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CHOSEN CHARITY: The 2008 charity will be First Book! FINAL DONATIONS: $730
NOMINEES (Final list):
Operation Smile Heifer International (donated to in 2005) First Book (donated to in 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2008) UNICEF Second Harvest Doctors Without Borders Child's Play CRY (America) l'Arche American Cancer Society The Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture Partners in Health ---
So, I'm back at it, thanks to the helpful nudging of Papa Janitor. Also thanks to those who have gone before me (The Rabbit and ketchupqueen, and those who I have forgotten).
For those new to this tradition, for several years we have tried to get as many Hatrackers to give to a charity voted on by Hatrackers. In the past this has included Heifer International and First Book. The process is as follows (The current step is in italics:
* Suggest nominees (I'd like to see some new ones beyond the perennial ones listed below) => Done! * Vote for your preferred charity (from a list of nominees)=> Done! Thanks to everyone who voted! * Tie-break voting, if necessary, will go until 11/26 => Not necessary * Make a donation at Hatrack's First Book Fundraising PageIf you are uncomfortable donating online, please send an email to hatrack.charity@super-move.com and we can work something out. * View the progress at the main team page. * You have through January 1st, 2009 to make your donation!!
Last year was pretty awesome ($950), but I know we can do better this year! As in years past, I will match the first $250, doubling the effective donation of those people who get in now. We have thousands of members at Hatrack now, so if we all do our part to chip in a little, we'll have a great donation. No donation is too small, all are appreciated greatly!
Notice (11/24): We now have a fundraising page, which I set to $1000 dollars. You can sign up at First Book and be a conduit for friends and family to contribute to the drive, or you can just donate directly at the link above, which is the general fund attributed to no one. I'm not sure how offline donating works, but if someone would prefer that method, I will talk to the First Book folks (who are very nice) about it.
FYI, I will update this post with more info as we move through the holidays!
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Reported this thread so that Papa Janitor stickies it faster.
I would like to make a donation this time around however paypal does not work with my bank account. I tried signing up and when they made the two tiny transactions to verify that the account belongs to me only one of the amounts showed up, since I could not return both transactions my bank account no longer works with paypal. Does anyone know a way around this?
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I'm going to recommend First Book again because books are what has brought this community together.
Toward the end of our charity drive two years ago, First Book suggested that we could set up a virtual book drive for Hatrack. I'll contact them and see how this would work.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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Okay, you want something unique? My friend and her husband are currently living in South Africa and are involved in a number of projects to help the people there. Here's the site: http://landrsocialengagements.org/. No idea if they're even officially a charity. At any rate, one of the things they do is arrange sponsorships for students and collect educational materials. Even if we end up deciding to send money to a different cause, it looks like they're interested in donations of books and such, so that might be neat to participate in.
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Since we are approaching Christmas, I recommend Child's Play. It's a charity started by the founders of Penny Arcade that donates games and toys to sick children in hospitals.
EDIT - to save people some trouble, here are what I see as the benefits to child's play.
You can either donate to the charity itself, or look at wish-lists (usually through Amazon) set up by individual hospitals.
The wish-lists have a wide range of donation amounts (around $10 for movies/games to $300 for new game systems).
Administrative costs at around 2-3%. This is pretty good, as I understand it.
Wide US hospital coverage, and some options for the UK, Canada, Australia, and Egypt. The main downside to this charity is that it doesn't allow for donations to hospitals to completely represent Hatrack's membership. Noting Kama's post, it does allow international donations, though.
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I'd like to put forward CRY America (Child Rights and You). They're an NGO that operates primarily in India & the U.S., and work for sustainable solutions to help impoverished kids.
quote:At CRY America, we do not believe in charity. We do not run schools, orphanages or dispensaries. Instead, we partner NGOs working with children, their parents, and community. Our role in these partnerships goes beyond mere funding; we work with our NGO partners to bring about long term and sustainable change to the lives of children, by empowering communities to address the root causes of illiteracy, poverty, discrimination and exploitation. We have realized that child rights cannot be ensured unless families have their livelihoods assured.
One particular benefit I see in CRY America is how much a very small donation can do. Since they work to help children in India, costs are low, so a little can go a very long way. $300 supports a village health care worker for a year, $250 supports a classroom teacher for a year, and it only costs $27 to make sure a child gets a year of education and health care. That's a lot of good for not that much money, IMO.
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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Looking at their website, they only allow online donations from within the US.
eta:
I like the idea of child's play. I visited a children's cancer ward in a Glasgow hospital once where someone sponsored an entire gaming/entertainment room complete with plazma tv's, consoles, PC's etc. I thought it was awesome for the kids.
[ November 09, 2008, 05:40 PM: Message edited by: Kama ]
Posts: 5700 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Kama: Looking at their website, they only allow online donations from within the US.
Kama, they have other sites for other countries. Anyways, we've previously donated to places using paypal, or sent money to one person who then donated in Hatrack's name. I don't think we should discount any charity just based on whether they have online donations or not. Not every good charity is web-savvy.
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:I don't think we should discount any charity just based on whether they have online donations or not. Not every good charity is web-savvy.
Oh, I totally agree. If we choose it, I'd be perfectly willing to paypal money to Bok or another Hatracker I've met willing to forward my payment. It is more of a nuisance, though.
Posts: 5700 | Registered: Feb 2002
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I'd like to put forward l'Arche. l'Arche is a federation of communities for people with intellectual disabilities. They are not a hospital or an institution. They're genuine communities, where the disabled members are put at the heart of the community. The core members live as normal lives as possible, as adults and independent persons. Whenever possible, they have genuine jobs. They are aided in this by live-in "assistants" - a house cooks, eats, celebrates, and mourns together. Having worked in a government institution and lived at l'Arche, I cannot describe the incredible, important sign of hope l'Arche is.
Especially right now as the economy wobbles, they're going to need help. They aren't a fashionable organisation and they're not heavily promoted. I can promise that nearly every donation they get goes directly to the community - its fundraisers are part of the community households. I gave the link above to the international website, but most countries have their own as well. We could pick a country or even a specific community to donate to.
Anyway, we've got a lot of great charities listed already, but I thought I'd throw this out there.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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It's not obscure, but I'm going to strongly put forward the American Cancer Society.
Their cause is personal for me in a way that few others are, and in a time when everyone is tightening their belts and government investment in cancer research is dropping off, they need help more than ever, especially with so many direly needed treatments so close to fruition.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I have a friend who has worked to get asylum for a man who was tortured in Africa. He is working to get his family (wife and 8 children) to the US. They need money for plane tickets and government fees.
This donation would provide an immediate and life-altering benefit to 10 people whose lives were shattered by torture.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Their focus is on fighting malaria, AIDS, and providing clean drinking water and adequate health care to impovorished villages throughout the world.
<edit>Here's their BBB report; 95% of donations go to programs (2% to fund raising, 3% to administrative costs).</edit>
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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Bok, I designed a survey like I did last year to help us pick our charity if you want to use it. I will send you a link on 11/15 for you to post. Let me know!
Posts: 2064 | Registered: Dec 2003
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FYI, I just got an email saying First book (thanks to Random House) is effectively doubling every donation by providing a free book for every donation equivalent, through 12/31.
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I just got the following information from First Book
quote:Thank you for your generous interest in supporting First Book! We recently launched an online fundraising campaign named Books for Kids, Books for Keeps. This Web site allows you to personalize your own fundraising page, start a fundraising team, create a goal and check your own reports.
Books for Kids, Books for Keeps sounds like it could be a great fit for you. Visit the site at www.firstbook.org/booksforkeeps
(edited to fix link_
[ November 16, 2008, 07:45 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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I found out that the Survivor's Fund will soon be approving a web site to collect funds to bring the family of the torture victim I mentioned above to the U.S. They need a total of about 10k, so we would likely contribute a substantial percentage of the total need.
The only possible catch is that the collection time might not last through January 1.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Valentine014: Rabbit, that link isn't working, maybe this one works better? !
Thanks for pointing that out. I just cut and pasted from my e-mail without checking. Evidently there was a clash of the UBB codes.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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Ok, so I'm technically past the deadline, but I have to throw them out there...
Children's Miracle Network, March of Dimes, Any Baby Can
Actually though, everything everyone has suggested is great. It's so hard to pick a cause when so many of them are worthy.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Jun 2006
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This is an establishment in Honduras, which allows orphans or runaways get off the streets and into a structured environment, providing room and board, as well as education and drug rehab for them.
I know that Operation Smile has already been mentioned, but I'll just throw in a very big personal vote for it.
Posts: 155 | Registered: Jul 2006
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I will leave it up to Bok to decide if he wants to alter the survey I sent him last night listing the nominees.
Posts: 2064 | Registered: Dec 2003
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I don't know how the survey is set up, but I think it'd be best if we could either rank the options, or select more than one that we'd like to participate in, or something like that. With so many great options available, I think it's likely that the vote could be easily split in such a way that it doesn't reflect the forum's true preferences.
(yes, I am thinking about the Arrow's Voting Rules thread...)
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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Sorry, the baby kept me busy this weekend. Whatever Val put together will be the final list.
Which is...
Operation Smile Heifer International (donated to in 2005) First Book (donated to in 2003, 2004, 2006, and 2007) UNICEF Second Harvest Doctors Without Borders Child's Play CRY (America) l'Arche American Cancer Society The Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture Partners in Health
Val, can the survey be set up to rank preferences?
BTW, the voting will be extended until a week from today (11/24).
The survey now has options 1-12 (we have twelve nominees). For my sanity, please uniquely select a ranking once. Or, if you don't want to rank the ones you don't care about, please choose N/A (which you can select multiple times).
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: I found out that the Survivor's Fund will soon be approving a web site to collect funds to bring the family of the torture victim I mentioned above to the U.S. They need a total of about 10k, so we would likely contribute a substantial percentage of the total need.
The only possible catch is that the collection time might not last through January 1.
I think it would be very cool for Hatrack to so tangibly change a single family's life.
Posts: 5700 | Registered: Feb 2002
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So do I. Right or wrong, I would probably donate more to a charity with a specific and obvious result.
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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These are all worthy causes; it's a tough call. But I'll put my support behind the Survivors of Torture fund.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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First Book won comfortably. It had the most first and second place votes of all the nominees.
Please read to opening post about the fundraising page this year. You can now refer friends to the page if you like, and all donations will now be attributed to the charity drive automatically!
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See the new link that goes to the main team page, not the donation page (that is found by clicking on the group donation link on the main page). It has the update in number form; the donation page just updates the thermometer.
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I just donated. I didn't send much as I am going back to school this year, but I figure every little bit helps.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Me too, back when I did, but other people said it took a bit. Probably depends on how busy the site is or something.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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I just donated my bit, and I wanted to let everyone know that the process was easy and fast for me. No problems at all. The only thing I wished for was a latest total for the hatrack group. Did I overlook that?
Duh, yes I am an idiot. There's a "view progress" link in the original post. =) It shows everything.
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The match is complete! Thanks to everyone who has donated so far, and please, for those who haven't, no donation is too small. Yes, even the amount you think is too small, well, it isn't, please donate it!
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Well, I was finally able to get in. The first few times I tried, Paypal kicked me out. Went smoothly this time though!
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Jun 2006
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