Central themes of this blog are helping people, animals, and preserving the planet. One way we can do this is to donate to various charitable organizations. There are myriad choices. Unfortunately, not all of them are legitimate and not all use the majority of money donated for providing help to others.

Each of us has our own preferences concerning humanitarian causes we wish to support. Here I list mine for what ever it may be worth. I use two primary criteria for selecting charities. I prefer charities that reach out to people who suffer around the world due to a lack of basic needs such as clean water, sanitation, food, and health care often due to displacement by war, or catastrophe. A second criterion, with a few exceptions, is that the charity spends at least 80 percent of revenues for services to their target population.

Sites like Charity Navigator can help assure that a charity in which you are interested meets your own criteria. It provides budget information and overall performance ratings that can help a great deal in determining which charities are the most service oriented.

The following is a list of charities to which I contribute regularly. Click on each to go to their web site.

International

Unicef 

Doctors Without Borders  (Medecins Sans Frontieres)

International Rescue Committee

The Nature Conservancy

United States

Feeding America

ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals)