Coming up to Christmas I generally make some small donations. Some of these I ask for as Christmas gifts because I’m old and basically have very basic wants and needs so I’m hard to buy for.
Curious to hear if / what others do.
I’ve expanded my annual list to include:
- Wikipedia
- Lemmy.world (my home instance)
- Mozilla (I’m not happy with how they spend their money necessarily but I’m very thankful to have Firefox)
- Signal messenger
- A few Ukrainian things (u24.gov.ua is the official site if this is your thing but there’s a great lady on Reddit I give to occasionally too)
- The guardian (I read so many articles from there linked on here that I feel like I should and I really appreciate the lack of paywall and easy cookie rejection but never use the site logged in)
From what I’ve heard about Wikipedia’s finances they’re set for the foreseeäble and my money would be better used elsewhere.
Here’s their audit report. 59.8% of their expenses are in
executivesalaries, a total of $107,793,960 this year. They list internet hosting as 1.7% of their expenses at $3,116,445.Good find.
Here’s why knowing the above i still donate to wikipedia.
Because we don’t want them to be in a position where they take money with strings attached. Imo its good for them to be reminded they serve the public first and foremost.
Yeah, Wikipedia is such a stable and positive force in the internet and directly reaches so many people. It’s easy to take it for granted but the internet would be so much incredibly worse without it.
I happily donate.
I want any organization that has shown that much commitment to making the world better to be well supported.
Got a recurring donation to our local Cat Rescue. It’s not much but it’s a start.
- Wikimedia Foundation
- Nature Conservancy
- Democracy Now
- Democratic Socialists of America local chapter
I donate to my local food bank. I worked in their hydroponics garden a few years ago and saw how much work goes into providing food for the needy. They need all the help they can get.
I also donate time and energy and a bit of money on a specific horse at the stables I volunteer at. She’s an old mare with an owner who doesn’t give a shit about her. Nobody really does anything with her other than me and another person, and that other person only lets her out to graze. I exercise the horse, groom her, give her lots of attention, and I got her a winter blanket recently.
I like doing my donations on Giving Tuesday.
My list includes:
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Medito
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Signal
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Mozilla
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Wikipedia
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Khan Academy
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Lemmy instance
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Mastodon
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Local NPR station
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Local animal shelter
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ACLU
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Propublica
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SPLC
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Planned Parenthood
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I just sat down to do my annual donations, so I’ve got the list ready to go:
- local food bank
- local safe injection site
- Signal
- KDE
- OpenMedia (closest thing to EFF in Canada)
A few places I couldn’t afford to donate to this year, in case anyone needs more ideas:
- archive.org
- EFF
- miscellaneous software projects I’m using (mostly Steam Deck plugins because I’m in that community a lot)
- Gnome
I also give a bit to Tor and The Beaverton monthly.
I donate my time more than my money. Scouts and school fundraisers soak up way too many hours.
My biggest ongoing financial donation is the pile of money I put into Kiva years ago, which is slowly being depleted each time they take a cut as an administrative fee. I plan to let the balance wind down and not add more money in the future. Kiva doesn’t operate quite the way it is advertised, and from what I have read their C-suite is also overpaid.
I also donate a few dollars each month to a Lemmy mobile app.
I’ve been meaning to donate to KEXP radio in Seattle. I’ll go do that right now while I’m thinking about it.
I have a monthly recurring donation to the GiveWell Top Charities fund. GiveWell ranks charities by efficiency (i.e. impact per dollar) and distributes the funds donations to the most effective ones. Those include fighting malaria, world hunger, child blindness,…
- Wikipedia
- Arch
- Internet Archive
- EndeavourOS
More of a regular thing for me than annual. It’s primarily Doctors without Borders and some international charities,mainly for the middle east. A while back my wife and I paid for some wells for some villages in Pakistan.
Thanks for posting this! It’s a nice reminder to support some of the organizations who’s products I enjoy.
Currently I only donate to give directly
I can’t afford to help anyone besides the people closest to me. And even then it’s generally with my time and effort, not fiat currency.
Food banks to. Infrequent food donations no money. Especially after covid as I had made a “pandemic stash” in case I got sick so I didn’t get others sick going to the grocery store.
Local all children’s hospital and khan academy
I have this fun strategy, I’ll save my charity money until there is a public call for action, then I dump a larger sum all at once.
For instance my work during covid set up a (money only) drive for a food bank that corporate would match. My bosses donated 200 a piece, until they noticed that I donated 1000, then they all found it in their hearts to donate 1000 too. Turned that 1000 bucks into about 8000.
I do have some reoccurring and misc donations.
Wikipedia, my state’s public broadcast network, local charities, a particular local non-profit (employees of which I’ve known for years) that organizes community events.
