{"id":72,"date":"2010-11-29T16:23:34","date_gmt":"2010-11-30T00:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rbillingslaw.com\/blog\/?p=72"},"modified":"2010-11-29T16:38:19","modified_gmt":"2010-11-30T00:38:19","slug":"suggestions-on-giving-responsibly-in-tough-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rbillingslaw.com\/blog\/suggestions-on-giving-responsibly-in-tough-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Suggestions on Giving Responsibly in Tough Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Snow<\/a>
\nThe holidays are traditionally a season of charitable giving, and, despite the economic tough times, that does not appear to have changed.\u00a0 The Red Cross published a survey<\/a> showing that 57% of Americans still plan to give between this Thanksgiving and New Year\u2019s.\u00a0 A majority of those surveyed believe that because of the economy\u00a0it is even more important to give.\u00a0 Charitable giving is also a critical element of many estate plans, but of the hundreds of thousands of charities, how to choose?<\/p>\n

\u201cGiving isn\u2019t easy.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s the motto of Givewell<\/a>, an on-line charity evaluator.\u00a0 Givewell provides a series of questionnaires for donors to answer to assist them in finding those charities that meet their giving goals.\u00a0 Givewell also provides sets of questions for donors to ask charities <\/a>about how their money is being used, and who or what it is benefitting.<\/p>\n

Charity Navigator<\/a> provides a simpler approach by posting several top ten lists on its home page, including the Top Ten Charities Worth Watching, and The Ten Highly Paid CEOs at Low-Rated Charities.\u00a0 But Charity Navigator is undergoing its own struggle to clarify its mission.\u00a0 As reported in the New York Times <\/a>(registration required), Charity Navigator has been trying to move away from an emphasis on financial efficiency.\u00a0 It takes very little administrative expense to give money away without regard for what good it is doing.\u00a0 Conversely, it makes sense for charities to spend resources on planning how their money will be spent, getting involved in how it is spent, and following up on the results.\u00a0 While such efforts would not score high on an efficiency rating that merely consists of a percentage of administrative costs per dollar received, the extra efforts may actually result in more effective use of money received.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of course, Charity Navigator\u2019s goal of quantifying the success and failure of all charities is ultimately impossible.\u00a0 The good the money is doing cannot be quantified, unless we are content with some narrow Utilitarian definition of doing good.\u00a0 But I have to believe that accountability will help.\u00a0 I believe we all will benefit if more donors use services like Charity Navigator and Givewell, and ask more questions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wealth brings responsibility, which, in addition to wise financial and estate planning, also includes responsible giving.\u00a0 Giving isn\u2019t easy, but \u2018tis the season.<\/p>\n

\"Join<\/a>
\n\"Creative<\/a> photo<\/a> credits:\u00a0 JoshuaDavisPhotography<\/a><\/small>\u00a0Nesster<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The holidays are traditionally a season of charitable giving, and, despite the economic tough times, that does not appear to have changed.\u00a0 The Red Cross published a survey showing that 57% of Americans still plan to give between this Thanksgiving … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,161],"tags":[162,17,19,21],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rbillingslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rbillingslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rbillingslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rbillingslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rbillingslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.rbillingslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83,"href":"http:\/\/www.rbillingslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions\/83"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rbillingslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rbillingslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rbillingslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}