AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Tomorrow is Giving Tuesday - a day when charities ask us to take a break from holiday shopping and give to worthy causes. But how do you decide where to donate or how much to donate? Life Kit host Marielle Segarra has some answers.
MARIELLE SEGARRA, BYLINE: So you want to donate money to a good cause.
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SEGARRA: Takeaway one - think about what issues and causes resonate with you. Here's Kevin Scally of Charity Navigator.
KEVIN SCALLY: So the best thing you can do is, like, literally take a pen and paper out and sketch out and say, hey, this is what's important to me, this is what's important to my family. And so you can think about, like, hey, what really helped me when I was younger? Or, you know, did I have a family member that was afflicted by some sort of chronic illness and, you know, what was there to support them? You think about different kind of political and social events that are happening in - around us. How do you actually want to give back, and then in what specific way?
SEGARRA: All right, takeaway two - start looking for organizations to support. One way to find them is on a platform like Charity Navigator or GiveWell or CharityWatch. Look to see how healthy a nonprofit is financially and how it spends money. And where can you find that kind of information?
SCALLY: Yeah, there's a couple of different sources. You know, certainly from, like, a governance perspective or financial health perspective, Charity Navigator leverages the IRS Form 990. Those are the annual tax filings of nonprofits. The IRS Form 990 is their annual tax filings. So just like individuals doing taxes, nonprofits do their taxes as well. You know, organizations should be very forthcoming with their annual reports and their IRS Forms 990, their audit. And so that's, you know, all good kind of trust indicators.
SEGARRA: Should the size of a charity play a role in how you think about its effectiveness? Like, might that impact how well the money is being used?
SCALLY: I would say in short, yes. You know, you have large organizations that maybe have been around for, you know, a really long period of time, and they have a real proven track record. Just because they're a large organization doesn't mean that your donation is going to do less impact. It means that - you know, more than likely, is that it's a really well-run organization, that they are quite impactful, that they've developed partnerships with smaller organizations that have helped them deliver on their programs.
SEGARRA: But small organizations, on the other hand, are often local, and that allows them to know their community and what it really needs.
SCALLY: Find those small hidden gem organizations and support them as well. They're going to be really grateful. And there's maybe even an opportunity to get closer, understand their programs, volunteer, and then, you know, make a continued difference with continued support.
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SEGARRA: OK, takeaway three - figure out how much you can afford to or want to donate.
SCALLY: It's all going to be a matter of, like, you sitting down and doing your budget with your family and mapping out, you know, what you can actually afford to give. I've heard the idea of, like, giving away, you know, 1% of your annual income. There's been a lot of people that I've spoken with that have been able to do much more. And so it's all going to be a matter of, you know, what your budget can accommodate.
SEGARRA: Right.
SCALLY: But typically people, you know, are more reacting to solicitations that they're getting and then giving kind of in that moment versus actually being really intentional and factoring it into a budget.
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SEGARRA: Time for a recap. Takeaway one - think about what issues and causes resonate with you. Takeaway two - look for organizations to support. Takeaway three - figure out how much you can afford to or want to donate. Even if it's a couple bucks a month, that's something. And it all adds up. For NPR News, I'm Marielle Segarra.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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