DU Thanksgiving Fund Drive: Donate to DU and 10% goes to Charity (With list of suggested charities!)

[Skinner]

On Tuesday I posted a request for DUers to suggest charities. For those of you who missed it, here is the text of http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6979569">my post:

As you may know, next week is the Democratic Underground fourth quarter 2009 fund drive. With Thanksgiving coming up soon, we have decided to do something different for the DU fund drive this year -- in the spirit of giving thanks and giving back.

During next week's fund drive Democratic Underground is going to donate 10% of the funds we receive to a selected group of charities. Here's how it's going to work:

This week, with the help of the DU membership, we are going to select six charities to support. Each of the charities will be assigned a day: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday/Sunday. Each day of the fund drive, 10% of funds donated to Democratic Underground will be donated to that day's assigned charity. A list of charities will be made available to DU members who wish to donate so you can plan your donation to benefit the charity of your choice.

The process to select the six charities is going to be fairly casual. If you are interested in suggesting a charity, you should do so in this thread. If you like someone else's suggestion in this thread, please feel free to reply to their post to say so. If necessary, we will open additional threads throughout the week in order to solicit more suggestions and narrow down the choices to the final six.

Our intent is to come up with a list of six charities that, taken together, broadly represent this community and its values. Obviously, we will not be able to accommodate everyone's favorite charity. But we hope that everyone will find at least one charity that you want to help support (while you support DU). With this in mind, we intend to select the charities so their missions do not overlap. In other words: We're not going to select multiple charities that do basically the same thing. So, for example, if we have an environmental charity on the list, we're not going to select two or three of them -- there will just be one.

One more thing: The charity CANNOT be political. No political parties or candidates or PACs or other organizations intended to influence campaigns. It is against the law for Democratic Underground (a corporation) to donate money to political organizations.

So, let's get started... Tell us your favorite charities!

DUers suggested a number of very interesting and deserving charities. It is going to be difficult to narrow the list down to only six. I think we probably need to decide whether we should go with large, well-known, national charities so everyone is familiar with their work, or if we should go with smaller, more local charities so our (admittedly small) contribution will have a larger impact.

In case it was not clear in my earlier post: This is being done in conjunction with the Fourth Quarter Fund Drive to raise money for Democratic Underground. The DU admins put our heads together about a month ago to try to come up with a fun idea that ties in with Thanksgiving. We thought the idea of donating a percentage to charity fit with the spirit of Thanksgiving. A number of our members have suggested this in the past. So the 10% donation is not going to be a huge amount of money, but hopefully it will make your donation to DU a little more satisfying.

Here's a list of all the charities that DUers suggested. I included a link to the website if it was included in the post. Some of them you have certainly heard of, and some others are smaller but no less deserving. Hopefully this is an opportunity for all of these charities to get a little exposure, even if we don't pick them for our fund drive. If you would like to express your support for any of these charities, please post to let us know. And you are welcome to suggest any charity that isn't on the list.

A Wish With Wings
Ali Forney Center (LGBT homeless youths)
American Cancer Society
American Friends Service Committee http://www.afsc.org/
American Heart Association
American Indian College Fund http://www.collegefund.org
Amnesty International
Animal Umbrella http://www.animalumbrella.org
Appleseed: a network of public interest justice centers. http://www.appleseeds.net
ASPCA
Autism Society http://www.autism-society.org
Big Apple Bull Terrier Rescue http://www.bigapplebullies.com/
Bread for the World
Charity: Water http://www.charitywater.org
childfund http://www.childfund.org
Chilren's Make-A-Wish Foundation
Cosmetic and Reconstructive Support Program from the Nat'l Coalition against Domestic Violence http://www.ncadv.org/programs/CosmeticandReconstructiveSupport.php
Doctors Without Borders http://doctorswithoutborders.org
Environmental Defense fund
Equal Justice Initiative http://www.eji.org
Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, NY http://farmsanctuary.org
Feeding America (formerly America's Second Harvest)
Fisher House Foundation (Veterans) www.fisherhouse.org
Food & Friends http://www.foodandfriends.org
Fresh Start http://www.freshstartwc.org/WelcometoFreshStartWa.asp
Friends of Pine Ridge (Lakota Nation) http://www.friendsofpineridgereservation.org
Gesundheit Institute (Dr. Hunter Campbell "Patch" Adams) http://www.patchadams.org
Habitat for Humanity
Heifer Project http://heifer.org
Holt International Children's Services http://www.holtintl.org
Homes for Vets http://www.homesforvets.com/
Hospice
Humane Society of the United States
I Love Mountains http://ilovemountains.org
Iraq Veterans Against the War http://www.ivaw.org
Justice for Murdered Children http://www.jfmc.org
Kiva
Lake Claire Community Land Trust http://www.lcclt.org
Mazon http://www.mazon.org
Mercy Corps http://www.mercycorps.org
Mind Freedom http://www.mindfreedom.org/
Modest Needs http://www.modestneeds.org
NARAL
National Aids Foundation www.aidsfund.org
National Association of Free Clinics http://www.freeclinics.us/
National Resources Defense Council http://www.nrdc.org/
Near East Foundation http://www.neareast.org/main/default.aspx
On Our Own http://www.onourownmd.org/asp.html
Operation Smile
OXFAM www.oxfam.org
PFLAG
Pink Ribbon http://www.pinkribbon.org
Planned Parenthood
Red Cross
Remote Area Medical
Remote Area Medical Foundation http://www.ramusa.org/index.html
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
St. Jude's
Treehouse (foster children) http://www.treehouse4kids.org
USO
VetDogs (pair injured Vets with service dogs)
Wilderness Society http://wilderness.org
Wine to Water http://www.winetowater.org

[Ian David]

1. I vote for National Association of Free Clinics.

I'd also like to nominate:

The James Randi Educational Foundation: http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/support-us.html

The Southern Poverty Law Center: https://secure.splcenter.org/donate/online/online.jsp

ACORN http://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=2584&L=1http%3A%2Fbusca.uol.com.br%2Fuol%2Findex.html%3F

[DearAbby]

22. I agree

[SoCalDem]

2. OLPC is one I have donated to before

and if you buy a computer, you can request where you want it to go:)



http://wiki.laptop.org/go/One_Laptop_per_Child

[Skinner]

3. That's a great picture, but it is very large.

Would you mind editing it out of your post, please?

[SoCalDem]

4. I did it immediately, but you were faster than I was

:rofl:

It was small on their website:)

[Renew Deal]

20. Ahhh, the conflict of screen resolutions...

I sometimes post images on my laptop which is set to 1600x1200 that look small. Then I see them on my 1024x768 screen and they are huge.

[Ineeda]

5. Another suggestion: Brad Pitt's NOLA housing recovery project

http://www.makeitrightnola.org/

[sinkingfeeling]

6. Since the holiday is Thanksgiving, I would push for Feeding America and

Homes for Vets over some of my very favorite animal and environmental organizations. When I think of Thanksgiving, I think of home and food.

[mmonk]

7. What a wonderful and impressive list indeed.

Should I suggest my vote is to the Autism Society even though I suggested it? In these days of budget cuts, services for autistic people are usually one of the first always cut on state levels. Therefore, I still stand with it.

[Boojatta]

8. I would like to express support for The Innocence Project.

Link:
http://www.innocenceproject.org/

Thus the list expands. Fortunately, expansion of the list is welcome.

[mopinko]

9. well, i wonder if the great du brain trust could enlighten us a little.

i think one of the big things to look for is the amount of donations that go directly to the mission. perhaps the list could be weeded out a little that way. not to encourage internecine warfare. not that that could happen here.....

[mopinko]

14. ps- i love heifer.

i said that in the first thread, but just sayin'.

[Arkansas Granny]

17. Good idea. I check Charity Navigator to get this info.

http://www.charitynavigator.org/

[Lochloosa]

10. I say go with the small charities.

They will be more appreciative of the donation. Someone will actually open the mail and read where it came from instead of just throwing it in a pile to be deposited.

IMHO.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. Here's the link for Kiva. Please add it to your listing. Thanks.

http://www.kiva.org/

[Stargazer09]

12. Personally,

I think we should donate to a military-related organization this year. Many members of the military are under the mistaken impression that only Republicans care about their (our) needs. I'm not sure if a donation from DU would make a huge difference, but it might.

The USO has been tremendously helpful to my husband during his many trips through airports on his way to and from deployments and temporary duty assignments, and they get my vote.

:patriot:

[pipi_k]

13. Support with a suggestion...

Support for a charity....ASPCA


my other suggestion would be that, if you can't decide between smaller charities or larger, why not split the difference...

Small charity one day, larger charity the next, small, large, and so on



:)

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

15. Again; Hands Down Feeding America (formerly America's Second Harvest).

The coolest part is that even though they're national, literally EVERY DOLLAR helps. I've always been very generous with charities and have done so much research over the years to learn how to make each dollar count the most it can. My conclusion was that FA (ASH) is hands down the best all around helpful charity that any individual could donate to.

Strong opinion; yes. But for a reason. I really do hope this is chosen as one.

[MilesColtrane]

19. +1

[redqueen]

16. Here's the link for Feeding America.

http://feedingamerica.org/

[Renew Deal]

18. Please send $50 to the DLC!!!!

www.dlc.org

[katkat]

25. DLC? Is that joke? n/t

[Renew Deal]

26. Not a joke at all

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6990981&mesg_id=6990981

:evilgrin:

[katkat]

21. As a comparative newbie

I would sure appreciate some idea of DU's budget and income. I'm just saying if I donate, I like to know those things.

[mopinko]

23. well, long as i have been here

those things have never been revealed. i wouldn't if i were in their shoes. you are free to not donate.

[flvegan]

24. Posting in support of Sea Shepherd.

Over 80% of all donations go directly into programs. Employees and volunteers risking their lives as part of carrying out their missions in direct action.

More than just Whale Wars, SSCS is also heavily involved in the Canadian seal hunt, policing the waters of the Galapagos and opposing the Taiji dolphin slaughter.

www.seashepherd.org

And this year, the Ady Gil (formerly the Earthrace) joins the Steve Irwin in taking on the Japanese whalers.

She's badass.

[mopinko]

27. regarding local v national-

perhaps there could be a local day, where several small charities could split the take for the day. i have no idea what 10% of one day is, and whether it would amount to much divided among 5 or 10 local charities. but maybe there could be some sort of member match gimmick that day? or something.
i know that there has to be at least one animal focused charity on there, as we are such softies for the beasties here. perhaps that would be a good day to split it up into little bits. maybe there is a big pet food company that would provide a match. ???

[Renew Deal]

28. Maybe give the locals the two days...

[Renew Deal]

29. Another worthy local charity: The North Shore Animal League

www.nsalamerica.org

[CTyankee]

30. Look to our issues.

If we are to choose 6 organizations and DU is a national site, I would suggest dividing the money among the organizations that support our issues. Here are my suggestions:

Choice: Planned Parenthood

Gender equity: Heifer International

Hunger: (I don't know enough about these organizations. I support local feeding programs)

Justice: Amnesty International

Health care: Remote Area Medical

Environment: Environment Defense Fund