Giving to Charities:

What Your Money Can Do:

• $35 a hand pump for drinking water
• $50 provides high energy food for a malnourished child for 30 days
• $75 purify 52,000 gallons of water
• $100 seeds and farming equipment to a displaced family
• $250 fluids for 25 children suffering from cholera
• $1,000 well for a village
• $1 a day to feed a family of four
• 19 cents for a child's school lunch
• $5 a mosquito bed net for 2 children
• $1 anti-malaria medicine
• $100 5,000 cups of rice - enough for a community

Giving to charities is a personal decision that should be evaluated not only from a financial but from a personal standpoint. Giving from a place of passion about an issue is more likely to have meaning versus making out checks to whatever charity requests money. And giving does not only refer to monetary donations. Volunteering is as important and as valuable.

Sample questions that should be asked are:

• What issues are closest to my heart? What issues do I care about the most? Is it the environment? Issues about children? Housing? Water?
• Where can my money make the biggest inpact or where would I like my money to make the biggest inpact? Home, overseas?
• Which charity not only is closest to what I want my money to do but which charity puts the largest percentage of my money towards the problem versus administrative costs or publicity? Which charity is more efficient at using my money?

Charity research links:
How Much Should You Give?
Charity Navigator
Giving USA
Just Give.org
Give.org
Charity Watch

Easy Ways to Make a Difference:

IM & HELP WORTHY ORGANIZATIONS; COSTS YOU NOTHING BUT A FEW MINUTES TO REGISTER:
i'm is a new initiative from Windows LiveTM Messenger where Microsoft donates donates a portion of the program's advertising revenue to some of the world's most effective nonprofit organizations, including the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, Red Cross, Stop Global Warming, Boys & Girls Clubs, National AIDS Fund & more.

I GIVE. COM:
Another easy way to support your favorite charities is through igive.com. There are over 440 merchants to choose from: Barnes & Nobles to Home Depot to the Discovery Store. Up to 26% of your purchase price is donated to the charity of your choosing. Check it out and consider joining.