This is one of the charities supported by my business. 100% of all donations to THE LINK are used for direct support to Niger.

http://www.africanmothers.org/

One of the board members spends most of her time in Africa, working as a nurse and working for the charity in her free time. Her blog is amazing and moving –

http://babycatching.blogspot.com/

And, something that is very important to me when giving to a charity – 98% of donations are going to the projects in Africa. No large charity overhead to support.

Learn more at http://www.childsplaycharity.org/about.php

They are a nonprofit charity based out of Vancouver, Canada and their goal is to provide quality primary education to every single child in Ethiopia by 2020.

It’s a huge goal, but their model is great because 100% of any donation, whether it be 1 dollar to 1 million dollars, goes directly to the schools and students in Ethiopia. Not a lot of organizations can say 100% of what’s given actually goes to the cause. http://www.imagine1day.org

What they put up front is that that YOUR loan is interest free (and this phrase “interest free” is all over their press materials — it’s promoted). This interest fee loan is not to the individual in need but to the microfinance middle-man. This isn’t the end of the world, but, it’s unfortunate that people often make loans thinking it’s a direct relationship, and, that no interest is being charged.

I contacted them to complain. They said they worked to make their organization as transparent as possible. Nothing has changed on their site.

I second Partners in Health.

I don’t know about the other lists, but the Sick Kids one is definitely inclusive — games and systems and accessories, books, music, and movies. I discovered Rockabye’s lullaby versions of AC/DC through that list.

A common complaint is that aid to the developing world does not work (indeed, it often doesn’t, and many at-home programs are also fairly useless). GiveWell does a very thorough job of evaluating charities, not based on what percentage “administrative costs” they have (a silly metric), but based on how much net cost they have per life saved (or operation performed, etc).

Based in part on GiveWell’s recommendations my husband and I, to celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary, donated 4% of our annual income for this year to a set of ten charities (Doctors without borders, Fistula Foundation, Fred Hollows Foundation, GiveWell, Hunger Project, Interplast, Oxfam, Partners in Health, Stop Tuberculosis, VillageReach). I encourage everyone to give! But give to the places that are the most efficient. :-) I believe together we really can end suffering due to global poverty if we all chip in.

Peter Singer’s 2006 NYTimes essay is a good read. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/magazine/17charity.t.html

I’m sorry I didn’t see this conversation earlier, I really wish I had. I think we have a moral obligation to try hard to ensure that our donated dollars do actual good, not merely make us feel good.

Micro loans of at least $25, pooled together to enable people to start or extend their business, getting them out of poverty through work. You choose which projects you want to support, anything from market stands, sewing collective, etc.

Loans are paid back over time, and you can then either re-loan, possibly add some more cash, donate, or just take your money out again.

I’ll just put one I like here, which is probably fairly well known: Central Asian Institute, by the guy who wrote Three Cups of Tea.

The CAI builds schools in countries like Afghanistan. The schools are mostly built by the people in the villages, so the people have pride in them and don’t allow them to get bombed by the Taliban. The schools obviously improve education, but also women’s standing in these countries.

I think Nicholas Kristoff has said something to the effect that if Greg Mortenson were to use the money being spent on the Afghan war to build schools instead, the country would already be at peace.

http://www.mitzvahheroesfund.org

carefully selected non-profits in the USA, Israel and around the world that meet the ‘efficient and effective’ criteria of using funding….

I’ve always admired their principles of helping people help both themselves and others, much like Habitat for Humanity but less well known.

cbldf.org

Defending the Comic Industry’s first amendment rights since 1986!

Also, I’d heartily second the mention of Kiva.org above. Fine, fine people doing a wonderful thing.

Oh, and many thanks for lifting up the HoHoTO link too. Yay!

Also, add another vote for Medicins Sans Frontiers.

http://www.safepassage.org

In Hebrew the word for charity is “tzedakah”. It doesn’t translate directly, though. The word stems from the root TZDK, which means justice. Similarly, “mitzvah”, which is a good deed, comes the root MTVH, meaning commandment. More accurate definitions of the English terms, I think.

Please note I am not doing this to solicit donations but did not see the charity on the list! As a concerned citizen in the UK I will be donating my Christmas present money to Open Rights Group, NO2ID and Liberty.

I watched this charity grow from nothing, created at a kitchen table by one feisty and determined friend fed up with pulling her hair out with frustration at how hard it was to get clear, useful information when her daughter was diagnosed with learning difficulties. Now it is not only a clearing house for all the best and most current thinking in the field, it’s VERY Boing Boing: through conferences and global outreach it pulls together interested parties in wildly differing disciplines from across the whole spectrum, from the mainstream to the maverick, on the principle that when it comes to helping people, and especially children, the best idea should always, always win, no matter who had it, or where it comes from.

It’s close to realising its dream of setting up its first one-stop-shop centres (literal bricks-and-mortar Mind Rooms) so that parents and children and adults can easily get the clear advice and practical help that the founder had to fight so hard to to get for her own kid…

On a personal note, I support these guys because;

a) you can’t NOT be impressed seeing friends build something so globally positive out of personal adversity with extraordinaRy determination coupled with an unfailing sense of humour.

b) because I lucked out in life: I had a great education and had no obstacles to comprehension or processing that education (other than my own tendency to daydreaming and looking out the window which, since I write fiction for a living, turns out to have been a pretty damn useful grounding anyway…): long story short: my hardware unboxed and plugged in just fine. Even more of a blessing, my two kids don’t have to fight a learning difficulty either. They lucked out too – but 1 in 20 children are born with brains that don’t unbox and plug in glitch-free: Mindroom is aiming to provide tech support for them and their parents, without the annoying call-centre experience.

Happy Holidays Boingpeople. And thanks for providing the best catch-all opportunity for displacement activity on the known web….

This is not to belittle the work they do- just don’t be shocked that you haven’t actually lent money to a specific person.

Now I still use Charity Navigator, but only for bookkeeping purposes. However, I do regret that it is more difficult to make donations anonymously now.