HOW I PICK THE CHARITIES TO WHICH I DONATE

Decades ago, in an NGO’s in house journal, there was a sidebar about supporting your causes. The gist of it has stuck with me over the years: Give until it hurts!

For the same NGO, I looked over, in some detail, the federal government’s list of charitable foundations and the causes they support. Three quarters of them are religious and the next 20+% are dedicated to humans. Less than ~4% were for the important stuff, like the Earth and Her creatures.

So, all Earth related causes for me. After a while I softened and now give a good donation to the food bank. I ignore the political reasons for the need and address the problem: I don’t like to think about hungry/starving people in my city.

My wife insists that we give to several charities I would not otherwise consider, people oriented ones like Amnesty and MSF.

My list includes about 40 others. Here’re a few of them, and the kind of reason that validates them for me. I keep a running list of them all in a book, and note if they do anything that impresses me during the year. If they haven’t in the last couple of years, I drop them from the list. In a similar manner, new ones get added.

– Sea Shepherd – I like whales. Captain Watson is a living Super Hero
– WWF UK – they publish the very valuable Living Planet Report every two years
– WWF Canada – ditto, for Canada. I use both quite a bit to inform what I do
– Half Earth & Nature Needs Half – these are ideas whose time must come
– Eco Justice – works from the legal side on issues I care about
– Mississippi Madawaska Land Trust – started by a friend, assembles land for preservation in our area
– Nature Conservancy Canada – it’s separate from the US one. Protects land
– Ontario Nature – works for the protection of land and nature in Ontario
– Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights – works on overpopulation
– A2A – I volunteered here for years – it works to add connectivity to the landscape between Algonquin Park and Adirondack State Park
– Ontario Clean Air Alliance – works to keep nuclear power down and promotes clean energy.
– Ottawa Riverkeeper & Ecology Ottawa – they work on the local environment
– PIC – The Population Institute of Canada. Every cause is a lost cause without a reduction in population

That’s enough to give you a kind of rough idea, and to perhaps enthuse you to keep your own list. So, get started!

Keep well!

Ian Whyte
Ottawa, Canada