Red Nose Day is coming to the US!

on NBC on May 21at....

Forget Black Friday

The most important day? #GivingTuesday! From the website:

We have a day for giving thanks. We have two for getting deals. This year help create #GivingTuesday™, the giving season’s opening day.

On Tuesday November 27, 2012 charities, families, businesses and individuals are coming together to transform the way people think about, talk about and participate in the giving season.

It’s a simple idea. Find a way for your family, your community, your company or your organization to join in acts of giving. Tell everyone you can about what you are doing and why it matters. Join a national celebration of our great tradition of generosity. And together we’ll create ways to give more, give better and give smarter.

Speaking of the holidays

Today, Charity Begins With the Phone But Shouldn't End There

From texting to Facebook, charitably minded consumers will have more ways to give at their fingertips this holiday season. But not all these options work to the advantage of the philanthropists—or the charities.

Charitable giving has been slow to rebound since the downturn. While giving has historically risen an average of 2.4% in the two years following a recession, it inched up just 0.9% last year, when gifts totaled $298.4 billion, according to a report from the Giving USA Foundation and The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. The slow pace of recovery means donations may not get back to prerecession levels for another decade, says Patrick Rooney, executive director for the philanthropy center.

If you can do something to help others this season, please do so, regardless of fiscal cliffs and the pros and cons in taxes of giving this year or next. The thing is, give if you are able, whether it's during the holidays, New Year's Eve 2012, or New Year's Day 2013. And if you can't give money, then by all means, do something good that impacts another life. Sometimes the most meaningful gifts are personal and don't involve money at all.

That's disheartening

I have a friend who has been going through a rough time, both health-wise, and consequentially, financially-wise, as he has not been able to work, so his wife has been working frantically to keep a roof over the head of the two of them and their very small children (2 and 4).

Facing eviction right around Thanksgiving has to be a nightmare. I know, I've had a couple of times when the the only thing that saved me was help from my family, in just this timeframe, and I have been evicted once after being partialy laid-off, although it was in spring, and I was thankfully able to find a place to move to. But it has to be worse when you have a family to worry about at well.

I've done what I can to help, and I'm hoping very much that if one programme he has an appointment with next week comes through, they'll have what they need. The thing is, though, he's talked to lots of charities, and although I recognise that charitable giving is down, resources are tight, etc., etc., two things he was told were fairly disheartening.

One--some charities have the funds to help, but prefer to wait till Christmas to disburse them. That makes Christmas all warm and fuzzy, but I don't really thing Christ would say to give to the poor just for his birthday (which let's face it, isn't really anyway, all indications being he was born in the spring) and let them be homeless and needy the rest of the year.

They were also told that because his wife has a college degree, and they're hard-working with families that are considered 'semi-affluent', that they don't qualify for help. I'm not sure what his family situation is, but he's been ill for most of the year and they've probably exhausted what resources they have, from what I gather. His wife was in the middle of a career change when everything hit the fan and while thankfully she has a job, it is in the low-end of the career, and does not pay well. We're in an oeconomy where a six-figure executive can find himself homeless in a very short time, much less a family struggling to get by very little income. Instead, it sounds like if they'd both dropped out of high school, gotten involved with drugs, and starting cranking out lots of babies, they'd be in a better position.

So that's a bit disheartening. But I have great hope about the agency next week, and that they can get the money together. But I worry because they'll still be behind, and I'm not sure what can help get them out of the hole altogether. They are not living in a large or expensive apartment, etc., and I'm not sure they could find a cheaper one of that quality in Lexington. And there will probably be no Christmas to speak of for the kids.

Anyway, I had to vent just a little. All of this has put more stress on his health, and on his family. So, please, think good thoughts for them, and pray for them if you do.

Remember Rachel Beckwith, the little girl who wanted to raise money to give others access to clean water?

She was the subject of a New York Times op-ed piece:

Rachel’s Last Fund-Raiser

When it was clear that Rachel would never regain consciousness, the family decided to remove life support. Her parents donated her hair a final time to Locks of Love, and her organs to other children. Word spread about Rachel’s last fund-raiser.

Contributions poured in, often in $9 increments, although one 5-year-old girl sent in the savings in her piggy bank of $2.27. The total donations soon topped $100,000, then $300,000. Like others, I was moved and donated. As I write this, more than $850,000 has been raised from all over the world, including donations from Africans awed by a little American girl who cared about their continent.

Rest in peace, Rachel. I hope somewhere you know how much you inspired people to care about the plight of their fellow humans.

Tweeted about this yesterday but forgot to post here

9-year-old girl’s clean water wish takes off after her death: Moved by Rachel Beckwith’s story, donors from across the world open their wallets to charity

Rachel Beckwith wanted to raise $300 by her ninth birthday to help bring clean water to people in poor countries. Donors from across the world are making sure her wish is realized after her death, perhaps a thousand times over.

Rachel was about $80 short of her goal when she turned 9 in June, and then a horrific highway traffic accident took her life away last week. But news of the Bellevue, Wash., girl’s pluck and selflessness emerged after the tragedy, and it is inspiring thousands of people — most of them strangers — to push her dream along.

By Tuesday afternoon, her webpage that was set up to take contributions for charity:water, a nonprofit organization that brings clean drinking water to people in developing nations, had attracted more than $200,000 in pledges.

Here is a video from charity:water:

Water Changes Everything. from charity: water on Vimeo.

Rachel's page shows that although her goal was $300, she has now raised $711,825, serving 35,591 people's water needs in places like sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and Central America.

One life. One death. 20,367 people coming together to make Rachel's dream come true. And yes, one of those was me. $20 is apparently the amount that it takes to provide water for one person. It seemed a good number, and about what I'd spend on a book or a meal at a restaurant. So sometime in the next few months, a lot of wells are going to be dug in Rachel's name.

Whenever, as in the previous story, I really wonder about the depravities of humanity, a child's innocent wish, and the people who make it happen, inspires me.

Charities in this oeconomy struggle to provide care to those who need it

Caring for poor, hospitals reach brink of closure: Rising costs, budet cuts and recession dooming safety net hospitals

Two charity hospitals in Illinois are facing a life-or-death decision. There's not much left of either of them — one in Chicago's south suburbs, the other in impoverished East St. Louis — aside from emergency rooms crowded with patients seeking free care. Now they would like the state's permission to shut down.

The institutions, which have served low-income people in the state for more than 100 years, represent a significant development that's gone largely unnoticed as the nation climbs out of the recession. Many charity hospitals, already struggling with rising costs, are on the brink of failure because of looming budget cuts, increasing numbers of uninsured patients and a slow economic recovery.

If you think it's hard to turn a profit in this oeconomy, keep in mind how hard it is to make it when you're a charity relying on donations and endowments. I work for a such a charity that provides tertiary health care to children. Until recently, they paid for everything without any reimbursement from insurance or Medicaid, and had done so since the 1920s, with 22 hospitals around North America. But due to a number of factors, including the oeconomy, they are trying to survive by the acceptance of insurance so they will be able to continue their mission, but still without cost to the families in terms of co-pays or deductibles, providing the same excellent care they always have. It's a rather daunting prospect.

At least we provide specialised care. I can't imagine being in a neighbourhood where the only primary care hospital is forced to close because they simply cannot afford to stay open. When that happens the people who lose the most are those without the means to seek care at other hospitals. But it seems to me that this will drive up emergency visits and care that must be written off--and therefore health costs--up even further for everyone else. So no one wins. I hope those states that are so slow on their Medicaid payments who are killing their safety net hospitals realise that.

Wish I wasn't as big or they were bigger

Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park, who is Japanese-American, has designed a couple of T-shirts to benefit the people who went through the Japanese Earthquake/Tsunami. One says 'Not Alone' with the colours of the Japanese flag in the letters and the Linkin Park symbol done small to the right. The other has a white origami butterfly on a black t-shirt with the Linkin Park symbol underneath. I particularly like that one. Unfortunately, they only go up to extra-large. I do best in a 2X-3X.

If you're a fan of Linkin Park and would like to donate to Music for Relief, the t-shirts are $25.00. You can view them here.

The following song plays on that page, the exact song that came to my mind when the earthquake and tsunami happened.

So with a title like that, I had to read the blog post

Don’t donate money to Japan

No, it's not about being a Scrooge. Felix Simon has a very good point. During disasters, well-intentioned people give restricted funds to charities to be used in one area, ensuring that some funds may be unspent while needs remain elsewhere. He gives one of my favourite charities, MSF (Doctors Without Borders), as an excellent example of a non-governmental organisation whose position on giving helps prevent this:

The ability of MSF teams to provide rapid and targeted medical care to those most in need in more than 60 countries around the world – whether in the media spotlight or not – depends on the generous general contributions of our donors worldwide. For this reason, MSF does not issue appeals for support for specific emergencies and this is why we do not include an area to specify a donation purpose on our on-line donation form. MSF would not have been able to act so swiftly in response to the emergency in Haiti, as an example, if not for the ongoing general support from our donors. So we always ask our supporters to consider making an unrestricted contribution.

So the point is to give, but do not give restricted funding for a particular disaster. This hobbles organisations like the Red Cross and others. Instead, give generally, allowing money to be spent where it is needed most, including the disaster area but also in areas just as needy that don't get such mega-attention.

Word of the Day

I thought I'd share it--it was quite appropriate for the day:

eleemosynary \ el-uh-MOS-uh-ner-ee \, adjective;
1. Of or for charity; charitable; as, "an eleemosynary institution."
2. Given in charity; having the nature of alms; as, "eleemosynary assistance."
3. Supported by or dependent on charity; as, "the eleemosynary poor."

What a really great idea

For microphilanthropist, donations are a part of daily life

It’s been more than 230 days since Carlo Garcia bought a cup of coffee.

That’s because in April, the Chicago resident realized that he could change lives and inspire others to do the same — all for the price of his morning joe.

“One day this idea popped into my head: How hard would it be to give back to charity every day? What’s stopping us from doing that?” said Garcia, who catalogs his daily donations on his blog, Living Philanthropic.

My favourite quote? 'You don't have to be rich and famous to make a little bit of good.'

Way to go!

Some creativity is going on at YouTube in the name of charity

Here's my favourite (hey, it has Doctors Without Borders and Doctor Who, how can you go wrong? Go, Heather!):



Then there's the guy giving away 150 Star Wars books to people who donate to Make-a-Wish.

Look on YouTube. Surely one of the Project for Awesome videos (and their charities) will appeal to you.

Want to be an elf?

Kids write Santa this year for basic needs instead of toys

Kudos to the folks at the post office who sort through the letters, identify the needy cases, and put into motion Operation Santa, where people get letters with the personal info removed and act as Santa's helpers to get the items for the children. There is a list of participating post offices at the Operation Santa blog. (The closest on the list to me is in Cincinnati, but I think I'll check with our post office to see if there might be something like it. It's hard for me to get to the post office, but I can do so on the bus.) Anyway, it's a chance to make a difference in the life of a child this year.

Via The DCist.

Plus, there's this I saw on the news:

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