charity

We have always given to a few charities on a regular basis. Marc donates to the Jewish Federation and the Shrine Circus every year, sometimes to the 100 Club (aid to slain police families) and I picked the Special Olympics and Children's Wish Foundation. I never really kept track of what time of year my two charities would call, thinking that they only requested funds once a year. It finally dawned on me that they were calling me twice a year for donations so I asked that they only call once a year which they agreed to do. Only they didn't so every other call I would remind them that I was only able to donate once a year.

Some number of years ago, the recent past as opposed to the far past, I saw a program about charities and how a large percentage of any donation did not go to the actual charity but to the 'collection' agencies for those charities and it was recommended that potential donators should ask what percentage of the contribution actually goes to the charity. They are required by law to tell you if you ask. Well, needless to say, I started asking and I was appalled at the answer.

The unacceptable percentage coupled with the fact that they would not honor my request to only call me once a year finally led me to stop donating to these two charities. I asked to be taken off their call list. Special Olympics was sorry to lose me but they stopped calling. Children's Wish still calls. The last time they called and I told them, again, to take me off their call list the lady told me she didn't have the authority to do that, that I would have to talk to a manager. For some reason that just really pissed me off. They had called when I was very busy in the middle of some fabrication work. I yelled at her to 'stop calling me' and hung up.

So it was a couple of years that I didn't donate to any charity and then Haiti got wiped off the face of the earth. Money started pouring in, there were a million ways to donate and we were interested in helping but we wanted our money to actually go to help people, something concrete and not general administration. As it turned out, we never did send any money to Haiti.

Margarita Albarico

Sagay City, Negros Occidental, Philippines

Loan to buy a fishing net and materials to repair her fishing boat

Enter Kiva. Kiva is an organization that connects people, through lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty. They organize, collect and oversee microloans to individuals and small groups of people who are trying to better their lives. 100% of your loan goes to the person whom you select. When you make your loan, Kiva will ask for a $15 donation to help with the administration but it is not required. When your loan is repaid, they will refund your money or you can reuse it to loan to another person. In this way your money goes to help many people over and over instead of just going down into the bottomless pit of general charity. Our initial investment of $100 went to four different people across the globe. Minimum donation is $25.

Kasanja 1 Mariam Nasiwo Group

Mbale, Uganda

Loan to add working capital and stock more bags of charcoal and more bananas

Two of our loans are already being repaid a little at a time and when the full amount is repaid by any one person, we will loan it out again and again and again. Wow. I feel so good about this, being able to help actual individual people and I know who and where they are.

I encourage everyone to visit Kiva's website and join in. $25 can help change a life for the better.