Welcome to the Charity Splurge 2011 Challenge!

Thank you for visiting this blog! I'll be doing my best to introduce you all to interesting humanitarian causes and worthy organizations to support. Once a month I'll promote one, and you and all your friends will challenge yourselves to splurge on some charitable giving.

See the links at the left side for more information, and the showcases are in the entries below. Here is a badge (with other colors coming soon, thanks to Crystal Rider!) that you can display on your own website or blog to spread the others and help them say "Yeah, I can do that."



Happy splurging this year!

CS2011 Wrap Up

Now that this year and this project are drawing to a close, I figured it would be good to post my own wrap up and final reflections. Originally I had thought of having this being an ongoing project, but it turns out it's very difficult to even pick out twelve causes among thousands!

Charitable giving is more effective when you chose fewer causes to give more to anyway, so I plan on leaving this project up as a reference and guide for people who would like to get involve but aren't sure what their primary interests are, or even what is out there that would interest them.

I'm happy to have done this, but I'm learned some of the downfalls of having such a wide giving portfolio as well. Evidentally, at least one of the organizations I gave to sold my contact information out (and I've got a good guess which one) and I've received direct mailings for foundations for multiple different diseases and starving children--I even got one today in German! But really, if someone is going to spend the money to send me not only paper, but pennies and tote bags, I don't really think my contribution is needed!

Over the course of this project, I've determined which ones mean the most to me and which I've had the best experience giving to.

While I'm not planning on regular additional contributions out of my own pocket (for now), I will continue to recycle my microfinancing loans for Kiva and keep using GoodSearch for Love146. The North American Friends of the Asian Rural Institute reached out to me about getting more involved, and I'll be doing some volunteer Japanese-to-English translations for them as needed. I'll continue to sponsor a HeroRat, I just don't know yet if it will be Chosen One or one of their up-and-coming stars.

Not that I'm capping my giving to just these organizations--as local needs arise throughout the year, I'm likely to participate as I see it worthy to. Sometimes it helps to be flexible, too. Last March while I was helping at a fundraiser for relief for Japan some ladies dropped off some women's clothing and diapers. In an emergency situation abroad it's just not efficient to send physical goods, so I gave them to a local crisis pregnancy center and then contributed to the fundraiser for about how much the goods were worth. I wound up giving more out of pocket than I planned, but it honored those ladies' generosity and wound up helping someone else in the process. If you're open for these things, the opportunities will come.

Generosity doesn't have to be planned, and I don't think it should be. When it comes to development and putting your money where it's going to be most effective, though, you're going to have a wider and deeper impact by making a plan. If an organization can anticipate a regular amount of support each month, that helps them with their financial planning. If you focus all of your charitable giving for the year to only one or two causes, then the amount you contribute will be able to go further rather than being stretched thin.

It's a sad fact that most normal people can't afford to give as much as they'd love to. Just because I'm not giving to all of these organizations again doesn't mean I don't care about the work they're doing, which is why I'll continue to advocate and bring them up whenever there seems to be an appropriate place to do so. Sometimes getting someone else aware of something will do more than $10 would.

Nevertheless, let's not forget how quickly $10 will add up when put together with other peoples' $10. Generosity never has to be about the amount.

Happy giving, everyone.

December's Showcase: Institute for Transportation & Development Policy

Look, I'm not being cliche for December! I'll bet you weren't expecting the final showcase to be about public transportation.

This is a good example of how societies can be dramatically improved--efficiency-wise, environmentally, and from certain standpoints, economically--and is a "good idea" that "should happen," but is faced with a lot of resistance when it comes to real-world application.

For instance, I live in Colorado Springs. I would love to to see my city become more of a hot-spot tourist destination because it would bring income into the city and because we've got some pretty nice sights here to share (even though I've seen the Garden of the Gods so many times that it's just normal landscape to me, I've enjoyed sharing it with exchange guests my family has hosted). Frankly, however, our public transportation options suck, and while there are walking trails that go on forever, it's not pedestrian-friendly for everyday life. If you don't have a car, you're pretty much stuck.

Even if people complain and say "we need better public transportation here," no one is really willing to give up the convenience of their cars or pay higher taxes to establish better systems. Sigh... such is the story of many good ideas.

It might just be because of the utter lack of it here, but I really like public transportation (and I am very stubborn about not wanting to get a car, but that's mostly because I don't want to pay for a big piece of metal that will continue to cost me money in loan payments, maintenance, insurance and gas, but that's really just a matter of me whining). I mentioned in the previous entry that I love Japan, which I do, and I love the train systems there. Sure, I had to walk a lot (and got soaked a few times in typhoons), but I could pretty much wake up, decide on a little town to go check out, and then find a train to take me there.

I also love China. To be a little more specific, Hangzhou is one of my favorite cities in the world. It's part big-business and shopping and part tourist destination (for good reason, but I digress). While I studied there for three months, I could go pretty much anywhere. Granted, that was because there were cheap taxis everywhere, but most things I needed on a regular basis were within easy walking distance, and the air-conditioned buses went almost everywhere I ever wanted to go. There were many days when I would just start walking for miles, see where I would wind up and what kinds of places I would discover, and when I felt satisfied, I just needed to find the nearest bus stop and I knew I'd have a way back. It was nice to have both freedom and security.

Part of what made it so walkable was that a lot of the city was planned to accommodate people without cars (that's not to say they don't have congestion problems, though). One of the ways they've done this is to implement a city bike-rental system. You sign up for a card which has a certain amount of cash put on it, and you use that card to unlock and pay for bikes that fill stalls all around the city. You use it for a certain period of time, and then you can just return it to the nearest stall. You can read more about that system here.

Why do I bring this up on a blog about humanitarian organizations aiming to alleviate poverty? Because good ideas should be shared, that's why! But if good ideas are going to work, they need something to back them up, and help see them through. Sometimes that requires a think tank. Hence, this month's showcase is the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy (ITDP). They work with governments and developing cities around the world to make informed plans for more effective public transportation to support growing city populations.

Cutting down on carbon emissions is just one goal. They also want to make transportation safer, and enable the underprivileged living in big cities to have access to what they need without having to buy cars and get stuck in traffic jams--more transportation options means more possibility for employment, which means more means by which to support oneself and one's family.

And I'll state it again--public transportation makes any city more attractive to tourists! Plagued with problems as it is, we live in a remarkable world, and I'd like to see more people enabled to go out and mingle with it.

Payment Procedures

You all probably know the drill by now. Go to the DONATE page, and be ready with your credit card. Part of what ITDP does is make publications about more effective transportation, and you'll be able to share their knowledge when they send you their annual magazine. After all, ideas should be shared if they're ever going to become more than that!