We’ve survived Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and now it’s Giving Tuesday, a day to help the causes we care about in our communities and the world. Earlier this month, Cutetropolitans shared the charities they support to create this list. Share your favorite charities in the comments, with URLs to their websites if possible.
Pets
The Morris Animal Foundation
PetSmart Charities
Best Friends Animal Society
Cat House on the Kings
Humane Society (of Silicon Valley)
ASPCA
Veterinary Care Foundation (gives to vets in your area)
Petfinder Foundation (find local shelters to donate to at Petfinder.com)
Hunger/Poverty
Find Your Local Food Bank (via Feeding America)
Wildlife
Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International
Sleepy Burrows Wombat Sanctuary
The Natural Resources Defense Council
Bat World Sanctuary
The Peninsula Open Space Trust
World Wildlife Fund
Human Rights
American Civil Liberties Union
Southern Poverty Law Center
Council on American–Islamic Relations
Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund
Four Directions
Lakota People’s Law Project
To determine which charities will spend your donation most effectively, review their rankings on Charity Navigator.
Begging dog, by Ron Henry Photography, licensed under CC BY 2.0
What does it say under the dog’s chin? Because my brain is telling it it’s “LAME!” but that makes no sense.
I’m stumped too – that certainly looks like an “A”. Laze? Late? Lane?
Oh, and for giving, I would nominate ASPCA and Sleepy Burrow.
I do extensive volunteer work for an charitable organization called the Ontario Youth Parliament. We bring together young people, aged 14 to 21, from all across Ontario for an annual conference & model parliament. They learn about Canada’s legislative traditions in a supportive, mentor-focussed environment. There is a cabinet appointed and over the course of the year, the various ministers will write up bills for debate in our mock parliamentary setting. There are no political parties and every youth delegate is completely free to speak their mind without regard to liberal/conservative/etc. affiliations. It’s a great program. I participated when I was a youth and it really helped me find a voice and grow my confidence. We work really hard to keep our registration fees down so that kids of all economic backgrounds can afford to attend, but it’s getting more and more expensive to transport & house our youth delegates each year. So we do accept donations and give out tax receipts where appropriate. Here’s a link to our donations page on our website: https://www.oyp.on.ca/donate/
I don’t have a lot of money but I will gladly throw the frisbee.
Sometime in the next two weeks I will be donating $100 (give or take; depends on my math skills this year) worth of children’s books to my local B&N’s book drive (my store is giving them to a children’s hospital this year). Haven’t figured out my theme yet…
I have been very lucky this year – received a raise, hubby took a new job with a significant increase in pay and my investments are doing pretty well – so besides a donation to Mike, I’ll donate to what I call my 2+2, 2 animal charities (1 local, 1 national) and 2 human rights organizations (again, 1 local and 1 national). I figure I have no kids so might as well spread the wealth and do some good with it. But remember most charities have needs past giving Tuesday so if you can manage a monthly donation, that will help out the charities a lot.
In alphabetical order, these are the charitable 501(c)(3) organizations I support monthly (there are others that get occasional boosts from me). I can try to post links later, but all of these can be found at CharityNavigator.org—in fact, I make my donations via Charity Navigator/Network for Good.
I don’t expect Cutetropolitans who aren’t in show business to be very interested in The Actors Fund (although many actors are cute). If you don’t live in New York, you may prefer your local Humane Society, or America’s Second Harvest, which is the national version of City Harvest. Those of you outside the US can find other versions of Doctors Without Borders and UNICEF, and possibly also Human Rights Watch.
The Actors Fund
American Civil Liberties Union Foundation
The Carter Center
Center for Biological Diversity
Children’s Aid
City Harvest
Direct Relief
Doctors Without Borders, USA
Equal Justice Initiative
Friends of the Earth
Human Rights Watch
Humane Society of New York
Mercy Corps
Metropolitan Maltese Rescue
Museum of the City of New York
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation
National Immigration Law Center
Physicians for Reproductive Health
Planned Parenthood Federation of America
Puppies Behind Bars
Southern Poverty Law Center
Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO)
UNICEF USA
Wildlife Conservation Society
Not sure if I should mention or not, just in case…
Paypal Canada (maybe Paypal US too?) is giving 1% of donations made from now to Dec 31, 2018:
https://www.paypal.com/ca/fundraiser/hub
Terms and conditions:
https://www.paypal.com/ca/webapps/mpp/terms/match
throwing one more log on the fire. the Bat World Sanctuary is having a matching donations day via facebook and pay pal
http://batworld.org/ways-to-donate/
And from a personal standpoint, i’m big on meals on wheels. had family members volunteer over the years. Too many times this is the only contact/assistance so many elderly have in the world.
Thank you for this amazing post, Mike, and fostering such a kind community here on Cutetropolis.com!
Made a donation to my favorite special needs pet charity, Diabetic Cats in Need. They help both owners and shelters with some financial assistance for diabetic cats. Plus they help shelters by posting about diabetic cats in need of rescue or adoption. Mostly cats in the US or Canada but there was 1 cat in Romania that needed help. DCIN is a really tiny totally volunteer run 501(C) charity. https://www.facebook.com/DiabeticCatsInNeed/
or http://www.dcin.dreamhosters.com/
I had a diabetic cat for many years so this charity is close to my heart.
I’m broke until the 1st but I’m planning to give to my local Humane Society. They run a good TNR program that I like to support.
I gave to Mike and to Sleepy Burrows. I think I’ll also give to either a homeless shelter or a mental health nonprofit like NAMI, but I haven’t decided yet.
Yay Cutetropolians!
Thank you, Heather — and thanks to all who hit the tip jar this year!
My local humane society is at https://www.animalhumanesociety.org/
I foster dogs from there, too and it’s one of the great delights of my life. It’s kind of like all the joys of ownership without any of the hassles, like vet bills and food costs. The most difficult part of it is the driving to pick up and return them to the locations. There are 4 in the Twin Cities area and none are handy to where I live. It’s worth it to me to make those drives, though.
My other love is the theater, and I donate to several local ones. I use theater going as the vacations I can’t afford to take.
Those of us who work in the theatre LOVE you!
I make an annual donation to support a baby elephant to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. I also send monthly support to:
ACLU
Doctors Without Borders (Médecins sans Frontières)
The Trevor Project
The Trevor Project supports LBGTQ teenagers who have been abandoned by their families and come to New York (which a vast majority of them do), where most end up living on the streets. The Trevor Project offers tons of support. They have a regular shopping list on Amazon for everything from underclothes and sweatpants and t-shirts to supplies for their residential center. It’s a good organization and does a huge amount of good for these teenagers who have been dumped by their families. (I can’t imagine parents doing that, but it really does happen, sadly!)
I also donate at least annually to a number of other charities, including the Bat World Sanctuary and our local Humane Society, and my husband does a huge amount of work for and we donate to fundraisers for Paws For Charity, the therapy dog group our Idiots both belong to. Besides regular fundraising, they have twice-annual evenings at Hamburger Mary’s, a Tampa institution — it’s a restaurant + bingo parlor, and the bingo is run by drag queens. That’s right, drag bingo. It’s hilarious and SO fun! If anyone is ever in Tampa, you really need to spend an evening at Hamburger Mary’s. Oh, and it raises tons of money, too, which is the best kind of fundraiser. 🙂
There are a few others I can’t think of right now. I only wish I had so much more to give, there are so many places that need our funds!