If someone wants to give to a charity, they should check out to whom they are giving first. It's not hard to find on the Web. Here is an example: nonprofitpoint.com/charities-with-lowest-overhead/.
Also maybe see charitywatch.org/nonprofit-compensation-packages-of-1-million-or-more. Now to be fair some of them probably earn it -- running a huge charity is a tough job and you need someone very skilled who could probably make more in the for-profit sector in charge. That said, suspect at least of some of them don't come close to deserving that much compensation.
I could list some of my personal favorites and least favorites.
OK, will list one of my favorites: St. Jude Children's Research. See St. Jude Children's Research. They do a lot of good. One site says $0.82 of every dollar goes to "treatment, research and future needs." That apparently does not count the funds spent to pay for flights and provide housing/food to families. The Church itself pays for most if not all admin costs. However, St. Jude does spend a bit on advertising.
When I had money, I gave to St. Jude. Intend to do so again if I ever get paid - and of course to Free Republic.
Anyone else have any favorite(s)?
Dangit. Goofed the link to St. Jude Children’s Research. Here is the proper one: https://www.stjude.org/
I like the TV Preachers; I know that they have a lot of jet fuel to buy.
Anything local where you know the people running the charity personally.
These large national or international charities all give me a case of the creeps.
We have no way to know if they are not funding woke kookiness on the side.
I refuse to fund people who may hate me.
Many freepers may recall the ABT from its previous names, most recently the Civil War Trust. The latest name change is relatively recent and came about because the NPS, which is an important partner on Civil War preservation, asked for the Trust to help with Revolutionary War and War of 1812 sites as well. Most of what the Trust does is still Civil war, but the name change reflects the broader scope.
The ABT is a land preservation organization. It raises money to buy dirt to save battlefields. In recent years, it has gotten a bit more involved with education -- its website is terrific and much used by the saving remnant of teachers who still teach real U.S. history -- mainly because the schools have so completely defaulted on history, with military history almost entirely erased.
The Trust is lean & mean and highly focused. It is always top ranked on Charity Navigator. Including its predecessor organizations (there was a merger of two earlier groups 20-plus years ago), the Trust to date has saved over 55,000 acres, almost all of it Civil War related, in 25 or so years. To put that into context, the fedgov -- some very early acquisitions by the War Department and since then mostly the National Park Service -- has saved about 85,000 acres in 120 years.
The Trust does not want to hold and manage land, so it usually looks for a permanent partner -- the NPS or a state, county or local private organization -- and sells or deeds the land over. There are quite a few Civil War battlefield parks that you can visit today, walking over ground that was mostly acquired by the Trust (often working with other, local private preservation groups). Even on some of the biggest battlefields, where the NPS got there first, a long time ago, there are important private inholdings that remain to be acquired.
Antietam may be the most familiar example. For a hundred years, the NPS interpreted the fighting in the Miller Cornfield and around the Dunker Church mainly from a stop along Cornfield Avenue (a non-historic park road). Why? Because the large triangle of land to the south of the Cornfield, bounded by Cornfield Avenue, the Smoketown Road, and the Hagerstown Pike, was privately owned, actively farmed, and off limits. The Trust was able to buy that seven or so years ago, clear some inappropriate postwar structures, and deed it over to the park. If you've not been to Antietam in recent years, go again when you get the chance. You will be amazed at how much has been opened up.
There are many more such examples. Check out the maps on the Trust's webpage; they will show you who acquired what. (Many of these battlefields are works in progress; keep chipping away, one willing seller at a time, and in 20 years, some amazing sites have been pieced back together.) American Battlefield Trust maps