Comment by J. Morr on December 19, 2012 at 12:47am

The problem with charities is the law states that they only have to use 10% of what they get to do good works. Which leads to abuse and 100k+ salaries and golden parachutes for CEO's. I personally think it's better to find someone in need, they will use 100% of it to help fix their lives. I really like this groups idea although the setup could be better. You get your money back with a tax deduction and they get a life changing loan at an affordable cost.  Best part god's not needed.

Comment by James Kz on December 20, 2012 at 4:45am

Not all charities are created equal. There is a Website, called Charity Navigator, which allows a potential donor to look up the financials, the administrative costs (overhead), advertising costs, and other such things about a particular charity, based on its mission statement. (For example, an AIDS charity whose mission statement is to spread information about AIDS would have a high cost for adverts, but those would not necessarily be advertising themselves.)

As an example, here is the Susan G Komen for the Cure Foundation. (breast cancer awareness group) rated very highly (though not as good as it could be), the Epilepsy Foundation (not as good with their money), and The American Lung Association (lung diseases like tuberculosis, emphysema, cancer, &c), which is exceptionally bad (almost 7/8th of its income goes to administration).

 

You can give 10% (or whatever you can afford) to charity, but there is giving, and there is intelligent giving.

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