and 5 other great people do a hard job for ****ty pay to care for a 150ish animals a day. Make sure they are safe healthy and exercised. Make sure they have a clean place to sleep and eat. It is the lowest paying job I've had since highschool, but I absolutely love working there.

215 puppies, just so far in 2019 have come through our shelter, been cared for until they got homes. That doesn't include the older dogs, kittens and cats that we've also adopted out.
 
Guide Dogs of Texas. They provide guide Dogs free of charge to visually impaired Texans.
 
I like to donate locally.
That way, I usually know the people involved, can go see the effort they put into it, and results of their work, get a feel for wastage, in our small town we can usually find out what the ED is earning.
Also they are among the neediest of organizations, they don't often get bequeathed a million bucks like most of the national organizations.
It seems like CharityNavigator and others do not have the inside scoop on the big guys so I no longer trust their info.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I like to donate locally.
That way, I usually know the people involved, can go see the effort they put into it, and results of their work, get a feel for wastage, in our small town we can usually find out what the ED is earning.
Also they are among the neediest of organizations, they don't often get bequeathed a million bucks like most of the national organizations.
It seems like CharityNavigator and others do not have the inside scoop on the big guys so I no longer trust their info.
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At Guidestar.org you can get the tax returns of charities. Assuming they are truthful, that gives you an idea of how they run their operations financially.
 
We donate to local rescue organizations that we personally know. We usually have flown cats, dogs or foxes :D for them.

If you look in your area, I am sure you will find a lot of local rescues / charities, that are in need of support. If you need suggestions in Michigan, Kentucky or North Carolina, let me know. :)
 
Hello, Mr. Gift Horse. Don't mind me looking in your mouth, but here I go just the same. What is important to you? Donate to that! But maybe you have done that, and want to know what we think is important. That's cool.

I tend towards religious organizations that reach out beyond their congregations, after I interact with them a bit, just to get a sense of who they are. Not so worried about publicly available accounting practices, just want to know if they are good people making an honest effort to help others.

So, towards that end, this weekend I finally participated in the Tangier Island Holly Run. after years of trying to align my schedule to theirs. It was started as an effort to get greens to the island 51 years ago, it has grown to getting money and supplies (plus the greens) to those on the island doing their best to help the elderly and the young.

Before our visit Saturday, I donated a bit of money to Swain Memorial Church, 16152 Main St, P.O. Box 199, Tangier, VA 23440 and bought and brought suggested supplies for the school, because that seemed right.

After returning from our visit to Tangier, having walked around the island, and interacting with the people there, including a festive Christmas service of sorts at their church, I donated a bit more.

If you are looking to help good people doing their best to help those they live with, throw them a couple shekels.
 
+1 on helping Cloud 9 Rescues (aka Ted!)

Think about your priorities.

Mine, in order, are curing cancer, helping children, and helping doggies.
 
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My sister works for Mission Aviation Fellowship, if you call to donate there is a good chance she will be the one answering the phone.

I have helped a few of their pilots with training to meet their requirement to join them.

Brian
 
PTSD Foundation of America - ptsdusa.org


Support for Veterans suffering from PTSD through treatment and training, including emergency housing and an intensive on-site program. They are trying to prevent some of the 22 Veteran suicides that happen every day.
 
If you really want to see your money make a difference and get put to work I’d head down to the local strip club.
 
I usually go to the gentlemen's club, and tip Charity $5 for a lap dance.
 
Anything but The United Way. Why anyone would donate to an organization that is nothing more than another level of overhead is beyond my comprehension. And how they managed to become the sole charity supported by so many corporations is, again, beyond my comprehension. Because they're the easy choice, I guess...

My charities of choice are:

The Salvation Army
Heifer International
SPCA
and
The local dog shelters
oh...
and St LouisClassicRock.com ;)
 
Clip4 said:
The mission of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is to advance cures, and means of prevention, for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research and treatment. Consistent with the vision of our founder Danny Thomas, no child is denied treatment based on race, religion or a family's ability to pay.
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I donate to the Ronald McDonald house.

I met a Mother and her young child once on a flight and she was taking him to Johns Hopkins for treatment. She told me he wouldn't live a long life, but they were trying to make his remaining life better. It hit me pretty hard.

When I arrived at the airport for my return flight, I looked over to see the same Mother and child. They were on the same flight as me again and it was delayed due to weather! The little boy and I sat and watched airplanes while the Mom took a much needed nap. She told me he never let anyone hold him except for her, but he took a liking to me. She was very thankful and I found someone who liked watching planes as much as I do.

Find something that touches your heart, I did.
 
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St. Vincent de Paul. There's probably a chapter local to you. They are affiliated with the Catholic Church. Helps people financially, and also counsels them on how they can help themselves, esp. financially.

My wife organizes and runs a Thanksgiving Dinner for the less fortunate every year, as a St. Vincent de Paul outreach event. We feed between 350 and 400 on the Sat. before Thanksgiving. They also hand out toothbrushes, toothpaste, and candy, plus let them take food home with them.
 
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The old saying, "Charity begins at home", tends to get me to donate and volunteer at local charities. I can see the results directly in the community.
 
Clip4 said:
The mission of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is to advance cures, and means of prevention, for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research and treatment. Consistent with the vision of our founder Danny Thomas, no child is denied treatment based on race, religion or a family's ability to pay.
Click to expand...
Agree, Saint Jude is very much worthy of donation.
 
timwinters said:
Anything but The United Way. Why anyone would donate to an organization that is nothing more than another level of overhead is beyond my comprehension. And how they managed to become the sole charity supported by so many corporations is, again, beyond my comprehension. Because they're the easy choice, I guess...
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What I've found as President of a small non-profit is that it's very hard to get large corporations to donate. Ultimately for a big corporation I see that they tend to want some level of recognition for their good deeds donating. At some companies, I've heard that your ability to get promoted is tied to your donations to the company's United Way program (fortunately that's not been the case anywhere I've worked).

Part of getting that public recognition is having something that's "low-risk" in terms of that recognition, at least that's how it's looked at (I don't personally agree). United Way fits that since their programs, while fairly blasé, are ones that it's harder for someone to say "Well that's a dumb thing to donate money to" (I've had many people tell me that flying dogs, for example, is stupid). Then these things follow. So since so many big corporations use the United Way, they then keep on going.

For the record, out of the three companies I've worked for while running Cloud Nine, zero of them have made donations. My last company had an employee match program where they would match your donations up to a certain amount, provided you didn't financially benefit (i.e. take a salary). Since I don't receive a salary from Cloud Nine, I made a few donations that they matched.
 
I usually like to keep it local, myself, but some years ago when we raised some money in a raffle at a paramotor meet just after hurricane Katrina we decided to send it to that relief effort. I did some research and found that the Salvation Army had the highest percentage of donations going to the actual work, as opposed to others (e.g. United Way) where most of the money goes to running the organization, so that's where it went.
 
Thanks all for your input. In addition to the national and international ones I already donate to I have looked locally based on the 'think globally, act locally' recommendations here. And I have found aviation related ones.
 
I remember Charity..

Straw berry blonde, freckles, slim, most memorable 10 weeks I spent with someone I knew I would never see again.
 
For some reason I’ve always felt my charity should be anonymous. We do shill for Ted occasionally on social media but otherwise we’ve never said who or what we donate to.

Just a thing for me I suppose. But this thread is awesome.

About as far as I’ll go is to say I was doing some finance work late at night earlier this year and noticed we had given to one particular charity consistently every month for 30 years. That made me smile. Didn’t skip a beat during good times and bad. That check went first. Because no matter how bad things were for us, it was harder for the people that charity serves.

Mainly we do it because charity comes from thankfulness and satisfaction with what you have, knowing it’s far more than so many that we simply give. I don’t need another gadget or kitchen appliance or whatever to make me happy. Looking at that data in the budget made me much more satisfied with life than anything else we’ve ever purchased.

I suspect many of you feel the same, reading this thread.

I only ever use that data in anger for one reason. When someone appears to want “someone else” (be that government or whoever) to take care of others and it doesn’t look like they give themselves AND they claim that people don’t give.

I’ve put my money where my mouth is and said people do give and I’ll provide records and if they have beat my charity level this year, I’ll donate $100 to their chosen charity as long as it doesn’t go against any of my morals or principles. If it does, they can choose another or I’ll send them proof I gave to someone.

One person here on PoA took that challenge and won the $100 long ago and I respect them greatly for their work for their chosen charity. I misjudged and happily wrote the check. I was wrong about them and I keep promises like that. They’re not idle words.

(This was back in the spin zone days and the discussion came out of a side discussion of politics. I’m sure to this day that person and I will never ever agree on politics, but that’s below charity by a mile. If they give of their time and money from the heart and I also do, the world is better for others. I’m totally cool with sending their charity money for losing that bet.)

Many people are quietly better than anyone thinks they are. And they want to be quiet. And I like that. Very much.

Great thread.

I get easily annoyed with folks who complain some bejillionaire didn’t give ENOUGH of what they earned. That’s another pet peeve.

“He gave two BILLION to charity this year alone.”

“Yeah but he has hundreds!”

“Let me know when your philanthropy catches up to his.”

LOL. Seriously... I always love those. With air quotes around “love”. Hahaha. Some people will complain if you beat them with a new stick.

Nice stuff y’all. Be good.
 
denverpilot said:
For some reason I’ve always felt my charity should be anonymous. We do shill for Ted occasionally on social media but otherwise we’ve never said who or what we donate to.
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Great post @denverpilot
I feel the same way.

My FIL is quite wealthy and he does give to a lot of charities, although the only thing of value I ever got from him was his daughter.

But there are two things about him that really annoy me.

First is although he gives a great deal to charity, he always make sure he gets recognition. He at least gets a plaque in his name at places like the local YMCA or Humane society. More blatantly, he arranges to have his picture in the local paper when he contributes to places like the homeless shelter or when he attends local fund raisers.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate and admire his generosity, but the second thing that annoys me is that he is always asking me how much and to whom I have donated, while insinuating that I don't "give back" enough. One night at dinner at my house, he was extolling his donation to the local Museum of Arts and Sciences and in his accusing tone asked if I had given to them. I said no, but I pulled out my phone and pulled up my mobile banking app and showed him where I recently gave an even larger amount to the UCB (United Cerbral Palsy) foundation. I also reminded him that over the years, our veterinary clinic has donated many thousands of dollars worth of time and services to the humane society.
 
denverpilot said:
For some reason I’ve always felt my charity should be anonymous. We do shill for Ted occasionally on social media but otherwise we’ve never said who or what we donate to.
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"When you give alms, do not let your right hand know what your left hand is doing" has always rung strong for me. That's probably part of why Cloud Nine hasn't grown or been more successful than it is. If I actually could afford to do this myself, I would do so and I wouldn't talk about it much at all. Talking about it is hard for me to do.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
"When you give alms, do not let your right hand know what your left hand is doing" has always rung strong for me. That's probably part of why Cloud Nine hasn't grown or been more successful than it is. If I actually could afford to do this myself, I would do so and I wouldn't talk about it much at all. Talking about it is hard for me to do.
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There's a difference between "talking about it" to make a cause visible to others that might find themselves interested in donating to it, and "talking about it" to boast about good works.

Another idea:

I remember talking to my kids about some money they had "come into", it wasn't much, but it was enough to think about what to do with it. There are several schools of thought: Save x%, spend y%, give away z% and the x, y, and z values vary depending on who you listen to. At the time, they were in their final year(s) of college, so giving away z% was going to be hard to swallow. One of the ideas we tossed around was to work with their high school and create a scholarship. There wouldn't be much in the way of an endowment to create a self-sustaining scholarship, but a hundred dollars or so could always help a kid who's trying to plan a way to put him or herself through college.
 
Matthew said:
There's a difference between "talking about it" to make a cause visible to others that might find themselves interested in donating to it, and "talking about it" to boast about good works.

Another idea:

I remember talking to my kids about some money they had "come into", it wasn't much, but it was enough to think about what to do with it. There are several schools of thought: Save x%, spend y%, give away z% and the x, y, and z values vary depending on who you listen to. At the time, they were in their final year(s) of college, so giving away z% was going to be hard to swallow. One of the ideas we tossed around was to work with their high school and create a scholarship. There wouldn't be much in the way of an endowment to create a self-sustaining scholarship, but a hundred dollars or so could always help a kid who's trying to plan a way to put him or herself through college.
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If a hundred people give a hundred dollars, that would go a fair distance in supporting an existing endowment fund.
 
It is an ongoing issue with our chapter's youth program. We have been unable to procure additional funding and may be forced to shut the program down in the coming year. We have had three of our youths achieve their private pilot certificates through the program and two others have reached solo stage. Of the three that got certificates, one is now flying helicopters for the Navy, one is enrolled in a state college to continue his training and one is still a HS senior but has already gotten his IR. For those three, the chapter spent approx $3,000 on each of them. We rent a C-150 for $75 an hour and have a CFI that volunteers time.

Attempts at getting funding have been by applying via company websites. We really have to get folks to come out to the airport and see the program in operation to understand what we are accomplishing.
 
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