Charity (Charities!) of the Month: March 09

I split my donations this month, and they're both related to the month of March.

The first: Daffodil Days with the American Cancer Society. Always in March. A girl at work does fundraisers for the ACS and had a form out, so I decided I would help. I think usually you donate the amount and then get some daffodils for yourself, but there were a few options and since I didn't want the flowers for myself (they tend to make me sniffly.. well, more sniffly than normal anyway, since my nose practically has a water spout on it... I digress) I gave a "gift of hope" where they annonymously deliver daffodils and I think a teddy bear to a child with cancer in a hospital. I think that's a nice idea!

The second is called Charity:Water. I had to do a bit of research on this. I wanted to give to an organization that works specifically to provide clean water in developing countries, in honor of World Water Day 2009 coming up... tomorrow I think?... and I had to really do some searching to find the right fit. I had heard about Charity:Water a while ago from a Facebook-related thing and noted them as a tech-savvy nonprofit. They're a young organization and they aren't on CharityNavigator or GuideStar, but they do post their Form 990 on their website, which is nice. The Form 990 says only about 60% of their income went to their projects last year, which is not good! But, they also explain that they raise money specifically for administrative costs separately from typical donations - which means that my donation goes straight to project funding. So that's what it's all about! Please click on the link and learn a little more - the videos are very poignant. I believe their tactic mostly involves building and fixing community wells, which is great because that can be a very self-sustaining project.

The other water charity that I considered was actually the philanthropic arm of Pur water called Children's Safe Drinking Water. I love charities that are afiliated with giant companies - it tends to show great social responsibility and gives a glimpse into the corporate culture. I did a research project on corporate social responsibilty in college after I'd already decided to go to grad school, but if I hadn't taken the higher ed route I would have wanted to do PR for such an organization (I mean, after all, my degree is a "B.A. in Corporate Communications with a concentration in Public Relations" so it totally fits). Click on the link above - they've got a really nifty video that explains what they do. Makes you want to go out and buy some Pur packets right now! In the end, I decided that I wanted to support the new, smaller charity to give it a tiny little boost since the corporate-affiliated one has a bit more steady support and resources (presumably... no Form 990 to be found)... plus I like the well-building.