Will you be making a charitable donation this holiday season?

Never donate through a store. They get credit and a tax write off for your donation.

I used to work for a large corporation that would use strong arm tactics to force us to give to the United Way. It actually felt like blackmail.

Fuck United Way. Most of the money goes to the CEO and execs.

The only concern I'm currently giving money to is PBS. But I do have a few organizations who'll get money when I die. And with a couple of exceptions that are pet charities, they are all healthcare providers.

Say “Not today, thanks”

Do pity fucks count?

I have a lot of uncles.

Non profits are only obligated to donate 5% of all their contributions to whatever sham cause they claim to represent.

I never donate through stores, but I do donate throughout the year to my local animal shelter and buy them stuff off their wish list, plus give to a few small pet rescues I follow online. Oh, and I give yearly to PBS, which is a good cause plus I can watch their streaming channel.

Joel at r5 is so busy at this time of year.

I give $10 or $20 to Wikipedia every time they ask. Does that count?

I'd have to give away about a third of my income in order to qualify for deductions, so the end of the year scramble to make charitable donations isn't part of my lifestyle. I just donate whenever it seems like the right thing to do.

I used to make a lot of year end donations, all asked for nothing the tax advantages of doing so. But as R10 notes, tax changes have eliminated most of that advantage (for me) and the organizations have taken different approaches to asking.

I used to spread my donations around a lot more, now I make fewer but larger contributions - whenever in the year it occurs to me or more likely on the anniversary of the last gift.

The retail cashier as donation point was always borderline annoying, now it's fully annoying. I think the ridiculousness of many personal appeals vía GoFundMe type venues, the FB "friend" who's pushing a new appeal Evey day and reminding you that there's still time to contribute to 17 other of his appeals...it wears people down to be able to say no rather quicker than they might have a few years or a decade.in the past.

If a grocery store wants to say that they will give 0.02% of that week's profits after expenses, good for them. But they shouldn't press their cashier's onto giving the clients a dead trout look when then say, "no, not today."

My sister and I donate for each other in lieu of Christmas gifts. I don't know what I'm doing yet.

I remember once saying I didn't bother to itemize my charitable donations on my taxes and got yelled at for it. "You're a fool! It doesn't make you more noble to not take the tax deduction!"

A few weeks later we had a thread about donating to Goodwill and I added, parenthetically, that the amount donated wasn't enough for a tax deduction, and I got yelled at for THAT, too. "You greedy piece of shit, wanting a tax break for donating to the poor!"

There's a lot of mess on DL.

R13 - never criticize a turkey given out by a food bank either.

Yes, both to my poor-as-church-mice elderly Aunt, her daughters (my cousins), and her now-pregnant unmarried granddaughter; and to a local men's shelter/"rescue mission."

It is my moral duty, as I gamble too much.

EVERYONE qualifies to deduct up to $300 in CASH contributions ($600 if married, filing jointly) even if you no longer itemize deductions. So that's no excuse.

r9 I give to Wikipedia too.

My other "regulars" are local museums and the arboretum. And when I buy things online and the retailer allows you to "round up" and give the extra to charity, I always do, unless it is a charity I despise. Walmart is featuring Salvation Army now and I would never give them a dime.

I give to a local animal shelter, not a penny to the ASPCA. They have multi-millions for TV commercials. Solicit on the streets of New York. Two young reps on a block. Each facing a different direction to get people coming and going. Want your credit card number and probably get a commission.

I’ve never donated to the ASPCA, but I’m under the impression that the work they do is more likely to be lobbying governments on behalf of animal-specific legislation, running public education campaigns and serving as a sort of “Red Cross for pets” field-coordinator during things like natural disasters and crack downs on large-scale animal abuse, than operating or funding local pet rescue shelters. I’d imagine it would be almost more like donating to a political party than a front-line non-profit - and that it would have a large professional staff with senior leadership positions paying in the six figures.

I get that there will always be people who refuse to donate to a cause where the executives make $400k or whatever, but I’d say that the humane treatment of animals has been, alongside gay rights, the most successful social movement of the last forty years - and the ASPCA has probably been quite integral to that.

My entire adult life I've heard "Don't donate to the Humane Society or the ASPCA, they don't actually have shelters!" but I never once, ever, not on any level thought they DID have shelters. Nothing in their ads say they have shelters. Their mailers never say they have shelters. Like r19 I always thought they were a national network that helps during disasters and such.

I don't donate to them and always donate locally, but I wonder where the hysteria comes from. Just now I looked it up and there are regular articles on major news websites saying "your donations aren't going to local shelters!" and I'm baffled by it.

I am very charitable OP

Stopped giving to the Salvation Army because of their LGBT position. Their latest announcement allying themselves to Critical Race Theory is another reason not to give. News stories say major donors are backing out because of their CRT connection.