“It’s more difficult to give money away intelligently than it is to earn it in the first place.” — Andrew Carnegie
Like everyone else, we struggle with choosing the best places for our time and money. One of those “places” each year is a non-profit group (the United Way, America’s Second Harvest, the Salvation Army and NPR to name a few of our favorites) with who’s purpose we strongly agree and whose financial responsibility to its donors intent is of the highest caliber.
BUT, there are thousands of charities in the US alone…how on earth could I find the best one for my family when many of them don’t even have the funds to promote themselves!
The Donation Power Blog clued me into the Donation Dashboard. Developed by a group at Berkeley college, it’s a is a great place to discover your best charity matches and make the most of your donated time and dollars!
Once you register (which is not required) you will rate randomly chosen charities based on your desire to support them or not. Once you have rated 15, the program will “match” you to several charities. You can continue refining the list by rating additional charities in groups of 5.
You will be given a portfolio, view mine here, and the program will even recommend a split of your available donation dollars based on how you ranked various causes (through your interest in specific charities).
What I like about this tool is it not only offers you a chance to learn about new non-profits you likely didn’t know existed, it provides you a profile of each group!
Try it out! Be CentsAble about your donation dollars!
