This Thanksgiving, kindness and charity are needed more than ever. So after the stuffing and the spending, Nov. 29 will be Giving Tuesday, a day to donate and volunteer to help those with less to be thankful for. As always, Cutetropolitans are invited to share links to worthy charities in the comments, and learn about charities featured in years past.
Pets
- Edgar’s Mission (AUS)
- The Morris Animal Foundation
- PetSmart Charities
- Best Friends Animal Society
- Cat House on the Kings
- Humane Society
- ASPCA
- Veterinary Care Foundation (gives to vets in your area)
- Petfinder Foundation (find local shelters to donate to at Petfinder.com)
Hunger/Poverty
- World Central Kitchen
- Find Your Local Food Bank (via Feeding America)
Internet Freedom
To determine which charities will spend your donation most effectively, review their rankings on Charity Navigator.
A youtuber I watch recommended the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. You can just donate money for them to use as needed or specific things like a day’s milk for a baby elephant (or a whole herd) and bales of hay. You can also adopt an elephant, rhino, or giraffe.
The last few years I’ve been donating to World Central Kitchen and likely will again.
I had a baby elephant I supported for 2 years at Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. They are amazing there! You can see videos of all they do and the baby elephants are adorable!🐘
As usual I will be giving to Bat World Sanctuary, my favorite charity!🦇
I just spent a little more time going through SWT’s wishlist. It also includes things like hats and coats for the keepers (to protect from the sun and dust, and so the elephants can recognize their signature green coats), fuel for their plane (to patrol for illegal activities), binoculars, cameras and flashlights, radio equipment, things for the local community like school desks, field trips, and volleyball nets, veterinary/rescue supplies (clay used on injuries, wire cutters for freeing trapped animals), and even a special feast for the workers.
I second Allein’s excellent choices of Sheldrick WT and WCK. I give to both, and am delighted they don’t spend my donation dollars spamming me for more money the way too many organizations do. I have stopped giving to several groups whose work is otherwise worthy because I hate being bombarded with mail, both email and snail mail. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology also seems to be pretty low key about follow-up donation requests. I also give to my local mom and pop animal rescue groups because they operate on the thinnest of shoestring budgets and also don’t spam me for $$.
Cheers to all of you, and I hope everyone has a wonderful Thursday, whether or not you celebrate Thanksgiving.
Two great animal sanctuaries that I follow are Edgar’s Mission out of Australia and Monkey World in the UK. EM provides a home to previously farmed animals and they’re working for the advancement of veganism but don’t browbeat you about it – https://edgarsmission.org.au. MW takes in primates that were previously used as tourist props or smuggled illegally for the pet trade – https://monkeyworld.org.
And of course any local rescue group near you, so many operate on a tight budget and right now all of them are starting to burst at the seams with people abandoning or relinquishing pets because of the crappy economy. To those that celebrate, Happy Thanksgiving one and all. I’ll be supporting my local zoo tomorrow by spending time with the animals before stuffing my face.
Thanks for the suggestions, I’ve added them to the list.
I give to the NAACP, Planned Parenthood, the local land trust, and my state native plant society, and our local museum. Also, the The Archaeological Conservancy. As well as the ACLU. There are lots of good groups to support. If you want to check on effectiveness and trustworthyness, you can look up non-profits on Charity Navigator.
If you have a Barnes & Noble near you, they will be running their annual children’s book drive; each store donates to a local organization. I’ve always donated a few books ever since I started working there in 1997, but for the last 10 years I have donated $100 worth. I pick a theme and make it a game to get as close to $100 as possible without going over. I think my best year was $99.96. Haven’t decided my theme for this year, yet.
Unicef is asking for money for Ukraine’s children and World Central Kitchen is in Ukraine, too. There’s a Ukraine animal charity, too but I don’t know the name offhand.
I love my fairly local Wild Animal Sanctuary, https://www.wildanimalsanctuary.org/. They do amazing work rescuing large carnivores from abusive situations and giving these critters a lot of space to live out their lives.