Determining How to Donate Money

Giving back to society is something that not only feels good but helps those that receive that help, whether you know who they are directly or not. No matter how much you’re able to donate of your time or money, you’re still making a huge impact.

After feeling overwhelmed with the number of asks for my time and money, whether it’s by the individuals on street corners or prompts on the credit card machines my wife and I decided where we wanted to focus our time and efforts so that we could drive maximum impact. Though it’s hard to ignore other asks, we had to draw certain lines.

We considered what organizations were the most important to us based on their mission and impact.

With me growing up the way that I did, we decided to donate to Feeding America, where for every $1 donated they’re able to provide 100 meals to those who need it. That means that if you skip your $10 Starbucks coffee for one day and donate it to Feeding America you will have provided 1,000 meals.

When we first started donating to Feeding America, we started with a small monthly donation and since then have slowly increased it by $10-25/month per year. When you take that into account, with just an increase of $10/month, that is a donation of 12,000 meals per year.

Locally, we decided to donate to Family Giving Tree of which we support their Back-to-School and Holiday Wish Drives. We’ve also giving back to our community during times of crisis where the community rallies together such as, sadly, after the Gilroy Garlic Festival mass shooting.

Occasionally we’ll also help someone that we can clearly is in need of help. Buying a $1.5 bottle of water should be easy for all of us and will have a larger impact on that person standing outside then on us.

There are hundreds of organizations that you could decide to focus your efforts. Once you identify the type of organization you donate to, see what their grade is on CharityWatch.

Lastly, check with your company to see if they have matching opportunities because that’s a way to maximize your donation.

Hopefully you’ll use similar methods to make the most impactful methods for those charities that are the most meaningful to you and your family.